Sorry off topic but just to respond to @hyufd after I left the thread last night:
You say Grammar schools give parents more choice. They don't. If your child fails the 11 plus they get less choice.
On the 'leftie' nonsense you haven't responded to the fact that I am not a 'leftie' and that successive Conservative governments have done nothing to remove comprehensives and that Tory controlled councils like Surrey implemented and supported them. When I identified David Johnston as a Tory MP who writes against Grammars you call him a leftie. I mean one of your own MPs. You also referred to him as a Heathite. Was Heath's government leftie then? What about Thatcher's government who didn't undo comprehensives? Or Surrey Country Council? All lefties?
Are everyone lefties other than yourself? This is very confusing if most Tories are lefties, especially as many of your own views are indistinguishable from far left authoritarianism.
If you are a working class parent though the evidence Bristol University foundation however was that your child would get better GCSE results than at the local comprehensive.
Heath's government did nothing to stop local authorities turning grammars into comprehensives which had begun when Wilson's government pushed to end selective education(the trend only slowed when Thatcher was PM and slightly reversed with more pupils attending grammars when Major was PM). Hence most of the few remaining areas with grammars are in Tory controlled councils.
You can't even ballot to open new grammars now, only ballot to close them. True parental choice would at least allow that
Not sure whose post you are referring to, but you haven't addressed the points I made, but that is normal for you as you never do.
Are all these Tories I refer to lefties eg Heath's govt, Surrey County Council? Did you really mean to call your own current MPs lefties who support Comprehensive schools? They were your actual words re David Johnson. You have declared every Tory on this site as not being a real Tory at some time or other. You are now doing the same to previous and current govts and Tory controlled councils. Who is left?
Oh I absolutely have.
Tories who want to abolish grammars like David Johnson are a tiny minority of the party and no more really than members of your party, the LDs, who backed Brexit. They are irrelevant, indeed Sunak and Truss both backed grammars in the leadership campaign last year.
I notice you also refuse to allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, just to close them. Not much liberalism and parental choice there from you then!
Re your last paragraph I did no such thing. I have never commented on this point. You are putting words into my mouth. But on that same line how is there more parental choice for parents of children who fail the 11 plus. They have less choice. You are taking choice away from the majority of parents with the Grammars system as you have removed schools from them. You didn't deal with that point.
So lets get this clear then:
All Tory MPs who back Comprehensives are not true Tories. Have you let them know?
Surrey County Council and all Tory County Councils who implemented Comprehensives are not true Tories either
Heath's Government from what you say definitely wasn't Tory then.
Thatcher's govt who did nothing to reverse Comprehensives in her long time as PM couldn't have been Tory either then as she had plenty of time to do something about it
Nobody who posts to this site is a Tory. I note you excommunicated @MarqueeMark and @Sean_F recently.
You say Sunak and Truss back Grammars. How? They are just words. They (well we won't know re Truss) will do zippo to support Grammars. They say this just to keep the loons like you onside.
You can keep posting the link to the Bristol report, but it is has been conclusively accepted by all except a few Tory nutters and UKIP who live in the 1950s that Grammars are bad for the educating the nations children.
Your views on Royalty, Grammars, Church, the nation, etc put you with the group of 90 year old Tory Colonels. You have become an old man 50 years before your time.
Here’s a good example of the challenge facing the Liberal Democrats: a massive 36% of respondents in this survey (and this survey is fairly typical) do not feel that they know enough about the SLD leader to be able to give an opinion. Most of them have probably never even heard of him.
Tbf that'll be partly down to Cole-Hamilton being a shy, retiring publicity-shunning type..
He’s a wee gobshite. But thankfully an invisible wee gobshite.
Quite surprised at that dissatisfied figure for SKS, doesn't suggest a massive resurgence of affection for the party of which SLab is a sub branch.
Good morning
It would be more relevant if this poll was conducted now following the SNP pushing their self destruct button in public
Huh?
SNP 46% Lab 30% Con 10% LD 9% Grn 2% Ref 2%
(Deltapoll; 1,063; 2-6 March)
Sub samples are not polls
I believe a Scottish poll is due soon which may well reflect yesterday's public self destruction by the SNP
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
Stopping the boats, if that's your main aim, is pretty simple. A UK asylum centre in Calais and ferry tickets to Dover.
Stopping boats without letting people in another way? Can't help you there.
Is it that simple? Will the Albanians simply give up when rejected at Calais?
Quite possibly. But it reduces the numbers of boat people, which makes it easier to catch and return those who remain.
Part of our problem at the moment is that the rate of people coming in vastly exceeds our state ability to process them.
So the UK is reduced to bloodcurdling threats that it probably can't carry out. Partly human rights law, but partly because the UK state can't reliably carry out anything. Trust me- that tends not to work.
Pitiful
Making asylum easier to claim at Calais - then giving the lucky ones tickets for the Dover Ferry - will just INCREASE the pull factor of Calais
Tens of thousands more will try. What will those that fail then do? Will they think “shit, at least the UK gave me a fair go, oh well, now I’ll head back to Albania/Somalia”
Or will they simply try and cross illegally? As before, but in even greater numbers?
You don’t have an answer which doesn’t make you extremely uncomfortable. So you would rather provide no answer at all. It’s a kind of cowardice
If you provide safe routes, then there is far less argument legally about those who choose not to use them.
Where are we going to deport them? We are incapable of deporting anyone because liberal lawyers go mad and Gary lineker calls you goebbels and everyone is pathetically spineless
And if we did start actually deporting those that failed the Calais asylum test then they’d all go back to destroying their documents and using the dinghies
It’s just another pitifuf non answer. It is pathetic
Liberal lawyers going mad or staying sane does not change the law.
If you want the policy objectives that the govt is pushing with their policy you need to be angry with the govt for not leaving the refugee convention not liberal lawyers.
I have not read the proposed Bill or much of the news regarding it so can't comment specifically on the proposed Bill...
Then read the bill. It says on its face that it's more probable than not that the new law conflicts with existing law - which is being left in place.
Far from unprecedented, is there a notwithstanding clause in place?
If so, then surely the new law takes precedence over the existing law, so the existing law remains law for all circumstances not covered by the new law?
No. The conflict is left in place. Secretary Suella Braverman has made the following statement under section 19(1)(b) of the Human Rights Act 1998: I am unable to make a statement that, in my view, the provisions of the Illegal Migration Bill are compatible with the Convention rights, but the Government nevertheless wishes the House to proceed with the Bill.
The only provision of the Human Rights Act 1998 formally set aside in the proposed bill is this one. Section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 (interpretation of legislation) does not apply in relation to provision made by or by virtue of this Act.
So if interpretation of legislation is set aside by the Act, and Parliament knowingly and openly proceeds to pass the Act knowing it contravenes the prior legislation, then does the new Act not take legal precedence over the prior Acts and can't be interpreted differently?
No.
Why no?
According to LexisNexis that is the way Parliament works:
It follows that, where a later Act of Parliament conflicts with an earlier one, the later one cannot be read as conditioned by, or subject to, the earlier. Rather, the later statute is considered to have repealed the earlier one by implication, to the extent of the conflict.
What reason do you have to believe that later laws do not take precedence over former ones?
The Home Secretary's own wording on the face of the bill.
We are not formally abrogating our treaty responsibilities under the HRA, which is why the conflict is left in place.
From your link - the very next paragraph, which you failed to quote: However in recent decades it has become accepted that at least in certain legal contexts (particularly in the context of European Union law and the European Communities Act 1972 (ECA 1972), and perhaps other 'constitutional' statutes) Parliament can enact provisions which, unless expressly repealed or amended, condition and limit the effect of later, conflicting enactments.
The "constitutional statutes" theory got yet another thrashing by the Supreme Court in the referendum referral case. It is a theory beloved of academics who want to impose some sort of structure on our constitutional anarchy but the courts have shown very little interest. And the ECA 1972 is now, of course, repealed.
I think that the HRA has had broader effect in that it does not override primary legislation (it can override subsidiary legislation it deems incompatible) but constrains the court to construe the new Act in a way consistent with the Convention. In respect of the current bill this is going to require minds a lot cleverer than mine.
If this is primary legislation and in the primary legislation it says that Section 3 of the HRA does not apply, then is there any other section of the HRA that could override primary legislation?
Or is it just Section 3, which expressly does not apply, that could do that?
Mr. kamski, Germans also tend to speak fantastic English, even using it for business meetings when everyone there is German.
As an aside, I occasionally watch Twitch streams in German just to try and remind myself of it, and little bits and pieces of English do creep in even in 'German' vocabulary.
A German speaking colleague complained of this. He gave the example that Germans will use the expression 'denken'outside the box'.'
Why they would ever use that most horrible of management cliches I have no idea. In any case, 'aus den kisten' would be far more poetic.
He blamed TV, incidentally.
Most Germans have pretty poor English. Better than the general level in Italy, but far far worse than in Scandinavia. In the new Bundesländer the English among older people is often almost non-existent.
And no, meetings where everyone is German are conducted in German. There might be exceptions if it's a strict policy of a foreign company, or perhaps postgraduate study that is conducted in English - but usually in those situations not everyone present is German anyway.
Of course there are lots of borrowed words from English, doesn't mean that people speak English, any more than English people using words like spaghetti or cappuccino means that they can speak Italian.
Whenever I go to Germany I am always astonished by the amount of English words used in TV adverts, on posters, in product branding, in news headlines etc
That perhaps explains the flawed impression that all Germans speak excellent English
It's interesting, I guess I've tuned it out because I only tend to notice it when it's used "incorrectly" (from an English point of view). A recent one is "Home-Office", as in "ich mache heute Home-Office", meaning "I'm working from home today".
I just had a random scan of a few headlines, articles and adverts, and I don't see so many English words (ignoring names of things like Samsung "Galaxy"):
Gaspipelines, False-Flag-Operation, Sport, Deal.
Almost as many borrowed from French: Depot, Recherche, Orange.
The French borrowings tend to be older though.
I don’t think that’s true.
The front page (online) of Bild right now:
Live ticker Champions League insider Game of Homes Baby Too hot to handle Playboy VIP Tickets Star Film and Fun Handy Sex Stylebook Fitbook
Apart from names like 'Champions League' hardly any English to be seen at all apart from 'CASH CALL' which seems to be the name of a competition Bild is running.
I’ve actually missed out a dozen examples, there are so many
And that is the homepage of Bild
What surprises me is that entire sections of the website have English names
Lifestyle Stylebook Fitness studio Bestseller Mytravelbook Tech book
And so forth. This would annoy me mightily if English was being thus replaced by German words
Well, hasn't Lineker said that the language of the dinghy proposals is similar to that of 1930s Germany?
And the word dinghy is itself a recent immigrant from Hindi.
I dislike this policy, which seems government by headline rather than law. I dislike Lineker's reaction, which is ludicrously over the top and demeans himself. And I dislike Jenrick's response, which is excessively harsh.
Will there be a fourth domino in this line of nincompoopery?
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
Stopping the boats, if that's your main aim, is pretty simple. A UK asylum centre in Calais and ferry tickets to Dover.
Stopping boats without letting people in another way? Can't help you there.
Is it that simple? Will the Albanians simply give up when rejected at Calais?
Quite possibly. But it reduces the numbers of boat people, which makes it easier to catch and return those who remain.
Part of our problem at the moment is that the rate of people coming in vastly exceeds our state ability to process them.
So the UK is reduced to bloodcurdling threats that it probably can't carry out. Partly human rights law, but partly because the UK state can't reliably carry out anything. Trust me- that tends not to work.
Pitiful
Making asylum easier to claim at Calais - then giving the lucky ones tickets for the Dover Ferry - will just INCREASE the pull factor of Calais
Tens of thousands more will try. What will those that fail then do? Will they think “shit, at least the UK gave me a fair go, oh well, now I’ll head back to Albania/Somalia”
Or will they simply try and cross illegally? As before, but in even greater numbers?
You don’t have an answer which doesn’t make you extremely uncomfortable. So you would rather provide no answer at all. It’s a kind of cowardice
Methinks the lady protests too much.
Braverman doesn't have an answer. So she throws out this word salad that nobody who knows about anything really thinks will work.
And gullible nitwits cling to it, like an imaginary friend. "It is rweel, it is it is". But saying it's a real plan doesn't make it so.
No, I don't have an answer to everything. That's not ideal, but it's nothing to fear. I'm trained in science, not words, and some problems don't have a perfect answer.
So what do we do then? We could draw up blueprints for a castle in the air, or we could do the boring incremental thing, of looking to make things work a bit better tomorrow than today.
It doesn't make for a fun article in a moderately selling current affairs magazine. But it's how most human progress works.
Mr. kamski, Germans also tend to speak fantastic English, even using it for business meetings when everyone there is German.
As an aside, I occasionally watch Twitch streams in German just to try and remind myself of it, and little bits and pieces of English do creep in even in 'German' vocabulary.
A German speaking colleague complained of this. He gave the example that Germans will use the expression 'denken'outside the box'.'
Why they would ever use that most horrible of management cliches I have no idea. In any case, 'aus den kisten' would be far more poetic.
He blamed TV, incidentally.
Most Germans have pretty poor English. Better than the general level in Italy, but far far worse than in Scandinavia. In the new Bundesländer the English among older people is often almost non-existent.
And no, meetings where everyone is German are conducted in German. There might be exceptions if it's a strict policy of a foreign company, or perhaps postgraduate study that is conducted in English - but usually in those situations not everyone present is German anyway.
Of course there are lots of borrowed words from English, doesn't mean that people speak English, any more than English people using words like spaghetti or cappuccino means that they can speak Italian.
Whenever I go to Germany I am always astonished by the amount of English words used in TV adverts, on posters, in product branding, in news headlines etc
That perhaps explains the flawed impression that all Germans speak excellent English
It's interesting, I guess I've tuned it out because I only tend to notice it when it's used "incorrectly" (from an English point of view). A recent one is "Home-Office", as in "ich mache heute Home-Office", meaning "I'm working from home today".
I just had a random scan of a few headlines, articles and adverts, and I don't see so many English words (ignoring names of things like Samsung "Galaxy"):
Gaspipelines, False-Flag-Operation, Sport, Deal.
Almost as many borrowed from French: Depot, Recherche, Orange.
The French borrowings tend to be older though.
I don’t think that’s true.
The front page (online) of Bild right now:
Live ticker Champions League insider Game of Homes Baby Too hot to handle Playboy VIP Tickets Star Film and Fun Handy Sex Stylebook Fitbook
Apart from names like 'Champions League' hardly any English to be seen at all apart from 'CASH CALL' which seems to be the name of a competition Bild is running.
I’ve actually missed out a dozen examples, there are so many
And that is the homepage of Bild
The homepage of Bild is as you say 'endless', or did you actually manage to scroll to the bottom of it? If anyone wants to know what the 'front page' of Bild actually looks like it is here:
Almost no English outside of names eg Bounty (the chocolate bar). Which isn't really evidence of the use of English - like people talking about Ford Fiestas in the UK isn't evidence of the use of Spanish. There is 'Sport', but this is so well-established that it's a German word, like 'rucksack' in English. Similarly there's also pervers and Dossier from French. Luxus from Latin if you like.
I'm not disputing that English words and phrases are used, but let's not exaggerate.
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
Stopping the boats, if that's your main aim, is pretty simple. A UK asylum centre in Calais and ferry tickets to Dover.
Stopping boats without letting people in another way? Can't help you there.
Is it that simple? Will the Albanians simply give up when rejected at Calais?
Quite possibly. But it reduces the numbers of boat people, which makes it easier to catch and return those who remain.
Part of our problem at the moment is that the rate of people coming in vastly exceeds our state ability to process them.
So the UK is reduced to bloodcurdling threats that it probably can't carry out. Partly human rights law, but partly because the UK state can't reliably carry out anything. Trust me- that tends not to work.
Pitiful
Making asylum easier to claim at Calais - then giving the lucky ones tickets for the Dover Ferry - will just INCREASE the pull factor of Calais
Tens of thousands more will try. What will those that fail then do? Will they think “shit, at least the UK gave me a fair go, oh well, now I’ll head back to Albania/Somalia”
Or will they simply try and cross illegally? As before, but in even greater numbers?
You don’t have an answer which doesn’t make you extremely uncomfortable. So you would rather provide no answer at all. It’s a kind of cowardice
If you provide safe routes, then there is far less argument legally about those who choose not to use them.
Where are we going to deport them? We are incapable of deporting anyone because liberal lawyers go mad and Gary lineker calls you goebbels and everyone is pathetically spineless
And if we did start actually deporting those that failed the Calais asylum test then they’d all go back to destroying their documents and using the dinghies
It’s just another pitifuf non answer. It is pathetic
Liberal lawyers going mad or staying sane does not change the law.
If you want the policy objectives that the govt is pushing with their policy you need to be angry with the govt for not leaving the refugee convention not liberal lawyers.
I have not read the proposed Bill or much of the news regarding it so can't comment specifically on the proposed Bill...
Then read the bill. It says on its face that it's more probable than not that the new law conflicts with existing law - which is being left in place.
Far from unprecedented, is there a notwithstanding clause in place?
If so, then surely the new law takes precedence over the existing law, so the existing law remains law for all circumstances not covered by the new law?
No. The conflict is left in place. Secretary Suella Braverman has made the following statement under section 19(1)(b) of the Human Rights Act 1998: I am unable to make a statement that, in my view, the provisions of the Illegal Migration Bill are compatible with the Convention rights, but the Government nevertheless wishes the House to proceed with the Bill.
The only provision of the Human Rights Act 1998 formally set aside in the proposed bill is this one. Section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 (interpretation of legislation) does not apply in relation to provision made by or by virtue of this Act.
So if interpretation of legislation is set aside by the Act, and Parliament knowingly and openly proceeds to pass the Act knowing it contravenes the prior legislation, then does the new Act not take legal precedence over the prior Acts and can't be interpreted differently?
No.
Why no?
According to LexisNexis that is the way Parliament works:
It follows that, where a later Act of Parliament conflicts with an earlier one, the later one cannot be read as conditioned by, or subject to, the earlier. Rather, the later statute is considered to have repealed the earlier one by implication, to the extent of the conflict.
What reason do you have to believe that later laws do not take precedence over former ones?
The Home Secretary's own wording on the face of the bill.
We are not formally abrogating our treaty responsibilities under the HRA, which is why the conflict is left in place.
From your link - the very next paragraph, which you failed to quote: However in recent decades it has become accepted that at least in certain legal contexts (particularly in the context of European Union law and the European Communities Act 1972 (ECA 1972), and perhaps other 'constitutional' statutes) Parliament can enact provisions which, unless expressly repealed or amended, condition and limit the effect of later, conflicting enactments.
The "constitutional statutes" theory got yet another thrashing by the Supreme Court in the referendum referral case. It is a theory beloved of academics who want to impose some sort of structure on our constitutional anarchy but the courts have shown very little interest. And the ECA 1972 is now, of course, repealed.
I think that the HRA has had broader effect in that it does not override primary legislation (it can override subsidiary legislation it deems incompatible) but constrains the court to construe the new Act in a way consistent with the Convention. In respect of the current bill this is going to require minds a lot cleverer than mine.
If this is primary legislation and in the primary legislation it says that Section 3 of the HRA does not apply, then is there any other section of the HRA that could override primary legislation?
Or is it just Section 3, which expressly does not apply, that could do that?
Section 3 is the "interpretation" provision that I was referring to. If that does not apply then the new Act would have to be construed on its actual words without that tool. It would still be possible for an appropriate court to make a declaration of incompatibility under s4, for example.
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
Stopping the boats, if that's your main aim, is pretty simple. A UK asylum centre in Calais and ferry tickets to Dover.
Stopping boats without letting people in another way? Can't help you there.
Is it that simple? Will the Albanians simply give up when rejected at Calais?
Quite possibly. But it reduces the numbers of boat people, which makes it easier to catch and return those who remain.
Part of our problem at the moment is that the rate of people coming in vastly exceeds our state ability to process them.
So the UK is reduced to bloodcurdling threats that it probably can't carry out. Partly human rights law, but partly because the UK state can't reliably carry out anything. Trust me- that tends not to work.
Pitiful
Making asylum easier to claim at Calais - then giving the lucky ones tickets for the Dover Ferry - will just INCREASE the pull factor of Calais
Tens of thousands more will try. What will those that fail then do? Will they think “shit, at least the UK gave me a fair go, oh well, now I’ll head back to Albania/Somalia”
Or will they simply try and cross illegally? As before, but in even greater numbers?
You don’t have an answer which doesn’t make you extremely uncomfortable. So you would rather provide no answer at all. It’s a kind of cowardice
If you provide safe routes, then there is far less argument legally about those who choose not to use them.
Where are we going to deport them? We are incapable of deporting anyone because liberal lawyers go mad and Gary lineker calls you goebbels and everyone is pathetically spineless
And if we did start actually deporting those that failed the Calais asylum test then they’d all go back to destroying their documents and using the dinghies
It’s just another pitifuf non answer. It is pathetic
Liberal lawyers going mad or staying sane does not change the law.
If you want the policy objectives that the govt is pushing with their policy you need to be angry with the govt for not leaving the refugee convention not liberal lawyers.
I have not read the proposed Bill or much of the news regarding it so can't comment specifically on the proposed Bill...
Then read the bill. It says on its face that it's more probable than not that the new law conflicts with existing law - which is being left in place.
Far from unprecedented, is there a notwithstanding clause in place?
If so, then surely the new law takes precedence over the existing law, so the existing law remains law for all circumstances not covered by the new law?
No. The conflict is left in place. Secretary Suella Braverman has made the following statement under section 19(1)(b) of the Human Rights Act 1998: I am unable to make a statement that, in my view, the provisions of the Illegal Migration Bill are compatible with the Convention rights, but the Government nevertheless wishes the House to proceed with the Bill.
The only provision of the Human Rights Act 1998 formally set aside in the proposed bill is this one. Section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 (interpretation of legislation) does not apply in relation to provision made by or by virtue of this Act.
So if interpretation of legislation is set aside by the Act, and Parliament knowingly and openly proceeds to pass the Act knowing it contravenes the prior legislation, then does the new Act not take legal precedence over the prior Acts and can't be interpreted differently?
No.
Why no?
According to LexisNexis that is the way Parliament works:
It follows that, where a later Act of Parliament conflicts with an earlier one, the later one cannot be read as conditioned by, or subject to, the earlier. Rather, the later statute is considered to have repealed the earlier one by implication, to the extent of the conflict.
What reason do you have to believe that later laws do not take precedence over former ones?
The Home Secretary's own wording on the face of the bill.
We are not formally abrogating our treaty responsibilities under the HRA, which is why the conflict is left in place.
From your link - the very next paragraph, which you failed to quote: However in recent decades it has become accepted that at least in certain legal contexts (particularly in the context of European Union law and the European Communities Act 1972 (ECA 1972), and perhaps other 'constitutional' statutes) Parliament can enact provisions which, unless expressly repealed or amended, condition and limit the effect of later, conflicting enactments.
The "constitutional statutes" theory got yet another thrashing by the Supreme Court in the referendum referral case. It is a theory beloved of academics who want to impose some sort of structure on our constitutional anarchy but the courts have shown very little interest. And the ECA 1972 is now, of course, repealed.
I think that the HRA has had broader effect in that it does not override primary legislation (it can override subsidiary legislation it deems incompatible) but constrains the court to construe the new Act in a way consistent with the Convention. In respect of the current bill this is going to require minds a lot cleverer than mine.
So you'd agree then that a potential conflict has been deliberately set up ?
Good legislation is clear in its aims and operation. This would seem to fail that latter of those tests pretty badly.
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
Stopping the boats, if that's your main aim, is pretty simple. A UK asylum centre in Calais and ferry tickets to Dover.
Stopping boats without letting people in another way? Can't help you there.
Is it that simple? Will the Albanians simply give up when rejected at Calais?
Quite possibly. But it reduces the numbers of boat people, which makes it easier to catch and return those who remain.
Part of our problem at the moment is that the rate of people coming in vastly exceeds our state ability to process them.
So the UK is reduced to bloodcurdling threats that it probably can't carry out. Partly human rights law, but partly because the UK state can't reliably carry out anything. Trust me- that tends not to work.
Pitiful
Making asylum easier to claim at Calais - then giving the lucky ones tickets for the Dover Ferry - will just INCREASE the pull factor of Calais
Tens of thousands more will try. What will those that fail then do? Will they think “shit, at least the UK gave me a fair go, oh well, now I’ll head back to Albania/Somalia”
Or will they simply try and cross illegally? As before, but in even greater numbers?
You don’t have an answer which doesn’t make you extremely uncomfortable. So you would rather provide no answer at all. It’s a kind of cowardice
If you provide safe routes, then there is far less argument legally about those who choose not to use them.
Where are we going to deport them? We are incapable of deporting anyone because liberal lawyers go mad and Gary lineker calls you goebbels and everyone is pathetically spineless
And if we did start actually deporting those that failed the Calais asylum test then they’d all go back to destroying their documents and using the dinghies
It’s just another pitifuf non answer. It is pathetic
Liberal lawyers going mad or staying sane does not change the law.
If you want the policy objectives that the govt is pushing with their policy you need to be angry with the govt for not leaving the refugee convention not liberal lawyers.
I have not read the proposed Bill or much of the news regarding it so can't comment specifically on the proposed Bill...
Then read the bill. It says on its face that it's more probable than not that the new law conflicts with existing law - which is being left in place.
Far from unprecedented, is there a notwithstanding clause in place?
If so, then surely the new law takes precedence over the existing law, so the existing law remains law for all circumstances not covered by the new law?
No. The conflict is left in place. Secretary Suella Braverman has made the following statement under section 19(1)(b) of the Human Rights Act 1998: I am unable to make a statement that, in my view, the provisions of the Illegal Migration Bill are compatible with the Convention rights, but the Government nevertheless wishes the House to proceed with the Bill.
The only provision of the Human Rights Act 1998 formally set aside in the proposed bill is this one. Section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 (interpretation of legislation) does not apply in relation to provision made by or by virtue of this Act.
So if interpretation of legislation is set aside by the Act, and Parliament knowingly and openly proceeds to pass the Act knowing it contravenes the prior legislation, then does the new Act not take legal precedence over the prior Acts and can't be interpreted differently?
No.
Why no?
According to LexisNexis that is the way Parliament works:
It follows that, where a later Act of Parliament conflicts with an earlier one, the later one cannot be read as conditioned by, or subject to, the earlier. Rather, the later statute is considered to have repealed the earlier one by implication, to the extent of the conflict.
What reason do you have to believe that later laws do not take precedence over former ones?
The Home Secretary's own wording on the face of the bill.
We are not formally abrogating our treaty responsibilities under the HRA, which is why the conflict is left in place.
From your link - the very next paragraph, which you failed to quote: However in recent decades it has become accepted that at least in certain legal contexts (particularly in the context of European Union law and the European Communities Act 1972 (ECA 1972), and perhaps other 'constitutional' statutes) Parliament can enact provisions which, unless expressly repealed or amended, condition and limit the effect of later, conflicting enactments.
The "constitutional statutes" theory got yet another thrashing by the Supreme Court in the referendum referral case. It is a theory beloved of academics who want to impose some sort of structure on our constitutional anarchy but the courts have shown very little interest. And the ECA 1972 is now, of course, repealed.
I think that the HRA has had broader effect in that it does not override primary legislation (it can override subsidiary legislation it deems incompatible) but constrains the court to construe the new Act in a way consistent with the Convention. In respect of the current bill this is going to require minds a lot cleverer than mine.
So you'd agree then that a potential conflict has been deliberately set up ?
Good legislation is clear in its aims and operation. This would seem to fail that latter of those tests pretty badly.
The choices for the UK government regarding the Dinghy People (barring some huge change in global geopolitical trends) can be boiled down to these three:
1. Violently push back the boats. Accept that many will drown. This will be morally unacceptable to 98% of the country
2. Immediately detain and deport all those who arrive. Disallow their rights. Off they go to Rwanda or whoever we can bribe - this will be palatable to much of the country but will be loathed by many liberals (and others). Also legally difficult
3. Basically accept there’s nothing we can do. Make some futile gestures like “helping French police”. Prohibit the use of the word “dinghy”. Accept that 100,000s will cross and this number will likely grow and grow. This will enrage much of the country and possibly lead to Britain’s first serious far right party
That’s it. That’s the choice. Not good
Even on that dodgy framing (3) is superior. Certainly better than the Cons trying to head off a far right party by becoming one.
But although I usually like defeatism - it's quite underrated as a mindset imo - it's overly defeatist to assume nothing effective can be done about this issue that doesn't involve the dehumanization of vulnerable people. I'm pretty suspicious of those who say this so readily. It can be hard to distinguish a muscular, clear-sighted rejection of liberal waffle from a genuine enthusiasm for far right 'solutions' to protect 'us' from 'them' - since in polite society the second tends to dress up as the first.
If you want to go with 3 at some point you will have vigilante groups patrolling beaches and meting out "justice" just like they have on the american border. If that is what you want then by all means go for 3
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
Stopping the boats, if that's your main aim, is pretty simple. A UK asylum centre in Calais and ferry tickets to Dover.
Stopping boats without letting people in another way? Can't help you there.
Is it that simple? Will the Albanians simply give up when rejected at Calais?
Quite possibly. But it reduces the numbers of boat people, which makes it easier to catch and return those who remain.
Part of our problem at the moment is that the rate of people coming in vastly exceeds our state ability to process them.
So the UK is reduced to bloodcurdling threats that it probably can't carry out. Partly human rights law, but partly because the UK state can't reliably carry out anything. Trust me- that tends not to work.
Pitiful
Making asylum easier to claim at Calais - then giving the lucky ones tickets for the Dover Ferry - will just INCREASE the pull factor of Calais
Tens of thousands more will try. What will those that fail then do? Will they think “shit, at least the UK gave me a fair go, oh well, now I’ll head back to Albania/Somalia”
Or will they simply try and cross illegally? As before, but in even greater numbers?
You don’t have an answer which doesn’t make you extremely uncomfortable. So you would rather provide no answer at all. It’s a kind of cowardice
If you provide safe routes, then there is far less argument legally about those who choose not to use them.
Where are we going to deport them? We are incapable of deporting anyone because liberal lawyers go mad and Gary lineker calls you goebbels and everyone is pathetically spineless
And if we did start actually deporting those that failed the Calais asylum test then they’d all go back to destroying their documents and using the dinghies
It’s just another pitifuf non answer. It is pathetic
Liberal lawyers going mad or staying sane does not change the law.
If you want the policy objectives that the govt is pushing with their policy you need to be angry with the govt for not leaving the refugee convention not liberal lawyers.
I have not read the proposed Bill or much of the news regarding it so can't comment specifically on the proposed Bill.
However Australia is in the Refugee Convention and has had a similar policy before. Which was ruled legal by its domestic Courts. And the policy has worked in its objectives.
If you disagree with the policy, then that should be a matter for political debate, not legal arguments. If Parliament passes a law saying this is legal, then that should be the law, just as it was elsewhere.
You dont need my opinion, the government does not think it legal!
Has the Government put a "notwithstanding" clause in?
If so, then its legal, is it not?
Get Betfair to put a market up and happy to accommodate backers of legal.
Parliament sets the law. If Parliament says something is legal, then it is legal.
Men marrying other men wasn't legal. Parliament changed the law, now it is. That is what Parliament is for.
Have you heard of international law?
Yes. Its a bad joke.
Parliament can override international law.
It can't override it, it can legislate to make it unenforceable in the UK. The UK then lives with the consequences of that because the international law still exists. In the case of the illegal immigration legislation, though, the government is saying it is not acting contrary to international law or seeking to make it unenforceable.
We live with the consequences then, if that is what we choose to do, that is a matter for politics not lawyers.
If Parliament passes a Bill overriding international law domestically, eg by legalising cannabis which I wholeheartedly support in violation of international law, then there are no international courts that can override the UK Parliament. Nor should there be.
Or the UN Declaration on Human Rights, that asserts the rights of all human beings to live in dignity regardless of ethnic origin, or the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Or the Geneva Conventions. Do you think the sovereign body in any sovereign country ought to be able to renege on any international law it wishes to, so long as it only does so domestically? So for example the Brazilian parliament could decide to exterminate the Yanomami people and they shouldn't be held responsible before an international court if they did?
Yes I 100% think any sovereign body ought to be able to renege on any international law it wishes to do so, domestically.
If the Brazilian Parliament chose to exterminate a people then that would be a matter for international relations to resolve, not lawyers or courts. Just as China's acts of genocide against the Rohingya and others.
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
Stopping the boats, if that's your main aim, is pretty simple. A UK asylum centre in Calais and ferry tickets to Dover.
Stopping boats without letting people in another way? Can't help you there.
Is it that simple? Will the Albanians simply give up when rejected at Calais?
Quite possibly. But it reduces the numbers of boat people, which makes it easier to catch and return those who remain.
Part of our problem at the moment is that the rate of people coming in vastly exceeds our state ability to process them.
So the UK is reduced to bloodcurdling threats that it probably can't carry out. Partly human rights law, but partly because the UK state can't reliably carry out anything. Trust me- that tends not to work.
Pitiful
Making asylum easier to claim at Calais - then giving the lucky ones tickets for the Dover Ferry - will just INCREASE the pull factor of Calais
Tens of thousands more will try. What will those that fail then do? Will they think “shit, at least the UK gave me a fair go, oh well, now I’ll head back to Albania/Somalia”
Or will they simply try and cross illegally? As before, but in even greater numbers?
You don’t have an answer which doesn’t make you extremely uncomfortable. So you would rather provide no answer at all. It’s a kind of cowardice
If you provide safe routes, then there is far less argument legally about those who choose not to use them.
Where are we going to deport them? We are incapable of deporting anyone because liberal lawyers go mad and Gary lineker calls you goebbels and everyone is pathetically spineless
And if we did start actually deporting those that failed the Calais asylum test then they’d all go back to destroying their documents and using the dinghies
It’s just another pitifuf non answer. It is pathetic
Where are we going to deport them to doesn't disappear as a question if you break the law to do it. But, clearly, if you do it lawfully lawyers will find it much harder to prevent.
Just address the issue without heading off into the comfortable land of liberal piffle, where you can pretend to be answering while saying absolutely nothing
If the legal routes to asylum (at Calais! Lol) prove to be genuinely tough and you genuinely deport them (again - lol) then all these economic migrants (which is what they are mainly) will go back to tearing up their passports and crossing at Calais on a dinghy
So you have achieved nothing. At some great expense and faff. I’ve given you the actual choices above
Most liberal takes seem to be mealy mouthed versions of answer 3, but with the pious hope that the British won’t complain and won’t vote in ever harder far right governments that WILL do something
It will be interesting to see Sir Kir Royale PM struggling with this problem. It will not be in his comfort zone. At all
I don't understand why a would be migrant, with the money to pay for a boat trip, doesn't instead buy some decent clothes and luggage and take a holiday in Ireland. They can then come to the UK on a ferry as a tourist with zero checks in my experience.
Exactly my thoughts some minutes before you posted.
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
I’m still not sure Rishi understands that voters expect him to actually stop the boats coming, rather than simply talking about stopping the boats coming and blaming others when they don’t.
In the minds of many Red Wall Conservative voters, the whole point of leaving the EU was that the government be held accountable at the ballot box for stuff like this.
I dislike this policy, which seems government by headline rather than law. I dislike Lineker's reaction, which is ludicrously over the top and demeans himself. And I dislike Jenrick's response, which is excessively harsh.
Will there be a fourth domino in this line of nincompoopery?
Has Lineker been tweeting again?
He's deleted his tweet apparently
Cameron must be feeling quite vindicated.
Because his policy of spending a substantial part of our aid budget to help refugees stay locally to their own country in reasonably funded camps in the hope that they can go home reasonably soon? Yes, I agree.
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
I don't think you can stop them but I am pretty sure you can mitigate their effects and reduce their numbers, but that requires serious thinking, compromises and a lot more spending. It seems that the vast majority of the traffickers are situated on this side of the Channel, for example. That indicates that enforcement authorities could be doing a lot more than they are to tackle them - are they failing through lack of resources, planning, coordination, etc? Is anyone in government asking? And, as we know, the time it takes to process asylum claims is ridiculous. Tat is down to the Home Office and the people who run it. Then there are the six years of distrust and antagonism that were caused by Brexit. That will not all be undone immediately - and if it is to be done meaningfully, it cannot be done while trying to appease the ERG. And so on. What won't work is saying this is not our problem, everyone else has to handle it and we will break international law to try to get our way.
Eliminate demand.
1) all employers liable for employing undocumented (they actually are, sort off, now) 2) fine of £100k per employee. Directors personal assets liable etc. 3) 50K goes to the undocumented employee who gives evidence against the employer. In the event of a successful conviction. 4) indefinite leave to remain also granted to the employee on conviction of the employer.
The Tory Party donors do not like this one.....I wonder why......
When employers have cooperated with the police/immigration to highlight undocumented workers, they have met with a wall of abuse from the Left.
The difference with my suggestion is paying for the information. Which will increase the reporting/prosecuting rate to 100%
Every ambulance chasing solicitor will be on this like a tramp on chips.
Average fine of £5k if caught will not change the economic incenvtives for those who are not motivated by morals or the law. Make it £100k per employee and the incentives change.
Let them work. We need them.
If they are working illegally - the government isn't seeing the income tax revenue
Make it legal. Make it easy to get an NI number. We are short of people of working age.
no we are short of people of working age with sufficient incentive to actually work.
Mr. kamski, Germans also tend to speak fantastic English, even using it for business meetings when everyone there is German.
As an aside, I occasionally watch Twitch streams in German just to try and remind myself of it, and little bits and pieces of English do creep in even in 'German' vocabulary.
A German speaking colleague complained of this. He gave the example that Germans will use the expression 'denken'outside the box'.'
Why they would ever use that most horrible of management cliches I have no idea. In any case, 'aus den kisten' would be far more poetic.
He blamed TV, incidentally.
Most Germans have pretty poor English. Better than the general level in Italy, but far far worse than in Scandinavia. In the new Bundesländer the English among older people is often almost non-existent.
And no, meetings where everyone is German are conducted in German. There might be exceptions if it's a strict policy of a foreign company, or perhaps postgraduate study that is conducted in English - but usually in those situations not everyone present is German anyway.
Of course there are lots of borrowed words from English, doesn't mean that people speak English, any more than English people using words like spaghetti or cappuccino means that they can speak Italian.
Whenever I go to Germany I am always astonished by the amount of English words used in TV adverts, on posters, in product branding, in news headlines etc
That perhaps explains the flawed impression that all Germans speak excellent English
It's interesting, I guess I've tuned it out because I only tend to notice it when it's used "incorrectly" (from an English point of view). A recent one is "Home-Office", as in "ich mache heute Home-Office", meaning "I'm working from home today".
I just had a random scan of a few headlines, articles and adverts, and I don't see so many English words (ignoring names of things like Samsung "Galaxy"):
Gaspipelines, False-Flag-Operation, Sport, Deal.
Almost as many borrowed from French: Depot, Recherche, Orange.
The French borrowings tend to be older though.
I don’t think that’s true.
The front page (online) of Bild right now:
Live ticker Champions League insider Game of Homes Baby Too hot to handle Playboy VIP Tickets Star Film and Fun Handy Sex Stylebook Fitbook
Apart from names like 'Champions League' hardly any English to be seen at all apart from 'CASH CALL' which seems to be the name of a competition Bild is running.
I’ve actually missed out a dozen examples, there are so many
And that is the homepage of Bild
Hate to say it, but you are quite correct. Even more noticeable in the Swedish language.
I confidently* predict that Swedish will be in practice extinct in 100 years.
Robert Jenrick has demanded Lineker is sacked. Richard Sharpe and Tim Davie own the BBC who are now investigating. In my view Lineker is toast!
The usual suspects: it's ridiculous to suggest that the BBC is a state broadcaster Members of HMG: SACK THAT SPORTS PRESENTER FOR CRITICISING THE GOVERNMENT OF HMG!!!
Removing critical voices in the media definitely not the kind of thing the Nazis would do, so outrageous that Lineker compared the government to the Nazis.
Lineker is blurring the lines between his job and his opinions on political matters of the day. Surely he has earned enough from the BBC to be able to give up the day job and stand for Parliament? Everybody happy....
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
I don't think you can stop them but I am pretty sure you can mitigate their effects and reduce their numbers, but that requires serious thinking, compromises and a lot more spending. It seems that the vast majority of the traffickers are situated on this side of the Channel, for example. That indicates that enforcement authorities could be doing a lot more than they are to tackle them - are they failing through lack of resources, planning, coordination, etc? Is anyone in government asking? And, as we know, the time it takes to process asylum claims is ridiculous. Tat is down to the Home Office and the people who run it. Then there are the six years of distrust and antagonism that were caused by Brexit. That will not all be undone immediately - and if it is to be done meaningfully, it cannot be done while trying to appease the ERG. And so on. What won't work is saying this is not our problem, everyone else has to handle it and we will break international law to try to get our way.
Eliminate demand.
1) all employers liable for employing undocumented (they actually are, sort off, now) 2) fine of £100k per employee. Directors personal assets liable etc. 3) 50K goes to the undocumented employee who gives evidence against the employer. In the event of a successful conviction. 4) indefinite leave to remain also granted to the employee on conviction of the employer.
The Tory Party donors do not like this one.....I wonder why......
When employers have cooperated with the police/immigration to highlight undocumented workers, they have met with a wall of abuse from the Left.
The difference with my suggestion is paying for the information. Which will increase the reporting/prosecuting rate to 100%
Every ambulance chasing solicitor will be on this like a tramp on chips.
Average fine of £5k if caught will not change the economic incenvtives for those who are not motivated by morals or the law. Make it £100k per employee and the incentives change.
Let them work. We need them.
If they are working illegally - the government isn't seeing the income tax revenue
Make it legal. Make it easy to get an NI number. We are short of people of working age.
no we are short of people of working age with sufficient incentive to actually work.
Countries should be concentrating on policies focussed on coping with a declining population because immigration is nothing more than a ponzi scheme
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
Stopping the boats, if that's your main aim, is pretty simple. A UK asylum centre in Calais and ferry tickets to Dover.
Stopping boats without letting people in another way? Can't help you there.
Is it that simple? Will the Albanians simply give up when rejected at Calais?
Quite possibly. But it reduces the numbers of boat people, which makes it easier to catch and return those who remain.
Part of our problem at the moment is that the rate of people coming in vastly exceeds our state ability to process them.
So the UK is reduced to bloodcurdling threats that it probably can't carry out. Partly human rights law, but partly because the UK state can't reliably carry out anything. Trust me- that tends not to work.
Pitiful
Making asylum easier to claim at Calais - then giving the lucky ones tickets for the Dover Ferry - will just INCREASE the pull factor of Calais
Tens of thousands more will try. What will those that fail then do? Will they think “shit, at least the UK gave me a fair go, oh well, now I’ll head back to Albania/Somalia”
Or will they simply try and cross illegally? As before, but in even greater numbers?
You don’t have an answer which doesn’t make you extremely uncomfortable. So you would rather provide no answer at all. It’s a kind of cowardice
If you provide safe routes, then there is far less argument legally about those who choose not to use them.
Where are we going to deport them? We are incapable of deporting anyone because liberal lawyers go mad and Gary lineker calls you goebbels and everyone is pathetically spineless
And if we did start actually deporting those that failed the Calais asylum test then they’d all go back to destroying their documents and using the dinghies
It’s just another pitifuf non answer. It is pathetic
Liberal lawyers going mad or staying sane does not change the law.
If you want the policy objectives that the govt is pushing with their policy you need to be angry with the govt for not leaving the refugee convention not liberal lawyers.
I have not read the proposed Bill or much of the news regarding it so can't comment specifically on the proposed Bill...
Then read the bill. It says on its face that it's more probable than not that the new law conflicts with existing law - which is being left in place.
Far from unprecedented, is there a notwithstanding clause in place?
If so, then surely the new law takes precedence over the existing law, so the existing law remains law for all circumstances not covered by the new law?
No. The conflict is left in place. Secretary Suella Braverman has made the following statement under section 19(1)(b) of the Human Rights Act 1998: I am unable to make a statement that, in my view, the provisions of the Illegal Migration Bill are compatible with the Convention rights, but the Government nevertheless wishes the House to proceed with the Bill.
The only provision of the Human Rights Act 1998 formally set aside in the proposed bill is this one. Section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 (interpretation of legislation) does not apply in relation to provision made by or by virtue of this Act.
So if interpretation of legislation is set aside by the Act, and Parliament knowingly and openly proceeds to pass the Act knowing it contravenes the prior legislation, then does the new Act not take legal precedence over the prior Acts and can't be interpreted differently?
No.
Why no?
According to LexisNexis that is the way Parliament works:
It follows that, where a later Act of Parliament conflicts with an earlier one, the later one cannot be read as conditioned by, or subject to, the earlier. Rather, the later statute is considered to have repealed the earlier one by implication, to the extent of the conflict.
What reason do you have to believe that later laws do not take precedence over former ones?
The Home Secretary's own wording on the face of the bill.
We are not formally abrogating our treaty responsibilities under the HRA, which is why the conflict is left in place.
From your link - the very next paragraph, which you failed to quote: However in recent decades it has become accepted that at least in certain legal contexts (particularly in the context of European Union law and the European Communities Act 1972 (ECA 1972), and perhaps other 'constitutional' statutes) Parliament can enact provisions which, unless expressly repealed or amended, condition and limit the effect of later, conflicting enactments.
The "constitutional statutes" theory got yet another thrashing by the Supreme Court in the referendum referral case. It is a theory beloved of academics who want to impose some sort of structure on our constitutional anarchy but the courts have shown very little interest. And the ECA 1972 is now, of course, repealed.
I think that the HRA has had broader effect in that it does not override primary legislation (it can override subsidiary legislation it deems incompatible) but constrains the court to construe the new Act in a way consistent with the Convention. In respect of the current bill this is going to require minds a lot cleverer than mine.
If this is primary legislation and in the primary legislation it says that Section 3 of the HRA does not apply, then is there any other section of the HRA that could override primary legislation?
Or is it just Section 3, which expressly does not apply, that could do that?
Section 3 is the "interpretation" provision that I was referring to. If that does not apply then the new Act would have to be construed on its actual words without that tool. It would still be possible for an appropriate court to make a declaration of incompatibility under s4, for example.
Thanks, but Section 4 is not binding and expressly does not prevent the primary legislation from proceeding does it?
So surely by disapplying Section 3, then Parliament's Primary Legislation must take precedence even if the Courts issue an incompatibility ruling?
The choices for the UK government regarding the Dinghy People (barring some huge change in global geopolitical trends) can be boiled down to these three:
1. Violently push back the boats. Accept that many will drown. This will be morally unacceptable to 98% of the country
2. Immediately detain and deport all those who arrive. Disallow their rights. Off they go to Rwanda or whoever we can bribe - this will be palatable to much of the country but will be loathed by many liberals (and others). Also legally difficult
3. Basically accept there’s nothing we can do. Make some futile gestures like “helping French police”. Prohibit the use of the word “dinghy”. Accept that 100,000s will cross and this number will likely grow and grow. This will enrage much of the country and possibly lead to Britain’s first serious far right party
That’s it. That’s the choice. Not good
Even on that dodgy framing (3) is superior. Certainly better than the Cons trying to head off a far right party by becoming one.
But although I usually like defeatism - it's quite underrated as a mindset imo - it's overly defeatist to assume nothing effective can be done about this issue that doesn't involve the dehumanization of vulnerable people. I'm pretty suspicious of those who say this so readily. It can be hard to distinguish a muscular, clear-sighted rejection of liberal waffle from a genuine enthusiasm for far right 'solutions' to protect 'us' from 'them' - since in polite society the second tends to dress up as the first.
If you want to go with 3 at some point you will have vigilante groups patrolling beaches and meting out "justice" just like they have on the american border. If that is what you want then by all means go for 3
You can't have government policy dictated by the worst elements in society.
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
Stopping the boats, if that's your main aim, is pretty simple. A UK asylum centre in Calais and ferry tickets to Dover.
Stopping boats without letting people in another way? Can't help you there.
Is it that simple? Will the Albanians simply give up when rejected at Calais?
Quite possibly. But it reduces the numbers of boat people, which makes it easier to catch and return those who remain.
Part of our problem at the moment is that the rate of people coming in vastly exceeds our state ability to process them.
So the UK is reduced to bloodcurdling threats that it probably can't carry out. Partly human rights law, but partly because the UK state can't reliably carry out anything. Trust me- that tends not to work.
Pitiful
Making asylum easier to claim at Calais - then giving the lucky ones tickets for the Dover Ferry - will just INCREASE the pull factor of Calais
Tens of thousands more will try. What will those that fail then do? Will they think “shit, at least the UK gave me a fair go, oh well, now I’ll head back to Albania/Somalia”
Or will they simply try and cross illegally? As before, but in even greater numbers?
You don’t have an answer which doesn’t make you extremely uncomfortable. So you would rather provide no answer at all. It’s a kind of cowardice
If you provide safe routes, then there is far less argument legally about those who choose not to use them.
Where are we going to deport them? We are incapable of deporting anyone because liberal lawyers go mad and Gary lineker calls you goebbels and everyone is pathetically spineless
And if we did start actually deporting those that failed the Calais asylum test then they’d all go back to destroying their documents and using the dinghies
It’s just another pitifuf non answer. It is pathetic
Where are we going to deport them to doesn't disappear as a question if you break the law to do it. But, clearly, if you do it lawfully lawyers will find it much harder to prevent.
Just address the issue without heading off into the comfortable land of liberal piffle, where you can pretend to be answering while saying absolutely nothing
If the legal routes to asylum (at Calais! Lol) prove to be genuinely tough and you genuinely deport them (again - lol) then all these economic migrants (which is what they are mainly) will go back to tearing up their passports and crossing at Calais on a dinghy
So you have achieved nothing. At some great expense and faff. I’ve given you the actual choices above
Most liberal takes seem to be mealy mouthed versions of answer 3, but with the pious hope that the British won’t complain and won’t vote in ever harder far right governments that WILL do something
It will be interesting to see Sir Kir Royale PM struggling with this problem. It will not be in his comfort zone. At all
I don't understand why a would be migrant, with the money to pay for a boat trip, doesn't instead buy some decent clothes and luggage and take a holiday in Ireland. They can then come to the UK on a ferry as a tourist with zero checks in my experience.
Exactly my thoughts some minutes before you posted.
I can only assume it is the lack of a passport or that if they have one they will get stopped getting into Ireland. Ireland not being in Schengen.
If the boss says it's nothing to worry about then @Leon must have been wrong that it was something to worry about. Bosses never lie. He was right about it happening though.
Robert Jenrick has demanded Lineker is sacked. Richard Sharpe and Tim Davie own the BBC who are now investigating. In my view Lineker is toast!
The usual suspects: it's ridiculous to suggest that the BBC is a state broadcaster Members of HMG: SACK THAT SPORTS PRESENTER FOR CRITICISING THE GOVERNMENT OF HMG!!!
Removing critical voices in the media definitely not the kind of thing the Nazis would do, so outrageous that Lineker compared the government to the Nazis.
Lineker is blurring the lines between his job and his opinions on political matters of the day. Surely he has earned enough from the BBC to be able to give up the day job and stand for Parliament? Everybody happy....
Better still why don't you stand for the Throw Lineker out of the BBC and Abolish the BBC While You're At It Party.
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
I don't think you can stop them but I am pretty sure you can mitigate their effects and reduce their numbers, but that requires serious thinking, compromises and a lot more spending. It seems that the vast majority of the traffickers are situated on this side of the Channel, for example. That indicates that enforcement authorities could be doing a lot more than they are to tackle them - are they failing through lack of resources, planning, coordination, etc? Is anyone in government asking? And, as we know, the time it takes to process asylum claims is ridiculous. Tat is down to the Home Office and the people who run it. Then there are the six years of distrust and antagonism that were caused by Brexit. That will not all be undone immediately - and if it is to be done meaningfully, it cannot be done while trying to appease the ERG. And so on. What won't work is saying this is not our problem, everyone else has to handle it and we will break international law to try to get our way.
Eliminate demand.
1) all employers liable for employing undocumented (they actually are, sort off, now) 2) fine of £100k per employee. Directors personal assets liable etc. 3) 50K goes to the undocumented employee who gives evidence against the employer. In the event of a successful conviction. 4) indefinite leave to remain also granted to the employee on conviction of the employer.
The Tory Party donors do not like this one.....I wonder why......
When employers have cooperated with the police/immigration to highlight undocumented workers, they have met with a wall of abuse from the Left.
The difference with my suggestion is paying for the information. Which will increase the reporting/prosecuting rate to 100%
Every ambulance chasing solicitor will be on this like a tramp on chips.
Average fine of £5k if caught will not change the economic incenvtives for those who are not motivated by morals or the law. Make it £100k per employee and the incentives change.
Let them work. We need them.
If they are working illegally - the government isn't seeing the income tax revenue
Make it legal. Make it easy to get an NI number. We are short of people of working age.
no we are short of people of working age with sufficient incentive to actually work.
I suspect immigrants, who have made the effort to come here, will have a greater incentive to work than many Brits.
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
Stopping the boats, if that's your main aim, is pretty simple. A UK asylum centre in Calais and ferry tickets to Dover.
Stopping boats without letting people in another way? Can't help you there.
Is it that simple? Will the Albanians simply give up when rejected at Calais?
Quite possibly. But it reduces the numbers of boat people, which makes it easier to catch and return those who remain.
Part of our problem at the moment is that the rate of people coming in vastly exceeds our state ability to process them.
So the UK is reduced to bloodcurdling threats that it probably can't carry out. Partly human rights law, but partly because the UK state can't reliably carry out anything. Trust me- that tends not to work.
Pitiful
Making asylum easier to claim at Calais - then giving the lucky ones tickets for the Dover Ferry - will just INCREASE the pull factor of Calais
Tens of thousands more will try. What will those that fail then do? Will they think “shit, at least the UK gave me a fair go, oh well, now I’ll head back to Albania/Somalia”
Or will they simply try and cross illegally? As before, but in even greater numbers?
You don’t have an answer which doesn’t make you extremely uncomfortable. So you would rather provide no answer at all. It’s a kind of cowardice
If you provide safe routes, then there is far less argument legally about those who choose not to use them.
Where are we going to deport them? We are incapable of deporting anyone because liberal lawyers go mad and Gary lineker calls you goebbels and everyone is pathetically spineless
And if we did start actually deporting those that failed the Calais asylum test then they’d all go back to destroying their documents and using the dinghies
It’s just another pitifuf non answer. It is pathetic
Where are we going to deport them to doesn't disappear as a question if you break the law to do it. But, clearly, if you do it lawfully lawyers will find it much harder to prevent.
Just address the issue without heading off into the comfortable land of liberal piffle, where you can pretend to be answering while saying absolutely nothing
If the legal routes to asylum (at Calais! Lol) prove to be genuinely tough and you genuinely deport them (again - lol) then all these economic migrants (which is what they are mainly) will go back to tearing up their passports and crossing at Calais on a dinghy
So you have achieved nothing. At some great expense and faff. I’ve given you the actual choices above
Most liberal takes seem to be mealy mouthed versions of answer 3, but with the pious hope that the British won’t complain and won’t vote in ever harder far right governments that WILL do something
It will be interesting to see Sir Kir Royale PM struggling with this problem. It will not be in his comfort zone. At all
I don't understand why a would be migrant, with the money to pay for a boat trip, doesn't instead buy some decent clothes and luggage and take a holiday in Ireland. They can then come to the UK on a ferry as a tourist with zero checks in my experience.
Exactly my thoughts some minutes before you posted.
I can only assume it is the lack of a passport or that if they have one they will get stopped getting into Ireland. Ireland not being in Schengen.
Yes, since posting that I've seen several plausible responses to Barnesian.
Beautiful snow covered fields here in Essex this morning. I am sure you are having a nice sunshine break but I like winter to be winter
In Scotland is it a combination of low temperature but dry cold with glorious sunshine - beautiful weather.
I was supposed to be in Portree for a proof today. It settled so we dealt with it remotely, which was a personal disappointment, but the news from the court was that the weather over the last 2 days has been biblical and the proof would almost certainly have been unable to proceed in any event. Still missed the trip though. My trip up there last autumn by the road to the Isles was magical.
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
Stopping the boats, if that's your main aim, is pretty simple. A UK asylum centre in Calais and ferry tickets to Dover.
Stopping boats without letting people in another way? Can't help you there.
Is it that simple? Will the Albanians simply give up when rejected at Calais?
Quite possibly. But it reduces the numbers of boat people, which makes it easier to catch and return those who remain.
Part of our problem at the moment is that the rate of people coming in vastly exceeds our state ability to process them.
So the UK is reduced to bloodcurdling threats that it probably can't carry out. Partly human rights law, but partly because the UK state can't reliably carry out anything. Trust me- that tends not to work.
Pitiful
Making asylum easier to claim at Calais - then giving the lucky ones tickets for the Dover Ferry - will just INCREASE the pull factor of Calais
Tens of thousands more will try. What will those that fail then do? Will they think “shit, at least the UK gave me a fair go, oh well, now I’ll head back to Albania/Somalia”
Or will they simply try and cross illegally? As before, but in even greater numbers?
You don’t have an answer which doesn’t make you extremely uncomfortable. So you would rather provide no answer at all. It’s a kind of cowardice
If you provide safe routes, then there is far less argument legally about those who choose not to use them.
Where are we going to deport them? We are incapable of deporting anyone because liberal lawyers go mad and Gary lineker calls you goebbels and everyone is pathetically spineless
And if we did start actually deporting those that failed the Calais asylum test then they’d all go back to destroying their documents and using the dinghies
It’s just another pitifuf non answer. It is pathetic
Liberal lawyers going mad or staying sane does not change the law.
If you want the policy objectives that the govt is pushing with their policy you need to be angry with the govt for not leaving the refugee convention not liberal lawyers.
I have not read the proposed Bill or much of the news regarding it so can't comment specifically on the proposed Bill.
However Australia is in the Refugee Convention and has had a similar policy before. Which was ruled legal by its domestic Courts. And the policy has worked in its objectives.
If you disagree with the policy, then that should be a matter for political debate, not legal arguments. If Parliament passes a law saying this is legal, then that should be the law, just as it was elsewhere.
You dont need my opinion, the government does not think it legal!
Has the Government put a "notwithstanding" clause in?
If so, then its legal, is it not?
Get Betfair to put a market up and happy to accommodate backers of legal.
Parliament sets the law. If Parliament says something is legal, then it is legal.
Men marrying other men wasn't legal. Parliament changed the law, now it is. That is what Parliament is for.
Have you heard of international law?
Yes. Its a bad joke.
Parliament can override international law.
It can't override it, it can legislate to make it unenforceable in the UK. The UK then lives with the consequences of that because the international law still exists. In the case of the illegal immigration legislation, though, the government is saying it is not acting contrary to international law or seeking to make it unenforceable.
We live with the consequences then, if that is what we choose to do, that is a matter for politics not lawyers.
If Parliament passes a Bill overriding international law domestically, eg by legalising cannabis which I wholeheartedly support in violation of international law, then there are no international courts that can override the UK Parliament. Nor should there be.
Or the UN Declaration on Human Rights, that asserts the rights of all human beings to live in dignity regardless of ethnic origin, or the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Or the Geneva Conventions. Do you think the sovereign body in any sovereign country ought to be able to renege on any international law it wishes to, so long as it only does so domestically? So for example the Brazilian parliament could decide to exterminate the Yanomami people and they shouldn't be held responsible before an international court if they did?
Yes I 100% think any sovereign body ought to be able to renege on any international law it wishes to do so, domestically.
If the Brazilian Parliament chose to exterminate a people then that would be a matter for international relations to resolve, not lawyers or courts. Just as China's acts of genocide against the Rohingya and others.
There are two separate issues here.
One is the merits of the policy effectively abolishing any right to asylum claims by those who don't arrive with a visa.
The other is legislating to do so in a manner probably inconsistent with existing legislation, acknowledging that on the face of the bill, while simultaneously professing in public that it is consistent with existing legislation.
Whatever you think about the first issue, pursing policy in this manner is dishonest trolling.
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
Stopping the boats, if that's your main aim, is pretty simple. A UK asylum centre in Calais and ferry tickets to Dover.
Stopping boats without letting people in another way? Can't help you there.
Is it that simple? Will the Albanians simply give up when rejected at Calais?
Quite possibly. But it reduces the numbers of boat people, which makes it easier to catch and return those who remain.
Part of our problem at the moment is that the rate of people coming in vastly exceeds our state ability to process them.
So the UK is reduced to bloodcurdling threats that it probably can't carry out. Partly human rights law, but partly because the UK state can't reliably carry out anything. Trust me- that tends not to work.
Pitiful
Making asylum easier to claim at Calais - then giving the lucky ones tickets for the Dover Ferry - will just INCREASE the pull factor of Calais
Tens of thousands more will try. What will those that fail then do? Will they think “shit, at least the UK gave me a fair go, oh well, now I’ll head back to Albania/Somalia”
Or will they simply try and cross illegally? As before, but in even greater numbers?
You don’t have an answer which doesn’t make you extremely uncomfortable. So you would rather provide no answer at all. It’s a kind of cowardice
If you provide safe routes, then there is far less argument legally about those who choose not to use them.
Where are we going to deport them? We are incapable of deporting anyone because liberal lawyers go mad and Gary lineker calls you goebbels and everyone is pathetically spineless
And if we did start actually deporting those that failed the Calais asylum test then they’d all go back to destroying their documents and using the dinghies
It’s just another pitifuf non answer. It is pathetic
Liberal lawyers going mad or staying sane does not change the law.
If you want the policy objectives that the govt is pushing with their policy you need to be angry with the govt for not leaving the refugee convention not liberal lawyers.
I have not read the proposed Bill or much of the news regarding it so can't comment specifically on the proposed Bill...
Then read the bill. It says on its face that it's more probable than not that the new law conflicts with existing law - which is being left in place.
Far from unprecedented, is there a notwithstanding clause in place?
If so, then surely the new law takes precedence over the existing law, so the existing law remains law for all circumstances not covered by the new law?
No. The conflict is left in place. Secretary Suella Braverman has made the following statement under section 19(1)(b) of the Human Rights Act 1998: I am unable to make a statement that, in my view, the provisions of the Illegal Migration Bill are compatible with the Convention rights, but the Government nevertheless wishes the House to proceed with the Bill.
The only provision of the Human Rights Act 1998 formally set aside in the proposed bill is this one. Section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 (interpretation of legislation) does not apply in relation to provision made by or by virtue of this Act.
So if interpretation of legislation is set aside by the Act, and Parliament knowingly and openly proceeds to pass the Act knowing it contravenes the prior legislation, then does the new Act not take legal precedence over the prior Acts and can't be interpreted differently?
No.
Why no?
According to LexisNexis that is the way Parliament works:
It follows that, where a later Act of Parliament conflicts with an earlier one, the later one cannot be read as conditioned by, or subject to, the earlier. Rather, the later statute is considered to have repealed the earlier one by implication, to the extent of the conflict.
What reason do you have to believe that later laws do not take precedence over former ones?
The Home Secretary's own wording on the face of the bill.
We are not formally abrogating our treaty responsibilities under the HRA, which is why the conflict is left in place.
From your link - the very next paragraph, which you failed to quote: However in recent decades it has become accepted that at least in certain legal contexts (particularly in the context of European Union law and the European Communities Act 1972 (ECA 1972), and perhaps other 'constitutional' statutes) Parliament can enact provisions which, unless expressly repealed or amended, condition and limit the effect of later, conflicting enactments.
The "constitutional statutes" theory got yet another thrashing by the Supreme Court in the referendum referral case. It is a theory beloved of academics who want to impose some sort of structure on our constitutional anarchy but the courts have shown very little interest. And the ECA 1972 is now, of course, repealed.
I think that the HRA has had broader effect in that it does not override primary legislation (it can override subsidiary legislation it deems incompatible) but constrains the court to construe the new Act in a way consistent with the Convention. In respect of the current bill this is going to require minds a lot cleverer than mine.
If this is primary legislation and in the primary legislation it says that Section 3 of the HRA does not apply, then is there any other section of the HRA that could override primary legislation?
Or is it just Section 3, which expressly does not apply, that could do that?
Section 3 is the "interpretation" provision that I was referring to. If that does not apply then the new Act would have to be construed on its actual words without that tool. It would still be possible for an appropriate court to make a declaration of incompatibility under s4, for example.
Thanks, but Section 4 is not binding and expressly does not prevent the primary legislation from proceeding does it?
So surely by disapplying Section 3, then Parliament's Primary Legislation must take precedence even if the Courts issue an incompatibility ruling?
This is largely untested. There is no automatic effect but to date it has caused governments to look again at the legislation.
The choices for the UK government regarding the Dinghy People (barring some huge change in global geopolitical trends) can be boiled down to these three:
1. Violently push back the boats. Accept that many will drown. This will be morally unacceptable to 98% of the country
2. Immediately detain and deport all those who arrive. Disallow their rights. Off they go to Rwanda or whoever we can bribe - this will be palatable to much of the country but will be loathed by many liberals (and others). Also legally difficult
3. Basically accept there’s nothing we can do. Make some futile gestures like “helping French police”. Prohibit the use of the word “dinghy”. Accept that 100,000s will cross and this number will likely grow and grow. This will enrage much of the country and possibly lead to Britain’s first serious far right party
That’s it. That’s the choice. Not good
Even on that dodgy framing (3) is superior. Certainly better than the Cons trying to head off a far right party by becoming one.
But although I usually like defeatism - it's quite underrated as a mindset imo - it's overly defeatist to assume nothing effective can be done about this issue that doesn't involve the dehumanization of vulnerable people. I'm pretty suspicious of those who say this so readily. It can be hard to distinguish a muscular, clear-sighted rejection of liberal waffle from a genuine enthusiasm for far right 'solutions' to protect 'us' from 'them' - since in polite society the second tends to dress up as the first.
If you want to go with 3 at some point you will have vigilante groups patrolling beaches and meting out "justice" just like they have on the american border. If that is what you want then by all means go for 3
You can't have government policy dictated by the worst elements in society.
If the boss says it's nothing to worry about then @Leon must have been wrong that it was something to worry about. Bosses never lie. He was right about it happening though.
The Register adds:- Reach [owner of Mirror, Express and countless local rags] isn't the only publisher rolling out AI-generated articles while reducing its count of human reporters. CNET owner Red Ventures laid off scribes last week and has promised to double down on machine-written content despite complaints that those articles contained errors and plagiarism.
Meanwhile, BuzzFeed has produced quizzes with the help of ChatGPT, and Arena Group published botched health-related articles for Men's Health. Both publishers have also axed employees – in December 2022 and February 2023, respectively. https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/08/uk_publisher_using_ai/
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
I don't think you can stop them but I am pretty sure you can mitigate their effects and reduce their numbers, but that requires serious thinking, compromises and a lot more spending. It seems that the vast majority of the traffickers are situated on this side of the Channel, for example. That indicates that enforcement authorities could be doing a lot more than they are to tackle them - are they failing through lack of resources, planning, coordination, etc? Is anyone in government asking? And, as we know, the time it takes to process asylum claims is ridiculous. Tat is down to the Home Office and the people who run it. Then there are the six years of distrust and antagonism that were caused by Brexit. That will not all be undone immediately - and if it is to be done meaningfully, it cannot be done while trying to appease the ERG. And so on. What won't work is saying this is not our problem, everyone else has to handle it and we will break international law to try to get our way.
Eliminate demand.
1) all employers liable for employing undocumented (they actually are, sort off, now) 2) fine of £100k per employee. Directors personal assets liable etc. 3) 50K goes to the undocumented employee who gives evidence against the employer. In the event of a successful conviction. 4) indefinite leave to remain also granted to the employee on conviction of the employer.
The Tory Party donors do not like this one.....I wonder why......
When employers have cooperated with the police/immigration to highlight undocumented workers, they have met with a wall of abuse from the Left.
The difference with my suggestion is paying for the information. Which will increase the reporting/prosecuting rate to 100%
Every ambulance chasing solicitor will be on this like a tramp on chips.
Average fine of £5k if caught will not change the economic incenvtives for those who are not motivated by morals or the law. Make it £100k per employee and the incentives change.
Let them work. We need them.
If they are working illegally - the government isn't seeing the income tax revenue
Make it legal. Make it easy to get an NI number. We are short of people of working age.
no we are short of people of working age with sufficient incentive to actually work.
Countries should be concentrating on policies focussed on coping with a declining population because immigration is nothing more than a ponzi scheme
It does feel immoral to me to take in healthy educated people from other countries who have paid for their education and training and who really need them, in order to support our declining population and growing burden of pensioners.
It's even more immoral to have healthy educated immigrants here and then actively prevent them from working! Crazy.
The choices for the UK government regarding the Dinghy People (barring some huge change in global geopolitical trends) can be boiled down to these three:
1. Violently push back the boats. Accept that many will drown. This will be morally unacceptable to 98% of the country
2. Immediately detain and deport all those who arrive. Disallow their rights. Off they go to Rwanda or whoever we can bribe - this will be palatable to much of the country but will be loathed by many liberals (and others). Also legally difficult
3. Basically accept there’s nothing we can do. Make some futile gestures like “helping French police”. Prohibit the use of the word “dinghy”. Accept that 100,000s will cross and this number will likely grow and grow. This will enrage much of the country and possibly lead to Britain’s first serious far right party
That’s it. That’s the choice. Not good
Even on that dodgy framing (3) is superior. Certainly better than the Cons trying to head off a far right party by becoming one.
But although I usually like defeatism - it's quite underrated as a mindset imo - it's overly defeatist to assume nothing effective can be done about this issue that doesn't involve the dehumanization of vulnerable people. I'm pretty suspicious of those who say this so readily. It can be hard to distinguish a muscular, clear-sighted rejection of liberal waffle from a genuine enthusiasm for far right 'solutions' to protect 'us' from 'them' - since in polite society the second tends to dress up as the first.
If you want to go with 3 at some point you will have vigilante groups patrolling beaches and meting out "justice" just like they have on the american border. If that is what you want then by all means go for 3
You can't have government policy dictated by the worst elements in society.
Ah you mean by worst the poor who find their share of the pie ever more diminished when they have to share it with ever more people? Does it ever seem strange to you that most of the bleeding hearts crying let them all in come from area's that aren't particulary impacted by ever more people whereas those living in poorer areas find their rent ever increasing for substandard accomodation and their services stretched to cope with ever more people?
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
Stopping the boats, if that's your main aim, is pretty simple. A UK asylum centre in Calais and ferry tickets to Dover.
Stopping boats without letting people in another way? Can't help you there.
Is it that simple? Will the Albanians simply give up when rejected at Calais?
Quite possibly. But it reduces the numbers of boat people, which makes it easier to catch and return those who remain.
Part of our problem at the moment is that the rate of people coming in vastly exceeds our state ability to process them.
So the UK is reduced to bloodcurdling threats that it probably can't carry out. Partly human rights law, but partly because the UK state can't reliably carry out anything. Trust me- that tends not to work.
Pitiful
Making asylum easier to claim at Calais - then giving the lucky ones tickets for the Dover Ferry - will just INCREASE the pull factor of Calais
Tens of thousands more will try. What will those that fail then do? Will they think “shit, at least the UK gave me a fair go, oh well, now I’ll head back to Albania/Somalia”
Or will they simply try and cross illegally? As before, but in even greater numbers?
You don’t have an answer which doesn’t make you extremely uncomfortable. So you would rather provide no answer at all. It’s a kind of cowardice
If you provide safe routes, then there is far less argument legally about those who choose not to use them.
Where are we going to deport them? We are incapable of deporting anyone because liberal lawyers go mad and Gary lineker calls you goebbels and everyone is pathetically spineless
And if we did start actually deporting those that failed the Calais asylum test then they’d all go back to destroying their documents and using the dinghies
It’s just another pitifuf non answer. It is pathetic
Liberal lawyers going mad or staying sane does not change the law.
If you want the policy objectives that the govt is pushing with their policy you need to be angry with the govt for not leaving the refugee convention not liberal lawyers.
I have not read the proposed Bill or much of the news regarding it so can't comment specifically on the proposed Bill.
However Australia is in the Refugee Convention and has had a similar policy before. Which was ruled legal by its domestic Courts. And the policy has worked in its objectives.
If you disagree with the policy, then that should be a matter for political debate, not legal arguments. If Parliament passes a law saying this is legal, then that should be the law, just as it was elsewhere.
You dont need my opinion, the government does not think it legal!
Has the Government put a "notwithstanding" clause in?
If so, then its legal, is it not?
Get Betfair to put a market up and happy to accommodate backers of legal.
Parliament sets the law. If Parliament says something is legal, then it is legal.
Men marrying other men wasn't legal. Parliament changed the law, now it is. That is what Parliament is for.
Have you heard of international law?
Yes. Its a bad joke.
Parliament can override international law.
It can't override it, it can legislate to make it unenforceable in the UK. The UK then lives with the consequences of that because the international law still exists. In the case of the illegal immigration legislation, though, the government is saying it is not acting contrary to international law or seeking to make it unenforceable.
We live with the consequences then, if that is what we choose to do, that is a matter for politics not lawyers.
If Parliament passes a Bill overriding international law domestically, eg by legalising cannabis which I wholeheartedly support in violation of international law, then there are no international courts that can override the UK Parliament. Nor should there be.
Or the UN Declaration on Human Rights, that asserts the rights of all human beings to live in dignity regardless of ethnic origin, or the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Or the Geneva Conventions. Do you think the sovereign body in any sovereign country ought to be able to renege on any international law it wishes to, so long as it only does so domestically? So for example the Brazilian parliament could decide to exterminate the Yanomami people and they shouldn't be held responsible before an international court if they did?
Yes I 100% think any sovereign body ought to be able to renege on any international law it wishes to do so, domestically.
You mean like Russia within its own borders (which according to Russia include half of Ukraine)?
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
I don't think you can stop them but I am pretty sure you can mitigate their effects and reduce their numbers, but that requires serious thinking, compromises and a lot more spending. It seems that the vast majority of the traffickers are situated on this side of the Channel, for example. That indicates that enforcement authorities could be doing a lot more than they are to tackle them - are they failing through lack of resources, planning, coordination, etc? Is anyone in government asking? And, as we know, the time it takes to process asylum claims is ridiculous. Tat is down to the Home Office and the people who run it. Then there are the six years of distrust and antagonism that were caused by Brexit. That will not all be undone immediately - and if it is to be done meaningfully, it cannot be done while trying to appease the ERG. And so on. What won't work is saying this is not our problem, everyone else has to handle it and we will break international law to try to get our way.
Eliminate demand.
1) all employers liable for employing undocumented (they actually are, sort off, now) 2) fine of £100k per employee. Directors personal assets liable etc. 3) 50K goes to the undocumented employee who gives evidence against the employer. In the event of a successful conviction. 4) indefinite leave to remain also granted to the employee on conviction of the employer.
The Tory Party donors do not like this one.....I wonder why......
When employers have cooperated with the police/immigration to highlight undocumented workers, they have met with a wall of abuse from the Left.
The difference with my suggestion is paying for the information. Which will increase the reporting/prosecuting rate to 100%
Every ambulance chasing solicitor will be on this like a tramp on chips.
Average fine of £5k if caught will not change the economic incenvtives for those who are not motivated by morals or the law. Make it £100k per employee and the incentives change.
Let them work. We need them.
If they are working illegally - the government isn't seeing the income tax revenue
Make it legal. Make it easy to get an NI number. We are short of people of working age.
no we are short of people of working age with sufficient incentive to actually work.
Countries should be concentrating on policies focussed on coping with a declining population because immigration is nothing more than a ponzi scheme
I agree with that and I don't think the answer is encouraging people to have more babies but finding ways of coping with a population that gets older. I know it is an economic nightmare but it is better than climate change, scarcity of water and all the problems overpopulation brings.
In an ideal world I would like to see free movement, but until all countries become similarly equal economies that is also impossible.
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
Stopping the boats, if that's your main aim, is pretty simple. A UK asylum centre in Calais and ferry tickets to Dover.
Stopping boats without letting people in another way? Can't help you there.
Is it that simple? Will the Albanians simply give up when rejected at Calais?
Quite possibly. But it reduces the numbers of boat people, which makes it easier to catch and return those who remain.
Part of our problem at the moment is that the rate of people coming in vastly exceeds our state ability to process them.
So the UK is reduced to bloodcurdling threats that it probably can't carry out. Partly human rights law, but partly because the UK state can't reliably carry out anything. Trust me- that tends not to work.
Pitiful
Making asylum easier to claim at Calais - then giving the lucky ones tickets for the Dover Ferry - will just INCREASE the pull factor of Calais
Tens of thousands more will try. What will those that fail then do? Will they think “shit, at least the UK gave me a fair go, oh well, now I’ll head back to Albania/Somalia”
Or will they simply try and cross illegally? As before, but in even greater numbers?
You don’t have an answer which doesn’t make you extremely uncomfortable. So you would rather provide no answer at all. It’s a kind of cowardice
If you provide safe routes, then there is far less argument legally about those who choose not to use them.
Where are we going to deport them? We are incapable of deporting anyone because liberal lawyers go mad and Gary lineker calls you goebbels and everyone is pathetically spineless
And if we did start actually deporting those that failed the Calais asylum test then they’d all go back to destroying their documents and using the dinghies
It’s just another pitifuf non answer. It is pathetic
Where are we going to deport them to doesn't disappear as a question if you break the law to do it. But, clearly, if you do it lawfully lawyers will find it much harder to prevent.
Just address the issue without heading off into the comfortable land of liberal piffle, where you can pretend to be answering while saying absolutely nothing
If the legal routes to asylum (at Calais! Lol) prove to be genuinely tough and you genuinely deport them (again - lol) then all these economic migrants (which is what they are mainly) will go back to tearing up their passports and crossing at Calais on a dinghy
So you have achieved nothing. At some great expense and faff. I’ve given you the actual choices above
Most liberal takes seem to be mealy mouthed versions of answer 3, but with the pious hope that the British won’t complain and won’t vote in ever harder far right governments that WILL do something
It will be interesting to see Sir Kir Royale PM struggling with this problem. It will not be in his comfort zone. At all
I don't understand why a would be migrant, with the money to pay for a boat trip, doesn't instead buy some decent clothes and luggage and take a holiday in Ireland. They can then come to the UK on a ferry as a tourist with zero checks in my experience.
Exactly my thoughts some minutes before you posted.
I can only assume it is the lack of a passport or that if they have one they will get stopped getting into Ireland. Ireland not being in Schengen.
Yes, since posting that I've seen several plausible responses to Barnesian.
That's the value of PB. A test bed for one's ideas before going public with them.
The choices for the UK government regarding the Dinghy People (barring some huge change in global geopolitical trends) can be boiled down to these three:
1. Violently push back the boats. Accept that many will drown. This will be morally unacceptable to 98% of the country
2. Immediately detain and deport all those who arrive. Disallow their rights. Off they go to Rwanda or whoever we can bribe - this will be palatable to much of the country but will be loathed by many liberals (and others). Also legally difficult
3. Basically accept there’s nothing we can do. Make some futile gestures like “helping French police”. Prohibit the use of the word “dinghy”. Accept that 100,000s will cross and this number will likely grow and grow. This will enrage much of the country and possibly lead to Britain’s first serious far right party
That’s it. That’s the choice. Not good
Even on that dodgy framing (3) is superior. Certainly better than the Cons trying to head off a far right party by becoming one.
But although I usually like defeatism - it's quite underrated as a mindset imo - it's overly defeatist to assume nothing effective can be done about this issue that doesn't involve the dehumanization of vulnerable people. I'm pretty suspicious of those who say this so readily. It can be hard to distinguish a muscular, clear-sighted rejection of liberal waffle from a genuine enthusiasm for far right 'solutions' to protect 'us' from 'them' - since in polite society the second tends to dress up as the first.
If you want to go with 3 at some point you will have vigilante groups patrolling beaches and meting out "justice" just like they have on the american border. If that is what you want then by all means go for 3
You can't have government policy dictated by the worst elements in society.
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
Stopping the boats, if that's your main aim, is pretty simple. A UK asylum centre in Calais and ferry tickets to Dover.
Stopping boats without letting people in another way? Can't help you there.
Is it that simple? Will the Albanians simply give up when rejected at Calais?
Quite possibly. But it reduces the numbers of boat people, which makes it easier to catch and return those who remain.
Part of our problem at the moment is that the rate of people coming in vastly exceeds our state ability to process them.
So the UK is reduced to bloodcurdling threats that it probably can't carry out. Partly human rights law, but partly because the UK state can't reliably carry out anything. Trust me- that tends not to work.
Pitiful
Making asylum easier to claim at Calais - then giving the lucky ones tickets for the Dover Ferry - will just INCREASE the pull factor of Calais
Tens of thousands more will try. What will those that fail then do? Will they think “shit, at least the UK gave me a fair go, oh well, now I’ll head back to Albania/Somalia”
Or will they simply try and cross illegally? As before, but in even greater numbers?
You don’t have an answer which doesn’t make you extremely uncomfortable. So you would rather provide no answer at all. It’s a kind of cowardice
If you provide safe routes, then there is far less argument legally about those who choose not to use them.
Where are we going to deport them? We are incapable of deporting anyone because liberal lawyers go mad and Gary lineker calls you goebbels and everyone is pathetically spineless
And if we did start actually deporting those that failed the Calais asylum test then they’d all go back to destroying their documents and using the dinghies
It’s just another pitifuf non answer. It is pathetic
Where are we going to deport them to doesn't disappear as a question if you break the law to do it. But, clearly, if you do it lawfully lawyers will find it much harder to prevent.
Just address the issue without heading off into the comfortable land of liberal piffle, where you can pretend to be answering while saying absolutely nothing
If the legal routes to asylum (at Calais! Lol) prove to be genuinely tough and you genuinely deport them (again - lol) then all these economic migrants (which is what they are mainly) will go back to tearing up their passports and crossing at Calais on a dinghy
So you have achieved nothing. At some great expense and faff. I’ve given you the actual choices above
Most liberal takes seem to be mealy mouthed versions of answer 3, but with the pious hope that the British won’t complain and won’t vote in ever harder far right governments that WILL do something
It will be interesting to see Sir Kir Royale PM struggling with this problem. It will not be in his comfort zone. At all
I don't understand why a would be migrant, with the money to pay for a boat trip, doesn't instead buy some decent clothes and luggage and take a holiday in Ireland. They can then come to the UK on a ferry as a tourist with zero checks in my experience.
Exactly my thoughts some minutes before you posted.
I can only assume it is the lack of a passport or that if they have one they will get stopped getting into Ireland. Ireland not being in Schengen.
Yes, since posting that I've seen several plausible responses to Barnesian.
That's the value of PB. A test bed for one's ideas before going public with them.
Allegedly used that way, in times past, to float policy ideas by the Coalition government. The answer on their current legislative proposal is pretty unequivocal though.
The choices for the UK government regarding the Dinghy People (barring some huge change in global geopolitical trends) can be boiled down to these three:
1. Violently push back the boats. Accept that many will drown. This will be morally unacceptable to 98% of the country
2. Immediately detain and deport all those who arrive. Disallow their rights. Off they go to Rwanda or whoever we can bribe - this will be palatable to much of the country but will be loathed by many liberals (and others). Also legally difficult
3. Basically accept there’s nothing we can do. Make some futile gestures like “helping French police”. Prohibit the use of the word “dinghy”. Accept that 100,000s will cross and this number will likely grow and grow. This will enrage much of the country and possibly lead to Britain’s first serious far right party
That’s it. That’s the choice. Not good
Even on that dodgy framing (3) is superior. Certainly better than the Cons trying to head off a far right party by becoming one.
But although I usually like defeatism - it's quite underrated as a mindset imo - it's overly defeatist to assume nothing effective can be done about this issue that doesn't involve the dehumanization of vulnerable people. I'm pretty suspicious of those who say this so readily. It can be hard to distinguish a muscular, clear-sighted rejection of liberal waffle from a genuine enthusiasm for far right 'solutions' to protect 'us' from 'them' - since in polite society the second tends to dress up as the first.
If you want to go with 3 at some point you will have vigilante groups patrolling beaches and meting out "justice" just like they have on the american border. If that is what you want then by all means go for 3
You can't have government policy dictated by the worst elements in society.
Possibly the healthiest poolside snack imaginable. Vietnamese food is outstandingly good. There are almost no fat Vietnamese people. Love it
Ok the beer, but it’s 30C!
I used to have a Vietnamese girlfriend. She used to say the reason why their food was so good is because it was the best bits of French and Chinese cuisine.
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
I don't think you can stop them but I am pretty sure you can mitigate their effects and reduce their numbers, but that requires serious thinking, compromises and a lot more spending. It seems that the vast majority of the traffickers are situated on this side of the Channel, for example. That indicates that enforcement authorities could be doing a lot more than they are to tackle them - are they failing through lack of resources, planning, coordination, etc? Is anyone in government asking? And, as we know, the time it takes to process asylum claims is ridiculous. Tat is down to the Home Office and the people who run it. Then there are the six years of distrust and antagonism that were caused by Brexit. That will not all be undone immediately - and if it is to be done meaningfully, it cannot be done while trying to appease the ERG. And so on. What won't work is saying this is not our problem, everyone else has to handle it and we will break international law to try to get our way.
Eliminate demand.
1) all employers liable for employing undocumented (they actually are, sort off, now) 2) fine of £100k per employee. Directors personal assets liable etc. 3) 50K goes to the undocumented employee who gives evidence against the employer. In the event of a successful conviction. 4) indefinite leave to remain also granted to the employee on conviction of the employer.
The Tory Party donors do not like this one.....I wonder why......
When employers have cooperated with the police/immigration to highlight undocumented workers, they have met with a wall of abuse from the Left.
The difference with my suggestion is paying for the information. Which will increase the reporting/prosecuting rate to 100%
Every ambulance chasing solicitor will be on this like a tramp on chips.
Average fine of £5k if caught will not change the economic incenvtives for those who are not motivated by morals or the law. Make it £100k per employee and the incentives change.
Let them work. We need them.
If they are working illegally - the government isn't seeing the income tax revenue
Make it legal. Make it easy to get an NI number. We are short of people of working age.
no we are short of people of working age with sufficient incentive to actually work.
As a start quit preventing people working more hours by taxing them at 80% if they dare to have a part time job and start working more hours - heading to full time employment.
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
I don't think you can stop them but I am pretty sure you can mitigate their effects and reduce their numbers, but that requires serious thinking, compromises and a lot more spending. It seems that the vast majority of the traffickers are situated on this side of the Channel, for example. That indicates that enforcement authorities could be doing a lot more than they are to tackle them - are they failing through lack of resources, planning, coordination, etc? Is anyone in government asking? And, as we know, the time it takes to process asylum claims is ridiculous. Tat is down to the Home Office and the people who run it. Then there are the six years of distrust and antagonism that were caused by Brexit. That will not all be undone immediately - and if it is to be done meaningfully, it cannot be done while trying to appease the ERG. And so on. What won't work is saying this is not our problem, everyone else has to handle it and we will break international law to try to get our way.
Eliminate demand.
1) all employers liable for employing undocumented (they actually are, sort off, now) 2) fine of £100k per employee. Directors personal assets liable etc. 3) 50K goes to the undocumented employee who gives evidence against the employer. In the event of a successful conviction. 4) indefinite leave to remain also granted to the employee on conviction of the employer.
The Tory Party donors do not like this one.....I wonder why......
When employers have cooperated with the police/immigration to highlight undocumented workers, they have met with a wall of abuse from the Left.
The difference with my suggestion is paying for the information. Which will increase the reporting/prosecuting rate to 100%
Every ambulance chasing solicitor will be on this like a tramp on chips.
Average fine of £5k if caught will not change the economic incenvtives for those who are not motivated by morals or the law. Make it £100k per employee and the incentives change.
Let them work. We need them.
If they are working illegally - the government isn't seeing the income tax revenue
Make it legal. Make it easy to get an NI number. We are short of people of working age.
no we are short of people of working age with sufficient incentive to actually work.
I suspect immigrants, who have made the effort to come here, will have a greater incentive to work than many Brits.
Suspect all you want doesn't make it true however, pakistan, bangladesh for example have unemployment rates about 3 times higher than white british just as an example
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
Stopping the boats, if that's your main aim, is pretty simple. A UK asylum centre in Calais and ferry tickets to Dover.
Stopping boats without letting people in another way? Can't help you there.
Is it that simple? Will the Albanians simply give up when rejected at Calais?
Quite possibly. But it reduces the numbers of boat people, which makes it easier to catch and return those who remain.
Part of our problem at the moment is that the rate of people coming in vastly exceeds our state ability to process them.
So the UK is reduced to bloodcurdling threats that it probably can't carry out. Partly human rights law, but partly because the UK state can't reliably carry out anything. Trust me- that tends not to work.
Pitiful
Making asylum easier to claim at Calais - then giving the lucky ones tickets for the Dover Ferry - will just INCREASE the pull factor of Calais
Tens of thousands more will try. What will those that fail then do? Will they think “shit, at least the UK gave me a fair go, oh well, now I’ll head back to Albania/Somalia”
Or will they simply try and cross illegally? As before, but in even greater numbers?
You don’t have an answer which doesn’t make you extremely uncomfortable. So you would rather provide no answer at all. It’s a kind of cowardice
If you provide safe routes, then there is far less argument legally about those who choose not to use them.
Where are we going to deport them? We are incapable of deporting anyone because liberal lawyers go mad and Gary lineker calls you goebbels and everyone is pathetically spineless
And if we did start actually deporting those that failed the Calais asylum test then they’d all go back to destroying their documents and using the dinghies
It’s just another pitifuf non answer. It is pathetic
Where are we going to deport them to doesn't disappear as a question if you break the law to do it. But, clearly, if you do it lawfully lawyers will find it much harder to prevent.
Just address the issue without heading off into the comfortable land of liberal piffle, where you can pretend to be answering while saying absolutely nothing
If the legal routes to asylum (at Calais! Lol) prove to be genuinely tough and you genuinely deport them (again - lol) then all these economic migrants (which is what they are mainly) will go back to tearing up their passports and crossing at Calais on a dinghy
So you have achieved nothing. At some great expense and faff. I’ve given you the actual choices above
Most liberal takes seem to be mealy mouthed versions of answer 3, but with the pious hope that the British won’t complain and won’t vote in ever harder far right governments that WILL do something
It will be interesting to see Sir Kir Royale PM struggling with this problem. It will not be in his comfort zone. At all
I don't understand why a would be migrant, with the money to pay for a boat trip, doesn't instead buy some decent clothes and luggage and take a holiday in Ireland. They can then come to the UK on a ferry as a tourist with zero checks in my experience.
Exactly my thoughts some minutes before you posted.
I can only assume it is the lack of a passport or that if they have one they will get stopped getting into Ireland. Ireland not being in Schengen.
Some in Ireland are more worried about migrants getting into their country through the UK, as we apparently can't stop them.
The choices for the UK government regarding the Dinghy People (barring some huge change in global geopolitical trends) can be boiled down to these three:
1. Violently push back the boats. Accept that many will drown. This will be morally unacceptable to 98% of the country
2. Immediately detain and deport all those who arrive. Disallow their rights. Off they go to Rwanda or whoever we can bribe - this will be palatable to much of the country but will be loathed by many liberals (and others). Also legally difficult
3. Basically accept there’s nothing we can do. Make some futile gestures like “helping French police”. Prohibit the use of the word “dinghy”. Accept that 100,000s will cross and this number will likely grow and grow. This will enrage much of the country and possibly lead to Britain’s first serious far right party
That’s it. That’s the choice. Not good
Taking these as the choice set facing the govt, the position is that Sunak/Braverman are trying 2, while Starmer/Cooper are advocating 3. In terms of positioning for the forthcoming GE the Tories have made the right choice.
What is this palpable error rule - and can I claim some of my bets back under it ? Not a few were indeed palpable errors.
I have actually claimed back a bet under the palpable error rule once before.
On Smarkets in a binary Yes/No field I once placed a bet but got the odds and the stake fields backwards, meaning I laid the heavy odds-on favourite at odds of 20 and stake of 1.2 instead of odds of 1.2 and stake of 20 or something like that. Their automation system then automatically matched all the money I'd mistakenly put down and then sent the market back to what it was before my bet.
A market I was trading at a three figure guaranteed profit at the time, suddenly became a three figure guaranteed loss due that!
I immediately spoke to Smarkets Live Chat to try to get the bet reversed, but they refused to do so but after much discussion the customer support agent mentioned the palpable error rule. I sent in an email, and after a review they confirmed it was clearly a palpable error so voided my bet. It probably helped in my instance that you could clearly see the numbers were transposed and that I got in touch immediately and not after the result came in.
I always feel sorry for Lib Dem leaders. They are almost always the party leaders with whom I am in the most agreement personally, but due to the party membership they are much more constrained in their freedom to act and choose policy than the Conservative and even Labour leaders. Whereas Labour and Tory leaders tend to have themselves to blame for policy paradoxes, the Lib Dem leaders have policies forced upon them by the membership. They probably need a less democratic structure if they want to succeed more on a national level.
A significant part of their current political success is down to Villiers-style NIMBYism, but many of the party's MPs must be a little conflicted by it. It comes of being a smaller party, reliant on local rather than national campaigning, and thus needing to magnify narrow local concerns over what may be a greater national interest. There isn't really a way for the Lib Dems to dump NIMBYism without dumping the NIMBY campaigners, who are now a significant part of their voter base, but it is very anti-liberal as a policy.
This NIMBY problem was encapsulated by (the MP who ran against Sir Ed for the leadership but fortunately did not win) Layla Moran who, having campaigned against any housebuilding in or around her constituency, proceeded to bemoan recently the lack of housing for Ukrainian refugees.
Another issue is the EU debate. Should the Lib Dems campaign on 're-joining' the EU whoesale? Many of its members would like this to be the case but, if this is the party's raison d'etre, it ends up overriding everything else and essentially bars them from coalition with either main party at the moment. An official policy supporting EFTA entry (though not as a condition of supporting either main party) might be the best solution here, as it does not involve the upheaval of potential EU re-entry and does not conflict with any potential CPTPP entry.
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
Stopping the boats, if that's your main aim, is pretty simple. A UK asylum centre in Calais and ferry tickets to Dover.
Stopping boats without letting people in another way? Can't help you there.
Is it that simple? Will the Albanians simply give up when rejected at Calais?
Quite possibly. But it reduces the numbers of boat people, which makes it easier to catch and return those who remain.
Part of our problem at the moment is that the rate of people coming in vastly exceeds our state ability to process them.
So the UK is reduced to bloodcurdling threats that it probably can't carry out. Partly human rights law, but partly because the UK state can't reliably carry out anything. Trust me- that tends not to work.
Pitiful
Making asylum easier to claim at Calais - then giving the lucky ones tickets for the Dover Ferry - will just INCREASE the pull factor of Calais
Tens of thousands more will try. What will those that fail then do? Will they think “shit, at least the UK gave me a fair go, oh well, now I’ll head back to Albania/Somalia”
Or will they simply try and cross illegally? As before, but in even greater numbers?
You don’t have an answer which doesn’t make you extremely uncomfortable. So you would rather provide no answer at all. It’s a kind of cowardice
If you provide safe routes, then there is far less argument legally about those who choose not to use them.
Where are we going to deport them? We are incapable of deporting anyone because liberal lawyers go mad and Gary lineker calls you goebbels and everyone is pathetically spineless
And if we did start actually deporting those that failed the Calais asylum test then they’d all go back to destroying their documents and using the dinghies
It’s just another pitifuf non answer. It is pathetic
Where are we going to deport them to doesn't disappear as a question if you break the law to do it. But, clearly, if you do it lawfully lawyers will find it much harder to prevent.
Just address the issue without heading off into the comfortable land of liberal piffle, where you can pretend to be answering while saying absolutely nothing
If the legal routes to asylum (at Calais! Lol) prove to be genuinely tough and you genuinely deport them (again - lol) then all these economic migrants (which is what they are mainly) will go back to tearing up their passports and crossing at Calais on a dinghy
So you have achieved nothing. At some great expense and faff. I’ve given you the actual choices above
Most liberal takes seem to be mealy mouthed versions of answer 3, but with the pious hope that the British won’t complain and won’t vote in ever harder far right governments that WILL do something
It will be interesting to see Sir Kir Royale PM struggling with this problem. It will not be in his comfort zone. At all
I don't understand why a would be migrant, with the money to pay for a boat trip, doesn't instead buy some decent clothes and luggage and take a holiday in Ireland. They can then come to the UK on a ferry as a tourist with zero checks in my experience.
Exactly my thoughts some minutes before you posted.
I can only assume it is the lack of a passport or that if they have one they will get stopped getting into Ireland. Ireland not being in Schengen.
Yes, since posting that I've seen several plausible responses to Barnesian.
That's the value of PB. A test bed for one's ideas before going public with them.
I once (although probably more than that) came out with something that got slaughtered here. I posted an apology the next day claiming my account had got hijacked. It could have happened.
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
Stopping the boats, if that's your main aim, is pretty simple. A UK asylum centre in Calais and ferry tickets to Dover.
Stopping boats without letting people in another way? Can't help you there.
Is it that simple? Will the Albanians simply give up when rejected at Calais?
Quite possibly. But it reduces the numbers of boat people, which makes it easier to catch and return those who remain.
Part of our problem at the moment is that the rate of people coming in vastly exceeds our state ability to process them.
So the UK is reduced to bloodcurdling threats that it probably can't carry out. Partly human rights law, but partly because the UK state can't reliably carry out anything. Trust me- that tends not to work.
Pitiful
Making asylum easier to claim at Calais - then giving the lucky ones tickets for the Dover Ferry - will just INCREASE the pull factor of Calais
Tens of thousands more will try. What will those that fail then do? Will they think “shit, at least the UK gave me a fair go, oh well, now I’ll head back to Albania/Somalia”
Or will they simply try and cross illegally? As before, but in even greater numbers?
You don’t have an answer which doesn’t make you extremely uncomfortable. So you would rather provide no answer at all. It’s a kind of cowardice
If you provide safe routes, then there is far less argument legally about those who choose not to use them.
Where are we going to deport them? We are incapable of deporting anyone because liberal lawyers go mad and Gary lineker calls you goebbels and everyone is pathetically spineless
And if we did start actually deporting those that failed the Calais asylum test then they’d all go back to destroying their documents and using the dinghies
It’s just another pitifuf non answer. It is pathetic
Liberal lawyers going mad or staying sane does not change the law.
If you want the policy objectives that the govt is pushing with their policy you need to be angry with the govt for not leaving the refugee convention not liberal lawyers.
I have not read the proposed Bill or much of the news regarding it so can't comment specifically on the proposed Bill.
However Australia is in the Refugee Convention and has had a similar policy before. Which was ruled legal by its domestic Courts. And the policy has worked in its objectives.
If you disagree with the policy, then that should be a matter for political debate, not legal arguments. If Parliament passes a law saying this is legal, then that should be the law, just as it was elsewhere.
You dont need my opinion, the government does not think it legal!
Has the Government put a "notwithstanding" clause in?
If so, then its legal, is it not?
Get Betfair to put a market up and happy to accommodate backers of legal.
Parliament sets the law. If Parliament says something is legal, then it is legal.
Men marrying other men wasn't legal. Parliament changed the law, now it is. That is what Parliament is for.
Have you heard of international law?
Yes. Its a bad joke.
Parliament can override international law.
It can't override it, it can legislate to make it unenforceable in the UK. The UK then lives with the consequences of that because the international law still exists. In the case of the illegal immigration legislation, though, the government is saying it is not acting contrary to international law or seeking to make it unenforceable.
We live with the consequences then, if that is what we choose to do, that is a matter for politics not lawyers.
If Parliament passes a Bill overriding international law domestically, eg by legalising cannabis which I wholeheartedly support in violation of international law, then there are no international courts that can override the UK Parliament. Nor should there be.
Or the UN Declaration on Human Rights, that asserts the rights of all human beings to live in dignity regardless of ethnic origin, or the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Or the Geneva Conventions. Do you think the sovereign body in any sovereign country ought to be able to renege on any international law it wishes to, so long as it only does so domestically? So for example the Brazilian parliament could decide to exterminate the Yanomami people and they shouldn't be held responsible before an international court if they did?
Yes I 100% think any sovereign body ought to be able to renege on any international law it wishes to do so, domestically.
If the Brazilian Parliament chose to exterminate a people then that would be a matter for international relations to resolve, not lawyers or courts. Just as China's acts of genocide against the Rohingya and others.
A genuinely robust international legal system that punishes and deters such atrocities, regardless of who commits them and where they happen, is a challenging aspiration, but it's a bit odd to say it isn't a worthwhile one.
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
Stopping the boats, if that's your main aim, is pretty simple. A UK asylum centre in Calais and ferry tickets to Dover.
Stopping boats without letting people in another way? Can't help you there.
Is it that simple? Will the Albanians simply give up when rejected at Calais?
Quite possibly. But it reduces the numbers of boat people, which makes it easier to catch and return those who remain.
Part of our problem at the moment is that the rate of people coming in vastly exceeds our state ability to process them.
So the UK is reduced to bloodcurdling threats that it probably can't carry out. Partly human rights law, but partly because the UK state can't reliably carry out anything. Trust me- that tends not to work.
Pitiful
Making asylum easier to claim at Calais - then giving the lucky ones tickets for the Dover Ferry - will just INCREASE the pull factor of Calais
Tens of thousands more will try. What will those that fail then do? Will they think “shit, at least the UK gave me a fair go, oh well, now I’ll head back to Albania/Somalia”
Or will they simply try and cross illegally? As before, but in even greater numbers?
You don’t have an answer which doesn’t make you extremely uncomfortable. So you would rather provide no answer at all. It’s a kind of cowardice
If you provide safe routes, then there is far less argument legally about those who choose not to use them.
Where are we going to deport them? We are incapable of deporting anyone because liberal lawyers go mad and Gary lineker calls you goebbels and everyone is pathetically spineless
And if we did start actually deporting those that failed the Calais asylum test then they’d all go back to destroying their documents and using the dinghies
It’s just another pitifuf non answer. It is pathetic
Liberal lawyers going mad or staying sane does not change the law.
If you want the policy objectives that the govt is pushing with their policy you need to be angry with the govt for not leaving the refugee convention not liberal lawyers.
I have not read the proposed Bill or much of the news regarding it so can't comment specifically on the proposed Bill.
However Australia is in the Refugee Convention and has had a similar policy before. Which was ruled legal by its domestic Courts. And the policy has worked in its objectives.
If you disagree with the policy, then that should be a matter for political debate, not legal arguments. If Parliament passes a law saying this is legal, then that should be the law, just as it was elsewhere.
You dont need my opinion, the government does not think it legal!
Has the Government put a "notwithstanding" clause in?
If so, then its legal, is it not?
Get Betfair to put a market up and happy to accommodate backers of legal.
Parliament sets the law. If Parliament says something is legal, then it is legal.
Men marrying other men wasn't legal. Parliament changed the law, now it is. That is what Parliament is for.
Have you heard of international law?
Yes. Its a bad joke.
Parliament can override international law.
It can't override it, it can legislate to make it unenforceable in the UK. The UK then lives with the consequences of that because the international law still exists. In the case of the illegal immigration legislation, though, the government is saying it is not acting contrary to international law or seeking to make it unenforceable.
We live with the consequences then, if that is what we choose to do, that is a matter for politics not lawyers.
If Parliament passes a Bill overriding international law domestically, eg by legalising cannabis which I wholeheartedly support in violation of international law, then there are no international courts that can override the UK Parliament. Nor should there be.
Or the UN Declaration on Human Rights, that asserts the rights of all human beings to live in dignity regardless of ethnic origin, or the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Or the Geneva Conventions. Do you think the sovereign body in any sovereign country ought to be able to renege on any international law it wishes to, so long as it only does so domestically? So for example the Brazilian parliament could decide to exterminate the Yanomami people and they shouldn't be held responsible before an international court if they did?
Yes I 100% think any sovereign body ought to be able to renege on any international law it wishes to do so, domestically.
You mean like Russia within its own borders (which according to Russia include half of Ukraine)?
Robert Jenrick has demanded Lineker is sacked. Richard Sharpe and Tim Davie own the BBC who are now investigating. In my view Lineker is toast!
The usual suspects: it's ridiculous to suggest that the BBC is a state broadcaster Members of HMG: SACK THAT SPORTS PRESENTER FOR CRITICISING THE GOVERNMENT OF HMG!!!
Removing critical voices in the media definitely not the kind of thing the Nazis would do, so outrageous that Lineker compared the government to the Nazis.
Lineker is blurring the lines between his job and his opinions on political matters of the day. Surely he has earned enough from the BBC to be able to give up the day job and stand for Parliament? Everybody happy....
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
I don't think you can stop them but I am pretty sure you can mitigate their effects and reduce their numbers, but that requires serious thinking, compromises and a lot more spending. It seems that the vast majority of the traffickers are situated on this side of the Channel, for example. That indicates that enforcement authorities could be doing a lot more than they are to tackle them - are they failing through lack of resources, planning, coordination, etc? Is anyone in government asking? And, as we know, the time it takes to process asylum claims is ridiculous. Tat is down to the Home Office and the people who run it. Then there are the six years of distrust and antagonism that were caused by Brexit. That will not all be undone immediately - and if it is to be done meaningfully, it cannot be done while trying to appease the ERG. And so on. What won't work is saying this is not our problem, everyone else has to handle it and we will break international law to try to get our way.
Eliminate demand.
1) all employers liable for employing undocumented (they actually are, sort off, now) 2) fine of £100k per employee. Directors personal assets liable etc. 3) 50K goes to the undocumented employee who gives evidence against the employer. In the event of a successful conviction. 4) indefinite leave to remain also granted to the employee on conviction of the employer.
The Tory Party donors do not like this one.....I wonder why......
When employers have cooperated with the police/immigration to highlight undocumented workers, they have met with a wall of abuse from the Left.
The difference with my suggestion is paying for the information. Which will increase the reporting/prosecuting rate to 100%
Every ambulance chasing solicitor will be on this like a tramp on chips.
Average fine of £5k if caught will not change the economic incenvtives for those who are not motivated by morals or the law. Make it £100k per employee and the incentives change.
Let them work. We need them.
If they are working illegally - the government isn't seeing the income tax revenue
Make it legal. Make it easy to get an NI number. We are short of people of working age.
no we are short of people of working age with sufficient incentive to actually work.
Countries should be concentrating on policies focussed on coping with a declining population because immigration is nothing more than a ponzi scheme
I agree with that and I don't think the answer is encouraging people to have more babies but finding ways of coping with a population that gets older. I know it is an economic nightmare but it is better than climate change, scarcity of water and all the problems overpopulation brings.
In an ideal world I would like to see free movement, but until all countries become similarly equal economies that is also impossible.
If we as a country had infinite resources then I would be happy with open borders. We don't however and we already have a population of sufficient size to put pressure on water, housing and services. Two of those 3 we could do something about it is true by building more and taxing more. However we cannot make more rain fall and if anything predictions are we will get less rain over time.
Water scarcity is going to be the 21st century problem for a lot of countries
Possibly the healthiest poolside snack imaginable. Vietnamese food is outstandingly good. There are almost no fat Vietnamese people. Love it
Ok the beer, but it’s 30C!
I used to have a Vietnamese girlfriend. She used to say the reason why their food was so good is because it was the best bits of French and Chinese cuisine.
I recall a Vietnamese/French fusion resteraunt opening in Oxford - everyone was saying, hang on, isn't that duplication?
I dislike this policy, which seems government by headline rather than law. I dislike Lineker's reaction, which is ludicrously over the top and demeans himself. And I dislike Jenrick's response, which is excessively harsh.
Will there be a fourth domino in this line of nincompoopery?
Susannah Reid humiliated Dame Suella Braverman on GMB. Send her to Rwanda with Lineker!
Alas, the palpable error rule protects bookmakers, not punters.
What is this palpable error rule - and can I claim some of my bets back under it ? Not a few were indeed palpable errors.
Alas, the palpable error rule protects bookmakers, not punters.
The palpable error rule was intended to cover things like the cashier accidentally writing the wrong price on a betting slip, but is often used (and cynics might say was so designed) to cover any offer deigned after the fact to have been too generous.
I dislike this policy, which seems government by headline rather than law. I dislike Lineker's reaction, which is ludicrously over the top and demeans himself. And I dislike Jenrick's response, which is excessively harsh.
Will there be a fourth domino in this line of nincompoopery?
Has Lineker been tweeting again?
He's deleted his tweet apparently
Robbie Gibb is going to delete his career. Cancel these Remainer traitors!
If the boss says it's nothing to worry about then @Leon must have been wrong that it was something to worry about. Bosses never lie. He was right about it happening though.
The Register adds:- Reach [owner of Mirror, Express and countless local rags] isn't the only publisher rolling out AI-generated articles while reducing its count of human reporters. CNET owner Red Ventures laid off scribes last week and has promised to double down on machine-written content despite complaints that those articles contained errors and plagiarism.
Meanwhile, BuzzFeed has produced quizzes with the help of ChatGPT, and Arena Group published botched health-related articles for Men's Health. Both publishers have also axed employees – in December 2022 and February 2023, respectively. https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/08/uk_publisher_using_ai/
Given the skill level of ChatGPT - this will be churnalism. The regurgitation of stuff from the internet after passing it through a travesty generator. The generator was previously a "journalist'. It is now ChatGPT. Here were produced rubbishy newspapers containing almost nothing except sport, crime and astrology, sensational five-cent novelettes, films oozing with sex, and sentimental songs which were composed entirely by mechanical means on a special kind of kaleidoscope known as a versificator.
Mr. Driver, sorry for the slow reply, been doing a spot of work.
Yes, Lineker likened the new bill to Germany in the 1930s.
Mr. Pete, Braverman is a muppet. It's also incredibly distasteful, and disturbing, to see the rising use of terms like 'betrayal' for those who hold a different political perspective.
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
Stopping the boats, if that's your main aim, is pretty simple. A UK asylum centre in Calais and ferry tickets to Dover.
Stopping boats without letting people in another way? Can't help you there.
Is it that simple? Will the Albanians simply give up when rejected at Calais?
Quite possibly. But it reduces the numbers of boat people, which makes it easier to catch and return those who remain.
Part of our problem at the moment is that the rate of people coming in vastly exceeds our state ability to process them.
So the UK is reduced to bloodcurdling threats that it probably can't carry out. Partly human rights law, but partly because the UK state can't reliably carry out anything. Trust me- that tends not to work.
Pitiful
Making asylum easier to claim at Calais - then giving the lucky ones tickets for the Dover Ferry - will just INCREASE the pull factor of Calais
Tens of thousands more will try. What will those that fail then do? Will they think “shit, at least the UK gave me a fair go, oh well, now I’ll head back to Albania/Somalia”
Or will they simply try and cross illegally? As before, but in even greater numbers?
You don’t have an answer which doesn’t make you extremely uncomfortable. So you would rather provide no answer at all. It’s a kind of cowardice
If you provide safe routes, then there is far less argument legally about those who choose not to use them.
Where are we going to deport them? We are incapable of deporting anyone because liberal lawyers go mad and Gary lineker calls you goebbels and everyone is pathetically spineless
And if we did start actually deporting those that failed the Calais asylum test then they’d all go back to destroying their documents and using the dinghies
It’s just another pitifuf non answer. It is pathetic
Liberal lawyers going mad or staying sane does not change the law.
If you want the policy objectives that the govt is pushing with their policy you need to be angry with the govt for not leaving the refugee convention not liberal lawyers.
I have not read the proposed Bill or much of the news regarding it so can't comment specifically on the proposed Bill.
However Australia is in the Refugee Convention and has had a similar policy before. Which was ruled legal by its domestic Courts. And the policy has worked in its objectives.
If you disagree with the policy, then that should be a matter for political debate, not legal arguments. If Parliament passes a law saying this is legal, then that should be the law, just as it was elsewhere.
You dont need my opinion, the government does not think it legal!
Has the Government put a "notwithstanding" clause in?
If so, then its legal, is it not?
Get Betfair to put a market up and happy to accommodate backers of legal.
Parliament sets the law. If Parliament says something is legal, then it is legal.
Men marrying other men wasn't legal. Parliament changed the law, now it is. That is what Parliament is for.
Have you heard of international law?
Yes. Its a bad joke.
Parliament can override international law.
It can't override it, it can legislate to make it unenforceable in the UK. The UK then lives with the consequences of that because the international law still exists. In the case of the illegal immigration legislation, though, the government is saying it is not acting contrary to international law or seeking to make it unenforceable.
We live with the consequences then, if that is what we choose to do, that is a matter for politics not lawyers.
If Parliament passes a Bill overriding international law domestically, eg by legalising cannabis which I wholeheartedly support in violation of international law, then there are no international courts that can override the UK Parliament. Nor should there be.
Or the UN Declaration on Human Rights, that asserts the rights of all human beings to live in dignity regardless of ethnic origin, or the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Or the Geneva Conventions. Do you think the sovereign body in any sovereign country ought to be able to renege on any international law it wishes to, so long as it only does so domestically? So for example the Brazilian parliament could decide to exterminate the Yanomami people and they shouldn't be held responsible before an international court if they did?
Yes I 100% think any sovereign body ought to be able to renege on any international law it wishes to do so, domestically.
If the Brazilian Parliament chose to exterminate a people then that would be a matter for international relations to resolve, not lawyers or courts. Just as China's acts of genocide against the Rohingya and others.
A genuinely robust international legal system that punishes and deters such atrocities, regardless of who commits them and where they happen, is a challenging aspiration, but it's a bit odd to say it isn't a worthwhile one.
Its not a worthwhile one, because the meaning of atrocity changes. The problem is what's good today can be awful in the future, or vice-versa/
The law should be a living, breathing, and most importantly evolving body - which is what Parliament is for.
If you go back just ten years it was illegal for two men to marry each other in Scotland. If you go back ~fifty years it was illegal for two men to love each other and could result in imprisonment. If you go back hundreds of years, it could result in execution.
You operate as if international law is "good" so should be set in stone, but the law has never been that way. Ossifying laws in stone is how you end up with the madness that is the US Second Amendment and routine mass murder in schools. Ossifying laws in stone is how you end up with gays being stoned to death.
If an international law signed in the 50s put a prohibition on same sex marriage, then I think Parliament would be well within its rights to say that notwithstanding the law we are legalising it. If an international law signed in the 18th century had a Second Amendment style ruling then following Dunblane I'd think that Parliament is perfectly entitled to say that the law needs to change.
We should seek to tackle atrocities internationally, but that needs to be done via international relations, not laws locking in the views of the past to be enforced in the future.
Robert Jenrick has demanded Lineker is sacked. Richard Sharpe and Tim Davie own the BBC who are now investigating. In my view Lineker is toast!
The usual suspects: it's ridiculous to suggest that the BBC is a state broadcaster Members of HMG: SACK THAT SPORTS PRESENTER FOR CRITICISING THE GOVERNMENT OF HMG!!!
Removing critical voices in the media definitely not the kind of thing the Nazis would do, so outrageous that Lineker compared the government to the Nazis.
Lineker is blurring the lines between his job and his opinions on political matters of the day. Surely he has earned enough from the BBC to be able to give up the day job and stand for Parliament? Everybody happy....
Better still why don't you stand for the Throw Lineker out of the BBC and Abolish the BBC While You're At It Party.
Both of you happy.
Why do think abolishing the BBC would make me happy? Abolishing the Licence Fee, on the other hand, forcing the BBC to face the new viewer reality - then you might be talking....
The choices for the UK government regarding the Dinghy People (barring some huge change in global geopolitical trends) can be boiled down to these three:
1. Violently push back the boats. Accept that many will drown. This will be morally unacceptable to 98% of the country
2. Immediately detain and deport all those who arrive. Disallow their rights. Off they go to Rwanda or whoever we can bribe - this will be palatable to much of the country but will be loathed by many liberals (and others). Also legally difficult
3. Basically accept there’s nothing we can do. Make some futile gestures like “helping French police”. Prohibit the use of the word “dinghy”. Accept that 100,000s will cross and this number will likely grow and grow. This will enrage much of the country and possibly lead to Britain’s first serious far right party
That’s it. That’s the choice. Not good
Even on that dodgy framing (3) is superior. Certainly better than the Cons trying to head off a far right party by becoming one.
But although I usually like defeatism - it's quite underrated as a mindset imo - it's overly defeatist to assume nothing effective can be done about this issue that doesn't involve the dehumanization of vulnerable people. I'm pretty suspicious of those who say this so readily. It can be hard to distinguish a muscular, clear-sighted rejection of liberal waffle from a genuine enthusiasm for far right 'solutions' to protect 'us' from 'them' - since in polite society the second tends to dress up as the first.
If you want to go with 3 at some point you will have vigilante groups patrolling beaches and meting out "justice" just like they have on the american border. If that is what you want then by all means go for 3
You can't have government policy dictated by the worst elements in society.
Ah you mean by worst the poor who find their share of the pie ever more diminished when they have to share it with ever more people? Does it ever seem strange to you that most of the bleeding hearts crying let them all in come from area's that aren't particulary impacted by ever more people whereas those living in poorer areas find their rent ever increasing for substandard accomodation and their services stretched to cope with ever more people?
Getting disadvantaged people to blame it on foreigners is a textbook technique of the far right. I'd rather it stayed in the textbooks.
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
I don't think you can stop them but I am pretty sure you can mitigate their effects and reduce their numbers, but that requires serious thinking, compromises and a lot more spending. It seems that the vast majority of the traffickers are situated on this side of the Channel, for example. That indicates that enforcement authorities could be doing a lot more than they are to tackle them - are they failing through lack of resources, planning, coordination, etc? Is anyone in government asking? And, as we know, the time it takes to process asylum claims is ridiculous. Tat is down to the Home Office and the people who run it. Then there are the six years of distrust and antagonism that were caused by Brexit. That will not all be undone immediately - and if it is to be done meaningfully, it cannot be done while trying to appease the ERG. And so on. What won't work is saying this is not our problem, everyone else has to handle it and we will break international law to try to get our way.
Eliminate demand.
1) all employers liable for employing undocumented (they actually are, sort off, now) 2) fine of £100k per employee. Directors personal assets liable etc. 3) 50K goes to the undocumented employee who gives evidence against the employer. In the event of a successful conviction. 4) indefinite leave to remain also granted to the employee on conviction of the employer.
The Tory Party donors do not like this one.....I wonder why......
When employers have cooperated with the police/immigration to highlight undocumented workers, they have met with a wall of abuse from the Left.
The difference with my suggestion is paying for the information. Which will increase the reporting/prosecuting rate to 100%
Every ambulance chasing solicitor will be on this like a tramp on chips.
Average fine of £5k if caught will not change the economic incenvtives for those who are not motivated by morals or the law. Make it £100k per employee and the incentives change.
Let them work. We need them.
If they are working illegally - the government isn't seeing the income tax revenue
Make it legal. Make it easy to get an NI number. We are short of people of working age.
no we are short of people of working age with sufficient incentive to actually work.
Countries should be concentrating on policies focussed on coping with a declining population because immigration is nothing more than a ponzi scheme
I agree with that and I don't think the answer is encouraging people to have more babies but finding ways of coping with a population that gets older. I know it is an economic nightmare but it is better than climate change, scarcity of water and all the problems overpopulation brings.
In an ideal world I would like to see free movement, but until all countries become similarly equal economies that is also impossible.
If we as a country had infinite resources then I would be happy with open borders. We don't however and we already have a population of sufficient size to put pressure on water, housing and services. Two of those 3 we could do something about it is true by building more and taxing more. However we cannot make more rain fall and if anything predictions are we will get less rain over time.
Water scarcity is going to be the 21st century problem for a lot of countries
Even at vastly reduced rainfall levels, we have plenty of water. The problem is that it tends to fall at certain times of year. So we need to time shift the water. To spread its availability through the year.
Try to get permission to create more reservoirs or enlarge existing ones...
Each person uses 55 tons of water per year (roughly). Sounds a lot. But if your reservoir is 10m deep, that is a 2.35m * 2.35m. For an entire year of water.
Robert Jenrick has demanded Lineker is sacked. Richard Sharpe and Tim Davie own the BBC who are now investigating. In my view Lineker is toast!
The usual suspects: it's ridiculous to suggest that the BBC is a state broadcaster Members of HMG: SACK THAT SPORTS PRESENTER FOR CRITICISING THE GOVERNMENT OF HMG!!!
Removing critical voices in the media definitely not the kind of thing the Nazis would do, so outrageous that Lineker compared the government to the Nazis.
Lineker is blurring the lines between his job and his opinions on political matters of the day. Surely he has earned enough from the BBC to be able to give up the day job and stand for Parliament? Everybody happy....
Better still why don't you stand for the Throw Lineker out of the BBC and Abolish the BBC While You're At It Party.
Both of you happy.
Why do think abolishing the BBC would make me happy? Abolishing the Licence Fee, on the other hand, forcing the BBC to face the new viewer reality - then you might be talking....
Strangely I had a knock on the door yesterday from someone from tv licensing. He walked away the minute I started recording him
I watched a news program yesterday and they interviewed a few women from Dover saying they wanted the immigrants stopped. Finding a more mean faced collection of harridans would have stretched Central Casting. Are the English really like that or are they selected by subversive researchers who share Gary Lineker's views?
If the boss says it's nothing to worry about then @Leon must have been wrong that it was something to worry about. Bosses never lie. He was right about it happening though.
The Register adds:- Reach [owner of Mirror, Express and countless local rags] isn't the only publisher rolling out AI-generated articles while reducing its count of human reporters. CNET owner Red Ventures laid off scribes last week and has promised to double down on machine-written content despite complaints that those articles contained errors and plagiarism.
Meanwhile, BuzzFeed has produced quizzes with the help of ChatGPT, and Arena Group published botched health-related articles for Men's Health. Both publishers have also axed employees – in December 2022 and February 2023, respectively. https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/08/uk_publisher_using_ai/
Given the skill level of ChatGPT - this will be churnalism. The regurgitation of stuff from the internet after passing it through a travesty generator. The generator was previously a "journalist'. It is now ChatGPT. Here were produced rubbishy newspapers containing almost nothing except sport, crime and astrology, sensational five-cent novelettes, films oozing with sex, and sentimental songs which were composed entirely by mechanical means on a special kind of kaleidoscope known as a versificator.
The reason local papers are full of crime stories, and this has been true for decades, is that press agencies send them newsfeeds from the courts and not because the Dunny-on-the-Wold Advertiser has a reporter on every street corner looking out for old ladies being mugged (or these days, younger women having their mobile phones snatched out of their hands).
The choices for the UK government regarding the Dinghy People (barring some huge change in global geopolitical trends) can be boiled down to these three:
1. Violently push back the boats. Accept that many will drown. This will be morally unacceptable to 98% of the country
2. Immediately detain and deport all those who arrive. Disallow their rights. Off they go to Rwanda or whoever we can bribe - this will be palatable to much of the country but will be loathed by many liberals (and others). Also legally difficult
3. Basically accept there’s nothing we can do. Make some futile gestures like “helping French police”. Prohibit the use of the word “dinghy”. Accept that 100,000s will cross and this number will likely grow and grow. This will enrage much of the country and possibly lead to Britain’s first serious far right party
That’s it. That’s the choice. Not good
Even on that dodgy framing (3) is superior. Certainly better than the Cons trying to head off a far right party by becoming one.
But although I usually like defeatism - it's quite underrated as a mindset imo - it's overly defeatist to assume nothing effective can be done about this issue that doesn't involve the dehumanization of vulnerable people. I'm pretty suspicious of those who say this so readily. It can be hard to distinguish a muscular, clear-sighted rejection of liberal waffle from a genuine enthusiasm for far right 'solutions' to protect 'us' from 'them' - since in polite society the second tends to dress up as the first.
If you want to go with 3 at some point you will have vigilante groups patrolling beaches and meting out "justice" just like they have on the american border. If that is what you want then by all means go for 3
You can't have government policy dictated by the worst elements in society.
Ah you mean by worst the poor who find their share of the pie ever more diminished when they have to share it with ever more people? Does it ever seem strange to you that most of the bleeding hearts crying let them all in come from area's that aren't particulary impacted by ever more people whereas those living in poorer areas find their rent ever increasing for substandard accomodation and their services stretched to cope with ever more people?
Getting disadvantaged people to blame it on foreigners is a textbook technique of the far right. I'd rather it stayed in the textbooks.
Not doing anything to deal with issues has consequences.
In rural France, if you bring in cheap labour from outside to do work on a building, the building will burn down in the middle of the night.
You could argue that is labour market protection (I'm sure @Dura_Ace will approve) but is that how a country should be run?
Robert Jenrick has demanded Lineker is sacked. Richard Sharpe and Tim Davie own the BBC who are now investigating. In my view Lineker is toast!
The usual suspects: it's ridiculous to suggest that the BBC is a state broadcaster Members of HMG: SACK THAT SPORTS PRESENTER FOR CRITICISING THE GOVERNMENT OF HMG!!!
Removing critical voices in the media definitely not the kind of thing the Nazis would do, so outrageous that Lineker compared the government to the Nazis.
Lineker is blurring the lines between his job and his opinions on political matters of the day. Surely he has earned enough from the BBC to be able to give up the day job and stand for Parliament? Everybody happy....
But has he earned enough yet to be able to fund the lifestyle of a PM in exchange for his BBC tenure?
If the boss says it's nothing to worry about then @Leon must have been wrong that it was something to worry about. Bosses never lie. He was right about it happening though.
The Register adds:- Reach [owner of Mirror, Express and countless local rags] isn't the only publisher rolling out AI-generated articles while reducing its count of human reporters. CNET owner Red Ventures laid off scribes last week and has promised to double down on machine-written content despite complaints that those articles contained errors and plagiarism.
Meanwhile, BuzzFeed has produced quizzes with the help of ChatGPT, and Arena Group published botched health-related articles for Men's Health. Both publishers have also axed employees – in December 2022 and February 2023, respectively. https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/08/uk_publisher_using_ai/
Given the skill level of ChatGPT - this will be churnalism. The regurgitation of stuff from the internet after passing it through a travesty generator. The generator was previously a "journalist'. It is now ChatGPT. Here were produced rubbishy newspapers containing almost nothing except sport, crime and astrology, sensational five-cent novelettes, films oozing with sex, and sentimental songs which were composed entirely by mechanical means on a special kind of kaleidoscope known as a versificator.
The reason local papers are full of crime stories, and this has been true for decades, is that press agencies send them newsfeeds from the courts and not because the Dunny-on-the-Wold Advertiser has a reporter on every street corner looking out for old ladies being mugged (or these days, younger women having their mobile phones snatched out of their hands).
Indeed - hence the popularity of wire services etc back in the day.
The idea that journalism is about heroic men and women in trench coats finding out the Big Secret by climbing over walls and meeting people in dodgy bars is a myth. Nearly 100% of the time.
Robert Jenrick has demanded Lineker is sacked. Richard Sharpe and Tim Davie own the BBC who are now investigating. In my view Lineker is toast!
The usual suspects: it's ridiculous to suggest that the BBC is a state broadcaster Members of HMG: SACK THAT SPORTS PRESENTER FOR CRITICISING THE GOVERNMENT OF HMG!!!
Removing critical voices in the media definitely not the kind of thing the Nazis would do, so outrageous that Lineker compared the government to the Nazis.
Lineker is blurring the lines between his job and his opinions on political matters of the day. Surely he has earned enough from the BBC to be able to give up the day job and stand for Parliament? Everybody happy....
Better still why don't you stand for the Throw Lineker out of the BBC and Abolish the BBC While You're At It Party.
Both of you happy.
Why do think abolishing the BBC would make me happy? Abolishing the Licence Fee, on the other hand, forcing the BBC to face the new viewer reality - then you might be talking....
Sorry off topic but just to respond to @hyufd after I left the thread last night:
You say Grammar schools give parents more choice. They don't. If your child fails the 11 plus they get less choice.
On the 'leftie' nonsense you haven't responded to the fact that I am not a 'leftie' and that successive Conservative governments have done nothing to remove comprehensives and that Tory controlled councils like Surrey implemented and supported them. When I identified David Johnston as a Tory MP who writes against Grammars you call him a leftie. I mean one of your own MPs. You also referred to him as a Heathite. Was Heath's government leftie then? What about Thatcher's government who didn't undo comprehensives? Or Surrey Country Council? All lefties?
Are everyone lefties other than yourself? This is very confusing if most Tories are lefties, especially as many of your own views are indistinguishable from far left authoritarianism.
If you are a working class parent though the evidence Bristol University foundation however was that your child would get better GCSE results than at the local comprehensive.
Heath's government did nothing to stop local authorities turning grammars into comprehensives which had begun when Wilson's government pushed to end selective education(the trend only slowed when Thatcher was PM and slightly reversed with more pupils attending grammars when Major was PM). Hence most of the few remaining areas with grammars are in Tory controlled councils.
You can't even ballot to open new grammars now, only ballot to close them. True parental choice would at least allow that
Not sure whose post you are referring to, but you haven't addressed the points I made, but that is normal for you as you never do.
Are all these Tories I refer to lefties eg Heath's govt, Surrey County Council? Did you really mean to call your own current MPs lefties who support Comprehensive schools? They were your actual words re David Johnson. You have declared every Tory on this site as not being a real Tory at some time or other. You are now doing the same to previous and current govts and Tory controlled councils. Who is left?
Oh I absolutely have.
Tories who want to abolish grammars like David Johnson are a tiny minority of the party and no more really than members of your party, the LDs, who backed Brexit. They are irrelevant, indeed Sunak and Truss both backed grammars in the leadership campaign last year.
I notice you also refuse to allow parents to ballot to open new grammars, just to close them. Not much liberalism and parental choice there from you then!
Re your last paragraph I did no such thing. I have never commented on this point. You are putting words into my mouth. But on that same line how is there more parental choice for parents of children who fail the 11 plus. They have less choice. You are taking choice away from the majority of parents with the Grammars system as you have removed schools from them. You didn't deal with that point.
So lets get this clear then:
All Tory MPs who back Comprehensives are not true Tories. Have you let them know?
Surrey County Council and all Tory County Councils who implemented Comprehensives are not true Tories either
Heath's Government from what you say definitely wasn't Tory then.
Thatcher's govt who did nothing to reverse Comprehensives in her long time as PM couldn't have been Tory either then as she had plenty of time to do something about it
Nobody who posts to this site is a Tory. I note you excommunicated @MarqueeMark and @Sean_F recently.
You say Sunak and Truss back Grammars. How? They are just words. They (well we won't know re Truss) will do zippo to support Grammars. They say this just to keep the loons like you onside.
You can keep posting the link to the Bristol report, but it is has been conclusively accepted by all except a few Tory nutters and UKIP who live in the 1950s that Grammars are bad for the educating the nations children.
Your views on Royalty, Grammars, Church, the nation, etc put you with the group of 90 year old Tory Colonels. You have become an old man 50 years before your time.
30% of voters want more grammars (ie higher than the Conservative voteshare in most current polls except Deltapoll). A further 20% of voters want to retain existing grammars but not build anymore.
Only 26% of voters like you want to stop existing grammars selecting by ability and turn them into comprehensives
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
I don't think you can stop them but I am pretty sure you can mitigate their effects and reduce their numbers, but that requires serious thinking, compromises and a lot more spending. It seems that the vast majority of the traffickers are situated on this side of the Channel, for example. That indicates that enforcement authorities could be doing a lot more than they are to tackle them - are they failing through lack of resources, planning, coordination, etc? Is anyone in government asking? And, as we know, the time it takes to process asylum claims is ridiculous. Tat is down to the Home Office and the people who run it. Then there are the six years of distrust and antagonism that were caused by Brexit. That will not all be undone immediately - and if it is to be done meaningfully, it cannot be done while trying to appease the ERG. And so on. What won't work is saying this is not our problem, everyone else has to handle it and we will break international law to try to get our way.
Eliminate demand.
1) all employers liable for employing undocumented (they actually are, sort off, now) 2) fine of £100k per employee. Directors personal assets liable etc. 3) 50K goes to the undocumented employee who gives evidence against the employer. In the event of a successful conviction. 4) indefinite leave to remain also granted to the employee on conviction of the employer.
The Tory Party donors do not like this one.....I wonder why......
When employers have cooperated with the police/immigration to highlight undocumented workers, they have met with a wall of abuse from the Left.
The difference with my suggestion is paying for the information. Which will increase the reporting/prosecuting rate to 100%
Every ambulance chasing solicitor will be on this like a tramp on chips.
Average fine of £5k if caught will not change the economic incenvtives for those who are not motivated by morals or the law. Make it £100k per employee and the incentives change.
Let them work. We need them.
If they are working illegally - the government isn't seeing the income tax revenue
Make it legal. Make it easy to get an NI number. We are short of people of working age.
no we are short of people of working age with sufficient incentive to actually work.
I suspect immigrants, who have made the effort to come here, will have a greater incentive to work than many Brits.
Suspect all you want doesn't make it true however, pakistan, bangladesh for example have unemployment rates about 3 times higher than white british just as an example
They are the ones who stayed behind, not the ones who have made the effort to come here.
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
I don't think you can stop them but I am pretty sure you can mitigate their effects and reduce their numbers, but that requires serious thinking, compromises and a lot more spending. It seems that the vast majority of the traffickers are situated on this side of the Channel, for example. That indicates that enforcement authorities could be doing a lot more than they are to tackle them - are they failing through lack of resources, planning, coordination, etc? Is anyone in government asking? And, as we know, the time it takes to process asylum claims is ridiculous. Tat is down to the Home Office and the people who run it. Then there are the six years of distrust and antagonism that were caused by Brexit. That will not all be undone immediately - and if it is to be done meaningfully, it cannot be done while trying to appease the ERG. And so on. What won't work is saying this is not our problem, everyone else has to handle it and we will break international law to try to get our way.
Eliminate demand.
1) all employers liable for employing undocumented (they actually are, sort off, now) 2) fine of £100k per employee. Directors personal assets liable etc. 3) 50K goes to the undocumented employee who gives evidence against the employer. In the event of a successful conviction. 4) indefinite leave to remain also granted to the employee on conviction of the employer.
The Tory Party donors do not like this one.....I wonder why......
When employers have cooperated with the police/immigration to highlight undocumented workers, they have met with a wall of abuse from the Left.
The difference with my suggestion is paying for the information. Which will increase the reporting/prosecuting rate to 100%
Every ambulance chasing solicitor will be on this like a tramp on chips.
Average fine of £5k if caught will not change the economic incenvtives for those who are not motivated by morals or the law. Make it £100k per employee and the incentives change.
Let them work. We need them.
If they are working illegally - the government isn't seeing the income tax revenue
Make it legal. Make it easy to get an NI number. We are short of people of working age.
no we are short of people of working age with sufficient incentive to actually work.
I suspect immigrants, who have made the effort to come here, will have a greater incentive to work than many Brits.
Suspect all you want doesn't make it true however, pakistan, bangladesh for example have unemployment rates about 3 times higher than white british just as an example
They are the ones who stayed behind, not the ones who have made the effort to come here.
Nope - employment across ethnic groups in the UK varies wildly. Some do better than "White British", some a lot worse.
The issue with structural unemployment among parts of the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities is well known and various attempts have been made to deal with it.
The choices for the UK government regarding the Dinghy People (barring some huge change in global geopolitical trends) can be boiled down to these three:
1. Violently push back the boats. Accept that many will drown. This will be morally unacceptable to 98% of the country
2. Immediately detain and deport all those who arrive. Disallow their rights. Off they go to Rwanda or whoever we can bribe - this will be palatable to much of the country but will be loathed by many liberals (and others). Also legally difficult
3. Basically accept there’s nothing we can do. Make some futile gestures like “helping French police”. Prohibit the use of the word “dinghy”. Accept that 100,000s will cross and this number will likely grow and grow. This will enrage much of the country and possibly lead to Britain’s first serious far right party
That’s it. That’s the choice. Not good
Taking these as the choice set facing the govt, the position is that Sunak/Braverman are trying 2, while Starmer/Cooper are advocating 3. In terms of positioning for the forthcoming GE the Tories have made the right choice.
That's a bit of a false 'trichotomy' though. There are many things we can do to eliminate migration pull factors - these being NHS services unpoliced and unlimited at the point of use, a benefits system based on universal entitlements, an unchallenged black economy etc. etc. etc.
I watched a news program yesterday and they interviewed a few women from Dover saying they wanted the immigrants stopped. Finding a more mean faced collection of harridans would have stretched Central Casting. Are the English really like that or are they selected by subversive researchers who share Gary Lineker's views?
The BBC loves nothing more than heading out to somewhere populated by bitter pensioners and recording their views as being representative of the real man or woman in the street. At least Dover makes a change from Bury market or Stoke on Trent.
There's an annoying tendency of, for want of a better word, the metropolitan elite media, to overcompensate for accusations of being in a bubble by assuming the real country outside their immediate locale is represented by pensioners in Bury market or Dover. It's an odd variation on the no true Scotsman fallacy. If they accidentally find a liberal or remainer or someone under the age of 60 in these places they look a bit nonplussed and move on quickly.
FWIW, and again for those who care, The coalition talks in Estonia have excluded the Conservative Isamaa Party meaning that the new coalition will be Reform, Eesti 200 and the Social Democrats. Means a centre-left social policy, but a return to more classical Liberal economic policy. The enabling bill to recognize civil partnerships will now be passed, and there may be some changes to the rather restrictive citizenship laws. A simpler tax code will now return and there will be changes to the social tax regime.
Obviously support for Ukraine will continue and probably be expanded.
The more I look at the result the better I am pleased. The Trumpian attempt by EKRE to discredit e-voting has been greeted with general laughter, and this election might very well mark the high-water mark of EKRE rankings (they are now second, even though they lost votes, because the Centre Party vote fell so much). Isamaa are now in something of a crisis, but could spend their time in opposition constructively, and if they don´t then they will be replaced by the breakaway "Right wingers" at the next election.
It is a complete landslide for Kaja Kallas, and a poke in the eye for Putin.
The choices for the UK government regarding the Dinghy People (barring some huge change in global geopolitical trends) can be boiled down to these three:
1. Violently push back the boats. Accept that many will drown. This will be morally unacceptable to 98% of the country
2. Immediately detain and deport all those who arrive. Disallow their rights. Off they go to Rwanda or whoever we can bribe - this will be palatable to much of the country but will be loathed by many liberals (and others). Also legally difficult
3. Basically accept there’s nothing we can do. Make some futile gestures like “helping French police”. Prohibit the use of the word “dinghy”. Accept that 100,000s will cross and this number will likely grow and grow. This will enrage much of the country and possibly lead to Britain’s first serious far right party
That’s it. That’s the choice. Not good
Even on that dodgy framing (3) is superior. Certainly better than the Cons trying to head off a far right party by becoming one.
But although I usually like defeatism - it's quite underrated as a mindset imo - it's overly defeatist to assume nothing effective can be done about this issue that doesn't involve the dehumanization of vulnerable people. I'm pretty suspicious of those who say this so readily. It can be hard to distinguish a muscular, clear-sighted rejection of liberal waffle from a genuine enthusiasm for far right 'solutions' to protect 'us' from 'them' - since in polite society the second tends to dress up as the first.
If you want to go with 3 at some point you will have vigilante groups patrolling beaches and meting out "justice" just like they have on the american border. If that is what you want then by all means go for 3
You can't have government policy dictated by the worst elements in society.
Or "voters", as they are sometimes called.
Sure. And there are parties to vote for if you want hard right British Nationalism that doesn't pussyfoot around with human rights for refugees. What would be unfortunate is if the Conservative Party joins their number.
Although I don't think that's what's really happening here. I think they're playing dress up with it, vice-signalling if you like, looking not to solve the problem but to please and annoy the right people.
I dislike this policy, which seems government by headline rather than law. I dislike Lineker's reaction, which is ludicrously over the top and demeans himself. And I dislike Jenrick's response, which is excessively harsh.
Will there be a fourth domino in this line of nincompoopery?
Susannah Reid humiliated Dame Suella Braverman on GMB. Send her to Rwanda with Lineker!
SKS Labour doesn't know whether to have a shit shave or a haircut this morning.
Any previous Labour leader would have called out "stop the boats" for what it is
SKS has no principles that cant be bought for a few votes does he.
The choices for the UK government regarding the Dinghy People (barring some huge change in global geopolitical trends) can be boiled down to these three:
1. Violently push back the boats. Accept that many will drown. This will be morally unacceptable to 98% of the country
2. Immediately detain and deport all those who arrive. Disallow their rights. Off they go to Rwanda or whoever we can bribe - this will be palatable to much of the country but will be loathed by many liberals (and others). Also legally difficult
3. Basically accept there’s nothing we can do. Make some futile gestures like “helping French police”. Prohibit the use of the word “dinghy”. Accept that 100,000s will cross and this number will likely grow and grow. This will enrage much of the country and possibly lead to Britain’s first serious far right party
That’s it. That’s the choice. Not good
Even on that dodgy framing (3) is superior. Certainly better than the Cons trying to head off a far right party by becoming one.
But although I usually like defeatism - it's quite underrated as a mindset imo - it's overly defeatist to assume nothing effective can be done about this issue that doesn't involve the dehumanization of vulnerable people. I'm pretty suspicious of those who say this so readily. It can be hard to distinguish a muscular, clear-sighted rejection of liberal waffle from a genuine enthusiasm for far right 'solutions' to protect 'us' from 'them' - since in polite society the second tends to dress up as the first.
If you want to go with 3 at some point you will have vigilante groups patrolling beaches and meting out "justice" just like they have on the american border. If that is what you want then by all means go for 3
You can't have government policy dictated by the worst elements in society.
Ah you mean by worst the poor who find their share of the pie ever more diminished when they have to share it with ever more people? Does it ever seem strange to you that most of the bleeding hearts crying let them all in come from area's that aren't particulary impacted by ever more people whereas those living in poorer areas find their rent ever increasing for substandard accomodation and their services stretched to cope with ever more people?
Getting disadvantaged people to blame it on foreigners is a textbook technique of the far right. I'd rather it stayed in the textbooks.
You are rich and probably live in an area which doesn't house a lot of new immigrants. People like me that lived most of our lives in poor area's which do house a lot of poor immigrants however see the effect on our lives. I don't see it as immigrants to blame for it, I see it as people like you to blame for it. You want to feel good about your bleeding heart credentials and let everyone in but you don't have to live with it.
Two examples, when I first moved to slough in 87 you could get an appointment with a doctor in the next 3 days, when I left slough last year the time to the appointment was now 3 weeks. Other one is I have friends who started families and signed up on the council housing list...by the time there children became adults they were further down the list than when they first signed up.
I don't blame immigrants because I can understand why they come. I do blame people like you for not worrying about the poor people in your own country and making sure they aren't disadvantaged by it
The choices for the UK government regarding the Dinghy People (barring some huge change in global geopolitical trends) can be boiled down to these three:
1. Violently push back the boats. Accept that many will drown. This will be morally unacceptable to 98% of the country
2. Immediately detain and deport all those who arrive. Disallow their rights. Off they go to Rwanda or whoever we can bribe - this will be palatable to much of the country but will be loathed by many liberals (and others). Also legally difficult
3. Basically accept there’s nothing we can do. Make some futile gestures like “helping French police”. Prohibit the use of the word “dinghy”. Accept that 100,000s will cross and this number will likely grow and grow. This will enrage much of the country and possibly lead to Britain’s first serious far right party
That’s it. That’s the choice. Not good
Even on that dodgy framing (3) is superior. Certainly better than the Cons trying to head off a far right party by becoming one.
But although I usually like defeatism - it's quite underrated as a mindset imo - it's overly defeatist to assume nothing effective can be done about this issue that doesn't involve the dehumanization of vulnerable people. I'm pretty suspicious of those who say this so readily. It can be hard to distinguish a muscular, clear-sighted rejection of liberal waffle from a genuine enthusiasm for far right 'solutions' to protect 'us' from 'them' - since in polite society the second tends to dress up as the first.
If you want to go with 3 at some point you will have vigilante groups patrolling beaches and meting out "justice" just like they have on the american border. If that is what you want then by all means go for 3
You can't have government policy dictated by the worst elements in society.
Unless those worst elements are in government..
Yep. Their influence is a real worry. The Omnipotent Andersons!
I watched a news program yesterday and they interviewed a few women from Dover saying they wanted the immigrants stopped. Finding a more mean faced collection of harridans would have stretched Central Casting. Are the English really like that or are they selected by subversive researchers who share Gary Lineker's views?
The BBC loves nothing more than heading out to somewhere populated by bitter pensioners and recording their views as being representative of the real man or woman in the street. At least Dover makes a change from Bury market or Stoke on Trent.
There's an annoying tendency of, for want of a better word, the metropolitan elite media, to overcompensate for accusations of being in a bubble by assuming the real country outside their immediate locale is represented by pensioners in Bury market or Dover. It's an odd variation on the no true Scotsman fallacy. If they accidentally find a liberal or remainer or someone under the age of 60 in these places they look a bit nonplussed and move on quickly.
Many many years ago, I was standing in the summer sun at the end of the footbridge across the Thames at Waterloo.
You can tell how long ago this was, by the fact that the footbridge was still the one bolted to the side of the railway bridge, rather than built round it.
A film crew was trying to get public reactions. The lady interviewer would stop a passerby, ask them about some government policy, then after about 30 seconds reject the answer as useless and send them on their way. Given the interviews she was doing, she was looking for an extreme reaction, and having trouble finding it.
I had a very early smartphone and started filming this. She noticed and approached, very angrily to demand I stop harassing her and her crew.
I left, but first I pointed out that the idea that filming a camera crew in public was harassment was somewhat precious.
Speaking of inferior foreign languages that are bound to die out, yet still have some uses
There is surely a German compound noun for that feeling “when you finally find a bar with nice tables and a good view and as you sip your first gin and tonic you realise a terrible terrible pub band is just about to play. Very loudly”
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
I don't think you can stop them but I am pretty sure you can mitigate their effects and reduce their numbers, but that requires serious thinking, compromises and a lot more spending. It seems that the vast majority of the traffickers are situated on this side of the Channel, for example. That indicates that enforcement authorities could be doing a lot more than they are to tackle them - are they failing through lack of resources, planning, coordination, etc? Is anyone in government asking? And, as we know, the time it takes to process asylum claims is ridiculous. Tat is down to the Home Office and the people who run it. Then there are the six years of distrust and antagonism that were caused by Brexit. That will not all be undone immediately - and if it is to be done meaningfully, it cannot be done while trying to appease the ERG. And so on. What won't work is saying this is not our problem, everyone else has to handle it and we will break international law to try to get our way.
Eliminate demand.
1) all employers liable for employing undocumented (they actually are, sort off, now) 2) fine of £100k per employee. Directors personal assets liable etc. 3) 50K goes to the undocumented employee who gives evidence against the employer. In the event of a successful conviction. 4) indefinite leave to remain also granted to the employee on conviction of the employer.
The Tory Party donors do not like this one.....I wonder why......
When employers have cooperated with the police/immigration to highlight undocumented workers, they have met with a wall of abuse from the Left.
The difference with my suggestion is paying for the information. Which will increase the reporting/prosecuting rate to 100%
Every ambulance chasing solicitor will be on this like a tramp on chips.
Average fine of £5k if caught will not change the economic incenvtives for those who are not motivated by morals or the law. Make it £100k per employee and the incentives change.
Let them work. We need them.
If they are working illegally - the government isn't seeing the income tax revenue
Make it legal. Make it easy to get an NI number. We are short of people of working age.
no we are short of people of working age with sufficient incentive to actually work.
I suspect immigrants, who have made the effort to come here, will have a greater incentive to work than many Brits.
Suspect all you want doesn't make it true however, pakistan, bangladesh for example have unemployment rates about 3 times higher than white british just as an example
They are the ones who stayed behind, not the ones who have made the effort to come here.
The choices for the UK government regarding the Dinghy People (barring some huge change in global geopolitical trends) can be boiled down to these three:
1. Violently push back the boats. Accept that many will drown. This will be morally unacceptable to 98% of the country
2. Immediately detain and deport all those who arrive. Disallow their rights. Off they go to Rwanda or whoever we can bribe - this will be palatable to much of the country but will be loathed by many liberals (and others). Also legally difficult
3. Basically accept there’s nothing we can do. Make some futile gestures like “helping French police”. Prohibit the use of the word “dinghy”. Accept that 100,000s will cross and this number will likely grow and grow. This will enrage much of the country and possibly lead to Britain’s first serious far right party
That’s it. That’s the choice. Not good
Even on that dodgy framing (3) is superior. Certainly better than the Cons trying to head off a far right party by becoming one.
But although I usually like defeatism - it's quite underrated as a mindset imo - it's overly defeatist to assume nothing effective can be done about this issue that doesn't involve the dehumanization of vulnerable people. I'm pretty suspicious of those who say this so readily. It can be hard to distinguish a muscular, clear-sighted rejection of liberal waffle from a genuine enthusiasm for far right 'solutions' to protect 'us' from 'them' - since in polite society the second tends to dress up as the first.
If you want to go with 3 at some point you will have vigilante groups patrolling beaches and meting out "justice" just like they have on the american border. If that is what you want then by all means go for 3
You can't have government policy dictated by the worst elements in society.
With option 3 - let them all in, but lie about it - you won’t even have a society. Well done
The choices for the UK government regarding the Dinghy People (barring some huge change in global geopolitical trends) can be boiled down to these three:
1. Violently push back the boats. Accept that many will drown. This will be morally unacceptable to 98% of the country
2. Immediately detain and deport all those who arrive. Disallow their rights. Off they go to Rwanda or whoever we can bribe - this will be palatable to much of the country but will be loathed by many liberals (and others). Also legally difficult
3. Basically accept there’s nothing we can do. Make some futile gestures like “helping French police”. Prohibit the use of the word “dinghy”. Accept that 100,000s will cross and this number will likely grow and grow. This will enrage much of the country and possibly lead to Britain’s first serious far right party
That’s it. That’s the choice. Not good
Taking these as the choice set facing the govt, the position is that Sunak/Braverman are trying 2, while Starmer/Cooper are advocating 3. In terms of positioning for the forthcoming GE the Tories have made the right choice.
That's a bit of a false 'trichotomy' though. There are many things we can do to eliminate migration pull factors - these being NHS services unpoliced and unlimited at the point of use, a benefits system based on universal entitlements, an unchallenged black economy etc. etc. etc.
Most of that isn't an issue. The black economy is, and that can be fixed in about 30 minutes of parliamentary time.
That and following up on the fact that people taking large amounts of cash out of the bank are already monitored. It's quite trivial to match that up with publicly variable data on building work etc.
Speaking of inferior foreign languages that are bound to die out, yet still have some uses
There is surely a German compound noun for that feeling “when you finally find a bar with nice tables and a good view and as you sip your first gin and tonic you realise a terrible terrible pub band is just about to play. Very loudly”
It's going to involve "krankenoompah" somewhere in there.....
Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.
Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.
Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.
He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.
There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.
Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.
They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.
I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.
Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.
In a serious question:
How *would* anyone stop the boats?
It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.
That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
I don't think you can stop them but I am pretty sure you can mitigate their effects and reduce their numbers, but that requires serious thinking, compromises and a lot more spending. It seems that the vast majority of the traffickers are situated on this side of the Channel, for example. That indicates that enforcement authorities could be doing a lot more than they are to tackle them - are they failing through lack of resources, planning, coordination, etc? Is anyone in government asking? And, as we know, the time it takes to process asylum claims is ridiculous. Tat is down to the Home Office and the people who run it. Then there are the six years of distrust and antagonism that were caused by Brexit. That will not all be undone immediately - and if it is to be done meaningfully, it cannot be done while trying to appease the ERG. And so on. What won't work is saying this is not our problem, everyone else has to handle it and we will break international law to try to get our way.
Eliminate demand.
1) all employers liable for employing undocumented (they actually are, sort off, now) 2) fine of £100k per employee. Directors personal assets liable etc. 3) 50K goes to the undocumented employee who gives evidence against the employer. In the event of a successful conviction. 4) indefinite leave to remain also granted to the employee on conviction of the employer.
The Tory Party donors do not like this one.....I wonder why......
When employers have cooperated with the police/immigration to highlight undocumented workers, they have met with a wall of abuse from the Left.
The difference with my suggestion is paying for the information. Which will increase the reporting/prosecuting rate to 100%
Every ambulance chasing solicitor will be on this like a tramp on chips.
Average fine of £5k if caught will not change the economic incenvtives for those who are not motivated by morals or the law. Make it £100k per employee and the incentives change.
Let them work. We need them.
If they are working illegally - the government isn't seeing the income tax revenue
Make it legal. Make it easy to get an NI number. We are short of people of working age.
no we are short of people of working age with sufficient incentive to actually work.
Countries should be concentrating on policies focussed on coping with a declining population because immigration is nothing more than a ponzi scheme
I agree with that and I don't think the answer is encouraging people to have more babies but finding ways of coping with a population that gets older. I know it is an economic nightmare but it is better than climate change, scarcity of water and all the problems overpopulation brings.
In an ideal world I would like to see free movement, but until all countries become similarly equal economies that is also impossible.
If we as a country had infinite resources then I would be happy with open borders. We don't however and we already have a population of sufficient size to put pressure on water, housing and services. Two of those 3 we could do something about it is true by building more and taxing more. However we cannot make more rain fall and if anything predictions are we will get less rain over time.
Water scarcity is going to be the 21st century problem for a lot of countries
The UK has above average rainfall at nearly four foot a year.
The problem is the privatisation of water. The water companies have loaded up with debt, paid high dividends to their overseas shareholders and neglected investment in infrastructure eg reservoirs, interconnected pipelines and repairing leaking pipes. Thames Water loses 24% of its water though leaks.
The solution is nationalisation of water supply with investment in infrastructure within a national framework. Then we won't run short.
Comments
So lets get this clear then:
All Tory MPs who back Comprehensives are not true Tories. Have you let them know?
Surrey County Council and all Tory County Councils who implemented Comprehensives are not true Tories either
Heath's Government from what you say definitely wasn't Tory then.
Thatcher's govt who did nothing to reverse Comprehensives in her long time as PM couldn't have been Tory either then as she had plenty of time to do something about it
Nobody who posts to this site is a Tory. I note you excommunicated @MarqueeMark and @Sean_F recently.
You say Sunak and Truss back Grammars. How? They are just words. They (well we won't know re Truss) will do zippo to support Grammars. They say this just to keep the loons like you onside.
You can keep posting the link to the Bristol report, but it is has been conclusively accepted by all except a few Tory nutters and UKIP who live in the 1950s that Grammars are bad for the educating the nations children.
Your views on Royalty, Grammars, Church, the nation, etc put you with the group of 90 year old Tory Colonels. You have become an old man 50 years before your time.
Or is it just Section 3, which expressly does not apply, that could do that?
Braverman doesn't have an answer. So she throws out this word salad that nobody who knows about anything really thinks will work.
And gullible nitwits cling to it, like an imaginary friend. "It is rweel, it is it is". But saying it's a real plan doesn't make it so.
No, I don't have an answer to everything. That's not ideal, but it's nothing to fear. I'm trained in science, not words, and some problems don't have a perfect answer.
So what do we do then? We could draw up blueprints for a castle in the air, or we could do the boring incremental thing, of looking to make things work a bit better tomorrow than today.
It doesn't make for a fun article in a moderately selling current affairs magazine. But it's how most human progress works.
https://www.frontpages.com/bild/
Almost no English outside of names eg Bounty (the chocolate bar). Which isn't really evidence of the use of English - like people talking about Ford Fiestas in the UK isn't evidence of the use of Spanish.
There is 'Sport', but this is so well-established that it's a German word, like 'rucksack' in English. Similarly there's also pervers and Dossier from French. Luxus from Latin if you like.
I'm not disputing that English words and phrases are used, but let's not exaggerate.
Here's the front page of today's Süddeutsche Zeitung:
https://www.frontpages.com/suddeutsche-zeitung/
A bit blurred but I can't see any English there.
Die Welt:
https://www.frontpages.com/die-welt/
Again, can't see any English.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:
https://www.frontpages.com/frankfurter-allgemeine-zeitung/
Only English I can see is 'Pipelines'.
Good legislation is clear in its aims and operation. This would seem to fail that latter of those tests pretty badly.
If the Brazilian Parliament chose to exterminate a people then that would be a matter for international relations to resolve, not lawyers or courts. Just as China's acts of genocide against the Rohingya and others.
In the minds of many Red Wall Conservative voters, the whole point of leaving the EU was that the government be held accountable at the ballot box for stuff like this.
Oh, and about tweets too.
https://www.thepaperboy.com/sweden/front-pages.cfm
goodless bad news about betting. Ladbrokes laid a darts player at 500/1 then settled at 100/1 under the invariably misused "palpable error" rule. After protests, Ladbrokes eventually re-settled at the original price.https://twitter.com/RooneyMal/status/1630276896557547521?cxt=HHwWgoC2jeWM9J8tAAAA
So surely by disapplying Section 3, then Parliament's Primary Legislation must take precedence even if the Courts issue an incompatibility ruling?
That’s the sort of thing for which a court adjudicating a contract dispute, would award punitive damages.
Chief executive says journalists should not fear it means being replaced by machines
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/mar/07/mirror-and-express-owner-publishes-first-articles-written-using-ai
If the boss says it's nothing to worry about then @Leon must have been wrong that it was something to worry about. Bosses never lie. He was right about it happening though.
Both of you happy.
One is the merits of the policy effectively abolishing any right to asylum claims by those who don't arrive with a visa.
The other is legislating to do so in a manner probably inconsistent with existing legislation, acknowledging that on the face of the bill, while simultaneously professing in public that it is consistent with existing legislation.
Whatever you think about the first issue, pursing policy in this manner is dishonest trolling.
Reach [owner of Mirror, Express and countless local rags] isn't the only publisher rolling out AI-generated articles while reducing its count of human reporters. CNET owner Red Ventures laid off scribes last week and has promised to double down on machine-written content despite complaints that those articles contained errors and plagiarism.
Meanwhile, BuzzFeed has produced quizzes with the help of ChatGPT, and Arena Group published botched health-related articles for Men's Health. Both publishers have also axed employees – in December 2022 and February 2023, respectively.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/08/uk_publisher_using_ai/
It's even more immoral to have healthy educated immigrants here and then actively prevent them from working! Crazy.
Not a few were indeed palpable errors.
In an ideal world I would like to see free movement, but until all countries become similarly equal economies that is also impossible.
On Smarkets in a binary Yes/No field I once placed a bet but got the odds and the stake fields backwards, meaning I laid the heavy odds-on favourite at odds of 20 and stake of 1.2 instead of odds of 1.2 and stake of 20 or something like that. Their automation system then automatically matched all the money I'd mistakenly put down and then sent the market back to what it was before my bet.
A market I was trading at a three figure guaranteed profit at the time, suddenly became a three figure guaranteed loss due that!
I immediately spoke to Smarkets Live Chat to try to get the bet reversed, but they refused to do so but after much discussion the customer support agent mentioned the palpable error rule. I sent in an email, and after a review they confirmed it was clearly a palpable error so voided my bet. It probably helped in my instance that you could clearly see the numbers were transposed and that I got in touch immediately and not after the result came in.
A significant part of their current political success is down to Villiers-style NIMBYism, but many of the party's MPs must be a little conflicted by it. It comes of being a smaller party, reliant on local rather than national campaigning, and thus needing to magnify narrow local concerns over what may be a greater national interest. There isn't really a way for the Lib Dems to dump NIMBYism without dumping the NIMBY campaigners, who are now a significant part of their voter base, but it is very anti-liberal as a policy.
This NIMBY problem was encapsulated by (the MP who ran against Sir Ed for the leadership but fortunately did not win) Layla Moran who, having campaigned against any housebuilding in or around her constituency, proceeded to bemoan recently the lack of housing for Ukrainian refugees.
Another issue is the EU debate. Should the Lib Dems campaign on 're-joining' the EU whoesale? Many of its members would like this to be the case but, if this is the party's raison d'etre, it ends up overriding everything else and essentially bars them from coalition with either main party at the moment. An official policy supporting EFTA entry (though not as a condition of supporting either main party) might be the best solution here, as it does not involve the upheaval of potential EU re-entry and does not conflict with any potential CPTPP entry.
We need to send Ukraine ammunition, not lawyers.
Water scarcity is going to be the 21st century problem for a lot of countries
The palpable error rule was intended to cover things like the cashier accidentally writing the wrong price on a betting slip, but is often used (and cynics might say was so designed) to cover any offer deigned after the fact to have been too generous.
Here were produced rubbishy newspapers containing almost nothing except sport, crime and astrology, sensational five-cent novelettes, films oozing with sex, and sentimental songs which were composed entirely by mechanical means on a special kind of kaleidoscope known as a versificator.
Yes, Lineker likened the new bill to Germany in the 1930s.
Mr. Pete, Braverman is a muppet. It's also incredibly distasteful, and disturbing, to see the rising use of terms like 'betrayal' for those who hold a different political perspective.
The law should be a living, breathing, and most importantly evolving body - which is what Parliament is for.
If you go back just ten years it was illegal for two men to marry each other in Scotland.
If you go back ~fifty years it was illegal for two men to love each other and could result in imprisonment.
If you go back hundreds of years, it could result in execution.
You operate as if international law is "good" so should be set in stone, but the law has never been that way. Ossifying laws in stone is how you end up with the madness that is the US Second Amendment and routine mass murder in schools. Ossifying laws in stone is how you end up with gays being stoned to death.
If an international law signed in the 50s put a prohibition on same sex marriage, then I think Parliament would be well within its rights to say that notwithstanding the law we are legalising it. If an international law signed in the 18th century had a Second Amendment style ruling then following Dunblane I'd think that Parliament is perfectly entitled to say that the law needs to change.
We should seek to tackle atrocities internationally, but that needs to be done via international relations, not laws locking in the views of the past to be enforced in the future.
Try to get permission to create more reservoirs or enlarge existing ones...
Each person uses 55 tons of water per year (roughly). Sounds a lot. But if your reservoir is 10m deep, that is a 2.35m * 2.35m. For an entire year of water.
In rural France, if you bring in cheap labour from outside to do work on a building, the building will burn down in the middle of the night.
You could argue that is labour market protection (I'm sure @Dura_Ace will approve) but is that how a country should be run?
The idea that journalism is about heroic men and women in trench coats finding out the Big Secret by climbing over walls and meeting people in dodgy bars is a myth. Nearly 100% of the time.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/21627170/bbc-highlights-wimbledon-cancelled/
Only 26% of voters like you want to stop existing grammars selecting by ability and turn them into comprehensives
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2018/05/11/f9380/1
Very true but a bit Ratneresque perhaps coming from the head of twitter.
The issue with structural unemployment among parts of the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities is well known and various attempts have been made to deal with it.
There's an annoying tendency of, for want of a better word, the metropolitan elite media, to overcompensate for accusations of being in a bubble by assuming the real country outside their immediate locale is represented by pensioners in Bury market or Dover. It's an odd variation on the no true Scotsman fallacy. If they accidentally find a liberal or remainer or someone under the age of 60 in these places they look a bit nonplussed and move on quickly.
Obviously support for Ukraine will continue and probably be expanded.
The more I look at the result the better I am pleased. The Trumpian attempt by EKRE to discredit e-voting has been greeted with general laughter, and this election might very well mark the high-water mark of EKRE rankings (they are now second, even though they lost votes, because the Centre Party vote fell so much). Isamaa are now in something of a crisis, but could spend their time in opposition constructively, and if they don´t then they will be replaced by the breakaway "Right wingers" at the next election.
It is a complete landslide for Kaja Kallas, and a poke in the eye for Putin.
Although I don't think that's what's really happening here. I think they're playing dress up with it, vice-signalling if you like, looking not to solve the problem but to please and annoy the right people.
Any previous Labour leader would have called out "stop the boats" for what it is
SKS has no principles that cant be bought for a few votes does he.
Two examples, when I first moved to slough in 87 you could get an appointment with a doctor in the next 3 days, when I left slough last year the time to the appointment was now 3 weeks. Other one is I have friends who started families and signed up on the council housing list...by the time there children became adults they were further down the list than when they first signed up.
I don't blame immigrants because I can understand why they come. I do blame people like you for not worrying about the poor people in your own country and making sure they aren't disadvantaged by it
You can tell how long ago this was, by the fact that the footbridge was still the one bolted to the side of the railway bridge, rather than built round it.
A film crew was trying to get public reactions. The lady interviewer would stop a passerby, ask them about some government policy, then after about 30 seconds reject the answer as useless and send them on their way. Given the interviews she was doing, she was looking for an extreme reaction, and having trouble finding it.
I had a very early smartphone and started filming this. She noticed and approached, very angrily to demand I stop harassing her and her crew.
I left, but first I pointed out that the idea that filming a camera crew in public was harassment was somewhat precious.
There is surely a German compound noun for that feeling “when you finally find a bar with nice tables and a good view and as you sip your first gin and tonic you realise a terrible terrible pub band is just about to play. Very loudly”
https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/work-pay-and-benefits/unemployment-and-economic-inactivity/unemployment/latest
That and following up on the fact that people taking large amounts of cash out of the bank are already monitored. It's quite trivial to match that up with publicly variable data on building work etc.
It looks great when they release all the balloons at night.
Surely the majority of recent Tory Home Secretaries would have preferred the much more popular
Sink the Boats
The problem is the privatisation of water. The water companies have loaded up with debt, paid high dividends to their overseas shareholders and neglected investment in infrastructure eg reservoirs, interconnected pipelines and repairing leaking pipes. Thames Water loses 24% of its water though leaks.
The solution is nationalisation of water supply with investment in infrastructure within a national framework. Then we won't run short.