Beth Rigby @BethRigby · 6m 💥👀 So,,,c60 MPs in Commonsense/New Cons group + another 20 MPs would back leaving ECHR
Asked a v senior former cab min if, in the event of the PM deciding not to pursue leaving ECHR (if emergency law fail) whether he’d face a confidence vote, they said: “That’s very plausible”
Last time I recall a PM making a sudden announcement, such as this coming at 16.45, was Ted Heath in January 1974, calling a General Election on who ruled the country. That went well!!!!! Is Sunak going to repeat the same mistake. If so, presumably it would have been cleared at Cabinet yesterday
Beth Rigby @BethRigby · 6m 💥👀 So,,,c60 MPs in Commonsense/New Cons group + another 20 MPs would back leaving ECHR
Asked a v senior former cab min if, in the event of the PM deciding not to pursue leaving ECHR (if emergency law fail) whether he’d face a confidence vote, they said: “That’s very plausible”
FPT: There's a neat symmetry of completely out of touchness with reality between the Tory right "just ignore the law and send them on the planes anyway" and the Labour left "tell Israel to stop attacking Hamas and let them keep their tunnels"
Last time I recall a PM making a sudden announcement, such as this coming at 16.45, was Ted Heath in January 1974, calling a General Election on who ruled the country. That went well!!!!! Is Sunak going to repeat the same mistake. If so, presumably it would have been cleared at Cabinet yesterday
I suspect that a group of European countries end up getting together to agree on a solution, and withdraw themselves from whatever international agreements are necessary to make it happen.
Almost every major country in Europe now has a hardline anti-immigration party gaining significant ground.
Last time I recall a PM making a sudden announcement, such as this coming at 16.45, was Ted Heath in January 1974, calling a General Election on who ruled the country. That went well!!!!! Is Sunak going to repeat the same mistake. If so, presumably it would have been cleared at Cabinet yesterday
"Dave, would you like to be Foreign Sec for three days?"
Can anyone really suggest that Suella hasn't done Rishi up like a kipper?
If he'd kept her on, she'd be the one having to defend this mess. She'd probably end up resigning and blaming him, but it wouldn't be nearly as damaging - she'd still be the right wing moaner who never actually did anything.
By sacking her and provoking the letter, she's explained how he prevented the necessary parts of the bill before an audience of millions, predicted what will happen, and lo, it has happened. He's calling an emergency press conference - he should resign. Perhaps he will, and make Cameron the caretaker PM?
Beth Rigby @BethRigby · 6m 💥👀 So,,,c60 MPs in Commonsense/New Cons group + another 20 MPs would back leaving ECHR
Asked a v senior former cab min if, in the event of the PM deciding not to pursue leaving ECHR (if emergency law fail) whether he’d face a confidence vote, they said: “That’s very plausible”
FPT: There's a neat symmetry of completely out of touchness with reality between the Tory right "just ignore the law and send them on the planes anyway" and the Labour left "tell Israel to stop attacking Hamas and let them keep their tunnels"
And both make those saying it feel better about themselves but change nothing.
One thing that is clear from the Braverman letter is that the Home Secretary herself, who was previously Attorney General (so the government's legal advisor) knew that the Rwanda policy was a huge legal risk, and advised the government of this.
It was always a bad policy because as well as being inhumane, to work it required fundamental constitutional changes including withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights and making exceptions in our domestic human rights laws ('notwithstanding clauses') which would have targeted and excluded the most vulnerable, which the courts would have been very wary indeed of.
Because (as Braverman's letter very obviously points out) even this government was not willing to remove protection for the most vulnerable refugees, and rightly so, the policy was built on the shakiest of foundations, and was therefore a bad policy. Even the deterrence 'benefit' was very sketchy and unevidenced.
Rishi says he's considering changing UK law to allow Rwanda to go ahead. Not sure how that works, but the more interesting thing - unless I've missed it - is the silence of Cleverly. Has he said anything yet?
Rishi says he's considering changing UK law to allow Rwanda to go ahead. Not sure how that works, but the more interesting thing - unless I've missed it - is the silence of Cleverly. Has he said anything yet?
I think he's going to make a statement in the House after PMQs.
One thing that is clear from the Braverman letter is that the Home Secretary herself, who was previously Attorney General (so the government's legal advisor) knew that the Rwanda policy was a huge legal risk, and advised the government of this.
It was always a bad policy because as well as being inhumane, to work it required fundamental constitutional changes including withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights and making exceptions in our domestic human rights laws ('notwithstanding clauses') which would have targeted and excluded the most vulnerable, which the courts would have been very wary indeed of.
Because (as Braverman's letter very obviously points out) even this government was not willing to remove protection for the most vulnerable refugees, and rightly so, the policy was built on the shakiest of foundations, and was therefore a bad policy. Even the deterrence 'benefit' was very sketchy and unevidenced.
Note the Court said Rwanda is “a state which, in very recent times, has instigated political killings, and has led British police to warn Rwandan nationals living in Britain of credible plans to kill them on the part of that state”.
We were basically proposing to outsource our asylum claims processing to Rwanda - without setting aside existing protections in UK, not international law.
The ECHR brouhaha is a Tory headbanger distraction - though it's possible some of them are stupid enough to believe it.
» show previous quotes So you’d rather have the US model then ?
I would prefer to have the Court of Session as it was always the top Scottish court rather than the fake English made up Supreme Court to gerrymander Scottish cases personally.
This excellent judgement from the SC is good news all round. It has the following effects:
It shows that Braverman pursued a policy that broke the government's own laws, as well as being deranged to anyone with a moral compass.
It enables Sunak (if he has any sense) to say that the idea was OK but implementation is impossible so let's think of other ways to appease the ultra right.
Most important it enables Starmer to say that whatever anyone's views might be on sending refugees to North Korea or Gaza or indeed anywhere, we need to move on from this unlawful Tory scheme and scapegoat someone else for a change (possibly Etonians) and get migrants picking the soft fruit that benefits junkies can't be bothered to do.
Finally, it comes just in time for Christmas so that more than 30 (see the judgement) impecunious barristers will be able to buy shoes for their children and gruel for the table to celebrate, toasting the taxpayer in water as they do so. God bless them every one.
Last time I recall a PM making a sudden announcement, such as this coming at 16.45, was Ted Heath in January 1974, calling a General Election on who ruled the country. That went well!!!!! Is Sunak going to repeat the same mistake. If so, presumably it would have been cleared at Cabinet yesterday
"Dave, would you like to be Foreign Sec for three days?"
One thing that is clear from the Braverman letter is that the Home Secretary herself, who was previously Attorney General (so the government's legal advisor) knew that the Rwanda policy was a huge legal risk, and advised the government of this.
It was always a bad policy because as well as being inhumane, to work it required fundamental constitutional changes including withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights and making exceptions in our domestic human rights laws ('notwithstanding clauses') which would have targeted and excluded the most vulnerable, which the courts would have been very wary indeed of.
Because (as Braverman's letter very obviously points out) even this government was not willing to remove protection for the most vulnerable refugees, and rightly so, the policy was built on the shakiest of foundations, and was therefore a bad policy. Even the deterrence 'benefit' was very sketchy and unevidenced.
Note the Court said Rwanda is “a state which, in very recent times, has instigated political killings, and has led British police to warn Rwandan nationals living in Britain of credible plans to kill them on the part of that state”.
We were basically proposing to outsource our asylum claims processing to Rwanda - without setting aside existing protections in UK, not international law.
The ECHR brouhaha is a Tory headbanger distraction - though it's possible some of them are stupid enough to believe it.
I have been puzzled as to the selection of Rwanda. Nothing against the country, but why there especially? Even within Africa it seems an unusual choice.
Beth Rigby @BethRigby · 6m 💥👀 So,,,c60 MPs in Commonsense/New Cons group + another 20 MPs would back leaving ECHR
Asked a v senior former cab min if, in the event of the PM deciding not to pursue leaving ECHR (if emergency law fail) whether he’d face a confidence vote, they said: “That’s very plausible”
FPT: There's a neat symmetry of completely out of touchness with reality between the Tory right "just ignore the law and send them on the planes anyway" and the Labour left "tell Israel to stop attacking Hamas and let them keep their tunnels"
You would be hard pushed to find a brain between either of teh two parties, cheeks of the same arse and only skill is enhancing their own wealth.
If the Government is looking for a workaround, the trick is to ensure that they are intercepted by Royal Navy ships before they hit UK dry land/shore. That way they never fall under UK jurisdiction and the SC writ doesn't hold sway to ships at sea.
Does it? British law still applies to British flagged vessels in territorial waters. Suranne Jones had to solve that murder on a submarine.
It's not like the glory days of the RN when the Admiralty used to wait for low tide at Wapping to hang larrikins in the intertidal zone beyond landlubber law.
The UK should pay Wagner to intercept them on Russian flagged vessels, house the fugees on clapped out cruise ships then sail them off to who-gives-a-fuck-where.
DAMMIT! The Court Martial Appeal Court is under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court (dafuq??), so you can't bypass them. I could argue that if any offence by a warfighter committed outside the jurisdiction of the UKSC is not liable to the UKSC, but I assume the UKSC would not like that argument
I had a whole fictional process going on in my head. It was magnificent. And now it's worthless. Curse Blair and his constitutional hippy-dippyness.
[EDIT; can't we create a separate Supreme Military Court? Just a little one? It worked so well in Starship Troopers: what could possibly go wrong? ]
One thing that is clear from the Braverman letter is that the Home Secretary herself, who was previously Attorney General (so the government's legal advisor) knew that the Rwanda policy was a huge legal risk, and advised the government of this.
It was always a bad policy because as well as being inhumane, to work it required fundamental constitutional changes including withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights and making exceptions in our domestic human rights laws ('notwithstanding clauses') which would have targeted and excluded the most vulnerable, which the courts would have been very wary indeed of.
Because (as Braverman's letter very obviously points out) even this government was not willing to remove protection for the most vulnerable refugees, and rightly so, the policy was built on the shakiest of foundations, and was therefore a bad policy. Even the deterrence 'benefit' was very sketchy and unevidenced.
Note the Court said Rwanda is “a state which, in very recent times, has instigated political killings, and has led British police to warn Rwandan nationals living in Britain of credible plans to kill them on the part of that state”.
We were basically proposing to outsource our asylum claims processing to Rwanda - without setting aside existing protections in UK, not international law.
The ECHR brouhaha is a Tory headbanger distraction - though it's possible some of them are stupid enough to believe it.
I have been puzzled as to the selection of Rwanda. Nothing against the country, but why there especially? Even within Africa it seems an unusual choice.
I was hoping the SC wouldn't do this because we will now get a whole bunch of 'lefty woke blob stopping what the people want' ranting and that's one of my most unfavourite things in this world, having to listen to that.
Dominic Cummings has dubbed the ECHR the "Paedo & Terrorist Defence Act".
I was hoping the SC wouldn't do this because we will now get a whole bunch of 'lefty woke blob stopping what the people want' ranting and that's one of my most unfavourite things in this world, having to listen to that.
Dominic Cummings has dubbed the ECHR the "Paedo & Terrorist Defence Act".
Assuming you are British and live in the UK (always a chancy assumption for PB, but I digress) the ECHR also defends you, William. Judge Dredd is fiction.
I was hoping the SC wouldn't do this because we will now get a whole bunch of 'lefty woke blob stopping what the people want' ranting and that's one of my most unfavourite things in this world, having to listen to that.
Dominic Cummings has dubbed the ECHR the "Paedo & Terrorist Defence Act".
I think the point has been overlooked in recent times by moderates due to the fact he has been pursuing an entertaining vendetta against his former employer, but Dominic Cummings was, is, and will always be a festering arsehole.
First mention of 'fanboy' in the House of Commons, according to Hansard. Was previously used in the Lords in regards to her late Majesty the Queen.
Surely she was a fangirl ?
Haha, quite! Lord Purvis of Tweed was in fact quoting from an American publication referring to her ability to transform 'the most powerful man on the planet into an overexcited fanboy'.
I was hoping the SC wouldn't do this because we will now get a whole bunch of 'lefty woke blob stopping what the people want' ranting and that's one of my most unfavourite things in this world, having to listen to that.
Dominic Cummings has dubbed the ECHR the "Paedo & Terrorist Defence Act".
I sometimes wonder if any of these people have read it. That’s my go to - challenge them to read and tell me what they disagree with.
The court itself does so some silly things, but I can see a consensus about that forming in Europe, and they could always be made to focus on the actual convention and stop trying to expand it.
None of which impacts on Rwanda one jot, where court decision would still be made under any sensible set of human rights principles in British law.
One thing that is clear from the Braverman letter is that the Home Secretary herself, who was previously Attorney General (so the government's legal advisor) knew that the Rwanda policy was a huge legal risk, and advised the government of this.
It was always a bad policy because as well as being inhumane, to work it required fundamental constitutional changes including withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights and making exceptions in our domestic human rights laws ('notwithstanding clauses') which would have targeted and excluded the most vulnerable, which the courts would have been very wary indeed of.
Because (as Braverman's letter very obviously points out) even this government was not willing to remove protection for the most vulnerable refugees, and rightly so, the policy was built on the shakiest of foundations, and was therefore a bad policy. Even the deterrence 'benefit' was very sketchy and unevidenced.
Note the Court said Rwanda is “a state which, in very recent times, has instigated political killings, and has led British police to warn Rwandan nationals living in Britain of credible plans to kill them on the part of that state”.
We were basically proposing to outsource our asylum claims processing to Rwanda - without setting aside existing protections in UK, not international law.
The ECHR brouhaha is a Tory headbanger distraction - though it's possible some of them are stupid enough to believe it.
I have been puzzled as to the selection of Rwanda. Nothing against the country, but why there especially? Even within Africa it seems an unusual choice.
Rwanda has been seeking to rebuild an economy, with lots of manufacturing being invited in.
I was hoping the SC wouldn't do this because we will now get a whole bunch of 'lefty woke blob stopping what the people want' ranting and that's one of my most unfavourite things in this world, having to listen to that.
Dominic Cummings has dubbed the ECHR the "Paedo & Terrorist Defence Act".
I’m no fan of the Rwanda plan. But what I do like about it – and what many of its critics seem not to recognise – is its recognition that huge numbers of immigrants arriving daily is a problem which needs to be addressed in some way. If not this, then what? More of the same – even better funded more of the same – is not an answer, because we don’t actually deport anyone – so either we just fill our countryside with detention centres or unprocessed immigrants just seep into the country and remain under the radar indefinitely. There certainly isn’t an answer which is both a good answer and a nice answer. (Though of course that doesn’t mean that an answer such as Rwanda which is neither good nor nice must therefore be the right answer). I haven’t yet seen an answer to the problem better than @rcs1000’s Switzerland solution.
Beth Rigby @BethRigby · 6m 💥👀 So,,,c60 MPs in Commonsense/New Cons group + another 20 MPs would back leaving ECHR
Asked a v senior former cab min if, in the event of the PM deciding not to pursue leaving ECHR (if emergency law fail) whether he’d face a confidence vote, they said: “That’s very plausible”
FPT: There's a neat symmetry of completely out of touchness with reality between the Tory right "just ignore the law and send them on the planes anyway" and the Labour left "tell Israel to stop attacking Hamas and let them keep their tunnels"
Surely it's clear now that whatever legislation is passed the Supreme Court will rule Rwanda illegal due to "international treaty obligations" - ie not just ECHR.
One thing that is clear from the Braverman letter is that the Home Secretary herself, who was previously Attorney General (so the government's legal advisor) knew that the Rwanda policy was a huge legal risk, and advised the government of this.
It was always a bad policy because as well as being inhumane, to work it required fundamental constitutional changes including withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights and making exceptions in our domestic human rights laws ('notwithstanding clauses') which would have targeted and excluded the most vulnerable, which the courts would have been very wary indeed of.
Because (as Braverman's letter very obviously points out) even this government was not willing to remove protection for the most vulnerable refugees, and rightly so, the policy was built on the shakiest of foundations, and was therefore a bad policy. Even the deterrence 'benefit' was very sketchy and unevidenced.
Note the Court said Rwanda is “a state which, in very recent times, has instigated political killings, and has led British police to warn Rwandan nationals living in Britain of credible plans to kill them on the part of that state”.
We were basically proposing to outsource our asylum claims processing to Rwanda - without setting aside existing protections in UK, not international law.
The ECHR brouhaha is a Tory headbanger distraction - though it's possible some of them are stupid enough to believe it.
I have been puzzled as to the selection of Rwanda. Nothing against the country, but why there especially? Even within Africa it seems an unusual choice.
I don't think countries were clamouring to take boat people crossing the English channel. Presumably all the other countries you would have regarded as a better choice had the good sense to say no.
I’m no fan of the Rwanda plan. But what I do like about it – and what many of its critics seem not to recognise – is its recognition that huge numbers of immigrants arriving daily is a problem which needs to be addressed in some way. If not this, then what? More of the same – even better funded more of the same – is not an answer, because we don’t actually deport anyone – so either we just fill our countryside with detention centres or unprocessed immigrants just seep into the country and remain under the radar indefinitely. There certainly isn’t an answer which is both a good answer and a nice answer. (Though of course that doesn’t mean that an answer such as Rwanda which is neither good nor nice must therefore be the right answer). I haven’t yet seen an answer to the problem better than @rcs1000’s Switzerland solution.
Form then into an army, conquer France, and let them have a farm each there as a reward.
That image is quite the mise-en-scène. Somebody going to a Halloween party as Owen Jones. Sunak experiencing low key satisfaction as a single mother in Leeds is forced to go on the game. Or, as Rishi prefers to think of it, "becoming economically active". Finally, an A320 on short finals.
I’m no fan of the Rwanda plan. But what I do like about it – and what many of its critics seem not to recognise – is its recognition that huge numbers of immigrants arriving daily is a problem which needs to be addressed in some way. If not this, then what? More of the same – even better funded more of the same – is not an answer, because we don’t actually deport anyone – so either we just fill our countryside with detention centres or unprocessed immigrants just seep into the country and remain under the radar indefinitely. There certainly isn’t an answer which is both a good answer and a nice answer. (Though of course that doesn’t mean that an answer such as Rwanda which is neither good nor nice must therefore be the right answer). I haven’t yet seen an answer to the problem better than @rcs1000’s Switzerland solution.
There's no short term fix, Cookie. If there had been, it would have been fixed by now.
That is no excuse though for devising hare-brained schemes which are as impractical as they are unlawful.
Beth Rigby @BethRigby · 6m 💥👀 So,,,c60 MPs in Commonsense/New Cons group + another 20 MPs would back leaving ECHR
Asked a v senior former cab min if, in the event of the PM deciding not to pursue leaving ECHR (if emergency law fail) whether he’d face a confidence vote, they said: “That’s very plausible”
FPT: There's a neat symmetry of completely out of touchness with reality between the Tory right "just ignore the law and send them on the planes anyway" and the Labour left "tell Israel to stop attacking Hamas and let them keep their tunnels"
So, Labour - not Rwanda. But what?
Is there any alternative on offer?
Yvette Cooper has been pretty clear on this and consistent. Focus on crime, coordination with France and speeding up processing. Their policies may not (will not) eliminate the issue but they have a better chance than the Rwanda fantasy.
I’m no fan of the Rwanda plan. But what I do like about it – and what many of its critics seem not to recognise – is its recognition that huge numbers of immigrants arriving daily is a problem which needs to be addressed in some way. If not this, then what? More of the same – even better funded more of the same – is not an answer, because we don’t actually deport anyone – so either we just fill our countryside with detention centres or unprocessed immigrants just seep into the country and remain under the radar indefinitely. There certainly isn’t an answer which is both a good answer and a nice answer. (Though of course that doesn’t mean that an answer such as Rwanda which is neither good nor nice must therefore be the right answer). I haven’t yet seen an answer to the problem better than @rcs1000’s Switzerland solution.
I assume you don't actually mean "huge number of immigrants arriving daily", as while that is true the vast majority of them are arriving with work or student visas at the government's behest. I guess you're talking about asylum seekers?
Beth Rigby @BethRigby · 6m 💥👀 So,,,c60 MPs in Commonsense/New Cons group + another 20 MPs would back leaving ECHR
Asked a v senior former cab min if, in the event of the PM deciding not to pursue leaving ECHR (if emergency law fail) whether he’d face a confidence vote, they said: “That’s very plausible”
FPT: There's a neat symmetry of completely out of touchness with reality between the Tory right "just ignore the law and send them on the planes anyway" and the Labour left "tell Israel to stop attacking Hamas and let them keep their tunnels"
So, Labour - not Rwanda. But what?
Is there any alternative on offer?
Yvette Cooper has been pretty clear on this and consistent. Focus on crime, coordination with France and speeding up processing. Their policies may not (will not) eliminate the issue but they have a better chance than the Rwanda fantasy.
An interesting wrinkle is that the PM’s deal with France is quite a good one, but won’t come into effect until Labour (probably) takes power.
Beth Rigby @BethRigby · 6m 💥👀 So,,,c60 MPs in Commonsense/New Cons group + another 20 MPs would back leaving ECHR
Asked a v senior former cab min if, in the event of the PM deciding not to pursue leaving ECHR (if emergency law fail) whether he’d face a confidence vote, they said: “That’s very plausible”
FPT: There's a neat symmetry of completely out of touchness with reality between the Tory right "just ignore the law and send them on the planes anyway" and the Labour left "tell Israel to stop attacking Hamas and let them keep their tunnels"
So, Labour - not Rwanda. But what?
Is there any alternative on offer?
Some sort of out of EU rekindling of a type of Dublin Regulation.
Presumably that sort of thinking is why Lord Cameron is FS.
Watching PMQs, hard to believe the government has any grasp on the current reality
I once batted in a 20 over match (not very high level) with an inexperienced partner. I took the first ball for a single and then watch him fail to get it off the square for the remaining 5 balls. Next over, the same. Next over, the same. By 10 overs we were 10-0. I ran him out...
One thing that is clear from the Braverman letter is that the Home Secretary herself, who was previously Attorney General (so the government's legal advisor) knew that the Rwanda policy was a huge legal risk, and advised the government of this.
It was always a bad policy because as well as being inhumane, to work it required fundamental constitutional changes including withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights and making exceptions in our domestic human rights laws ('notwithstanding clauses') which would have targeted and excluded the most vulnerable, which the courts would have been very wary indeed of.
Because (as Braverman's letter very obviously points out) even this government was not willing to remove protection for the most vulnerable refugees, and rightly so, the policy was built on the shakiest of foundations, and was therefore a bad policy. Even the deterrence 'benefit' was very sketchy and unevidenced.
Note the Court said Rwanda is “a state which, in very recent times, has instigated political killings, and has led British police to warn Rwandan nationals living in Britain of credible plans to kill them on the part of that state”.
We were basically proposing to outsource our asylum claims processing to Rwanda - without setting aside existing protections in UK, not international law.
The ECHR brouhaha is a Tory headbanger distraction - though it's possible some of them are stupid enough to believe it.
I have been puzzled as to the selection of Rwanda. Nothing against the country, but why there especially? Even within Africa it seems an unusual choice.
A confluence of factors. It is a young and rapidly-expanding economy, surprisingly prosperous. It dealt with its internal tensions via vicious mass murder and is now stable. It's capable of processing international refugees, willing to do so and thanks to its geography (it's landlocked and high-up) escape is difficult.
In short, it's one of the few countries that were legally trustworthy and able and willing to do so. I would have gone for the Western Sahara but I am stupid.
God, this government is appalling. I might just have to step away from politics now until after Christmas. The utter state of the Tory Party and the country is just too depressing right now, and we have in all likelihood 11 more months of this.
Conflates Remembrance Day with the entire weekend. And the march was not on RD, pace what a number of Tory media outlets and PBTories thought or liked to imply.
I’m no fan of the Rwanda plan. But what I do like about it – and what many of its critics seem not to recognise – is its recognition that huge numbers of immigrants arriving daily is a problem which needs to be addressed in some way. If not this, then what? More of the same – even better funded more of the same – is not an answer, because we don’t actually deport anyone – so either we just fill our countryside with detention centres or unprocessed immigrants just seep into the country and remain under the radar indefinitely. There certainly isn’t an answer which is both a good answer and a nice answer. (Though of course that doesn’t mean that an answer such as Rwanda which is neither good nor nice must therefore be the right answer). I haven’t yet seen an answer to the problem better than @rcs1000’s Switzerland solution.
Of course there are no answers in any conventional sense. Something has to give. Where?
One area of possibility is this: The rights of refugees in practice varies according to where to can get to. If you land in country X (poor and war torn) your prospects are rather grey. If you land in Westernrich country, your rights and prospects are greater. Cox's Bazaar and a hotel room in UK are very different.
The Refugee Convention could simply create a level playing field. Asylum claims can be made, but all seeker's rights are identical: a tent in a desert and 3 UN supplied meals a day and transport home the moment the precipitating crisis ends.
A further convention charges the UN with the duty to create conditions in states from which people are fleeing conducive to their return.
No, I don't like it either, but it would concentrate minds.
God, this government is appalling. I might just have to step away from politics now until after Christmas. The utter state of the Tory Party and the country is just too depressing right now, and we have in all likelihood 11 more months of this.
Just noticed an Advent Calendar of wine bottles (small ones admittedly). Very tempting to get one, or the single malt equivalent, just to get through one month.
Watching PMQs, hard to believe the government has any grasp on the current reality
I once batted in a 20 over match (not very high level) with an inexperienced partner. I took the first ball for a single and then watch him fail to get it off the square for the remaining 5 balls. Next over, the same. Next over, the same. By 10 overs we were 10-0. I ran him out...
Surely it's clear now that whatever legislation is passed the Supreme Court will rule Rwanda illegal due to "international treaty obligations" - ie not just ECHR.
So whatever the Government does, it can't happen.
Be honest. That's not going to stop them trying. They prefer to blame the Blob, Lefties, Woke, wave their arms about, anything rather than come to terms with the fact that the law doesn't allow them to do what they want to and if they want to get around that then they will have to change the law.
The problem isn't partisan politics, its the fact that the modern Conservative Party doesn't know how to do things. It expelled its brains, Truss exposed the obsolescence of its thought, and now it's moping around the house like a teenager screaming "BUT WHYYYYYY?".
Will somebody please kick this shower out of office so it can regroup and do its adulting? Nobody gains from this. Right-wing voters in the UK are being represented by fools.
Watching PMQs, hard to believe the government has any grasp on the current reality
I once batted in a 20 over match (not very high level) with an inexperienced partner. I took the first ball for a single and then watch him fail to get it off the square for the remaining 5 balls. Next over, the same. Next over, the same. By 10 overs we were 10-0. I ran him out...
I’m no fan of the Rwanda plan. But what I do like about it – and what many of its critics seem not to recognise – is its recognition that huge numbers of immigrants arriving daily is a problem which needs to be addressed in some way. If not this, then what? More of the same – even better funded more of the same – is not an answer, because we don’t actually deport anyone – so either we just fill our countryside with detention centres or unprocessed immigrants just seep into the country and remain under the radar indefinitely. There certainly isn’t an answer which is both a good answer and a nice answer. (Though of course that doesn’t mean that an answer such as Rwanda which is neither good nor nice must therefore be the right answer). I haven’t yet seen an answer to the problem better than @rcs1000’s Switzerland solution.
Of course there are no answers in any conventional sense. Something has to give. Where?
One area of possibility is this: The rights of refugees in practice varies according to where to can get to. If you land in country X (poor and war torn) your prospects are rather grey. If you land in Westernrich country, your rights and prospects are greater. Cox's Bazaar and a hotel room in UK are very different.
The Refugee Convention could simply create a level playing field. Asylum claims can be made, but all seeker's rights are identical: a tent in a desert and 3 UN supplied meals a day and transport home the moment the precipitating crisis ends.
A further convention charges the UN with the duty to create conditions in states from which people are fleeing conducive to their return.
No, I don't like it either, but it would concentrate minds.
This would take the absolute worst aspects of refugee experience around the world and apply them everywhere. The most miserable existences, some of which people are born into and live their entire lives, are in those fly-blown tented refugee camps on the borders of warzones. Take the Sahrawis, there for decades, or the Kakuma camp and several others in the Kenyan desert, or the camps housing thousands of Syrians in Jordan. These are refugees from largely intractable disputes who may never return, yet they are stuck in a sort of economically inactive limbo. Surely better to try to phase out this type of camp, where the refugees have no meaningful prospect of integration into the host country. Integration should be an option, after a period (say 2 years), and if neighbouring host countries can't afford this they should be funded by richer countries to do so.
Conflates Remembrance Day with the entire weekend. And the march was not on RD, pace what a number of Tory media outlets and PBTories thought or liked to imply.
Naughty.
Well, sort of. The Palestine March was on Remembrance Day if that is used as a synonym for Armistice Day. It was, of course, the day before Remembrance Sunday.
Surely it's clear now that whatever legislation is passed the Supreme Court will rule Rwanda illegal due to "international treaty obligations" - ie not just ECHR.
So whatever the Government does, it can't happen.
Be honest. That's not going to stop them trying. They prefer to blame the Blob, Lefties, Woke, wave their arms about, anything rather than come to terms with the fact that the law doesn't allow them to do what they want to and if they want to get around that then they will have to change the law.
The problem isn't partisan politics, its the fact that the modern Conservative Party doesn't know how to do things. It expelled its brains, Truss exposed the obsolescence of its thought, and now it's moping around the house like a teenager screaming "BUT WHYYYYYY?".
Will somebody please kick this shower out of office so it can regroup and do its adulting? Nobody gains from this. Right-wing voters in the UK are being represented by fools.
Your last point is a good one. I'm not a right winger but if I were I'd be embarrassed by the thought that these muppets represented my strain of political opinion.
If the Government is looking for a workaround, the trick is to ensure that they are intercepted by Royal Navy ships before they hit UK dry land/shore. That way they never fall under UK jurisdiction and the SC writ doesn't hold sway to ships at sea.
Does it? British law still applies to British flagged vessels in territorial waters. Suranne Jones had to solve that murder on a submarine.
It's not like the glory days of the RN when the Admiralty used to wait for low tide at Wapping to hang larrikins in the intertidal zone beyond landlubber law.
The UK should pay Wagner to intercept them on Russian flagged vessels, house the fugees on clapped out cruise ships then sail them off to who-gives-a-fuck-where.
DAMMIT! The Court Martial Appeal Court is under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court (dafuq??), so you can't bypass them. I could argue that if any offence by a warfighter committed outside the jurisdiction of the UKSC is not liable to the UKSC, but I assume the UKSC would not like that argument
I had a whole fictional process going on in my head. It was magnificent. And now it's worthless. Curse Blair and his constitutional hippy-dippyness.
[EDIT; can't we create a separate Supreme Military Court? Just a little one? It worked so well in Starship Troopers: what could possibly go wrong? ]
Oddly enough I was just reading about an appeal of some kind from a court martial in 1811 which ended up in the Privy Council or at least the AG and Solicitor-General.
(BTW being a Naval one, it hinged on exactly how to define an actual act of sodomy, so one does wonder how they reacted to that.)
I went for a swim today, and found that the leisure centre's chip-and-pin system was not working. As I did not have cash on me, they let me swim for free, as long as I paid double next time I come. They did not debit any account, or take any note of my entry.
I will, of course, mention this on Friday when I next swim. But how many people would not?
The danger for the centre and left (and centre-right) here is that Rishi and his backbenchers can shift the Overton window on issues like this even while losing badly. I don't think it's enough for Labour to focus only on practicalities or plans being unworkable. If they want to avoid the ECHR question becoming some kind of national inevitability then they need to protect the taboo. Same applies to a number of other social and human rights policies.
My fear is that Labour in power, never knowingly un-authoritarian, is not necessarily going to be the best protector here. Sooner or later there will be an inconvenient legal case that makes them start to flirt with the same options.
I’m no fan of the Rwanda plan. But what I do like about it – and what many of its critics seem not to recognise – is its recognition that huge numbers of immigrants arriving daily is a problem which needs to be addressed in some way. If not this, then what? More of the same – even better funded more of the same – is not an answer, because we don’t actually deport anyone – so either we just fill our countryside with detention centres or unprocessed immigrants just seep into the country and remain under the radar indefinitely. There certainly isn’t an answer which is both a good answer and a nice answer. (Though of course that doesn’t mean that an answer such as Rwanda which is neither good nor nice must therefore be the right answer). I haven’t yet seen an answer to the problem better than @rcs1000’s Switzerland solution.
This whinging that there is no alternative answer being offered is silly. As you say at the end Switzerland have a solution. We could copy it, whinge, do nothing, or try and do something both ineffective and illegal. I say copy it.
I went for a swim today, and found that the leisure centre's chip-and-pin system was not working. As I did not have cash on me, they let me swim for free, as long as I paid double next time I come. They did not debit any account, or take any note of my entry.
I will, of course, mention this on Friday when I next swim. But how many people would not?
Apparently Braverman thought a different plan could be UK officials process the claims in Rwanda and those successful could be returned to the UK . That would have been lawful . Instead the government seems to think that if parliament deems Rwanda safe then that would help , this is delusional .
Just saying a country is safe doesn’t make it so .
God, this government is appalling. I might just have to step away from politics now until after Christmas. The utter state of the Tory Party and the country is just too depressing right now, and we have in all likelihood 11 more months of this.
Just noticed an Advent Calendar of wine bottles (small ones admittedly). Very tempting to get one, or the single malt equivalent, just to get through one month.
Last year I bought an "Exit Game" advents calendar. A daily puzzle after dinner was great fun. I'll buy another one this year.
God, this government is appalling. I might just have to step away from politics now until after Christmas. The utter state of the Tory Party and the country is just too depressing right now, and we have in all likelihood 11 more months of this.
Just noticed an Advent Calendar of wine bottles (small ones admittedly). Very tempting to get one, or the single malt equivalent, just to get through one month.
My wife bought me, for a couple of years, the one from masters of malt. It was a nice experience. I tasted some malts from countries I would not have even thought would have produced it such as India and Sweden.
The danger for the centre and left (and centre-right) here is that Rishi and his backbenchers can shift the Overton window on issues like this even while losing badly. I don't think it's enough for Labour to focus only on practicalities or plans being unworkable. If they want to avoid the ECHR question becoming some kind of national inevitability then they need to protect the taboo. Same applies to a number of other social and human rights policies.
My fear is that Labour in power, never knowingly un-authoritarian, is not necessarily going to be the best protector here. Sooner or later there will be an inconvenient legal case that makes them start to flirt with the same options.
That's always the worry. One of my problems with Sunak is that he treats the country like a company and is perfectly willing to fuck up its people if it serves the company's needs. We are people, not a workforce. But I don't think he gets that.
I’m no fan of the Rwanda plan. But what I do like about it – and what many of its critics seem not to recognise – is its recognition that huge numbers of immigrants arriving daily is a problem which needs to be addressed in some way. If not this, then what? More of the same – even better funded more of the same – is not an answer, because we don’t actually deport anyone – so either we just fill our countryside with detention centres or unprocessed immigrants just seep into the country and remain under the radar indefinitely. There certainly isn’t an answer which is both a good answer and a nice answer. (Though of course that doesn’t mean that an answer such as Rwanda which is neither good nor nice must therefore be the right answer). I haven’t yet seen an answer to the problem better than @rcs1000’s Switzerland solution.
Of course there are no answers in any conventional sense. Something has to give. Where?
One area of possibility is this: The rights of refugees in practice varies according to where to can get to. If you land in country X (poor and war torn) your prospects are rather grey. If you land in Westernrich country, your rights and prospects are greater. Cox's Bazaar and a hotel room in UK are very different.
The Refugee Convention could simply create a level playing field. Asylum claims can be made, but all seeker's rights are identical: a tent in a desert and 3 UN supplied meals a day and transport home the moment the precipitating crisis ends.
A further convention charges the UN with the duty to create conditions in states from which people are fleeing conducive to their return.
No, I don't like it either, but it would concentrate minds.
This would take the absolute worst aspects of refugee experience around the world and apply them everywhere. The most miserable existences, some of which people are born into and live their entire lives, are in those fly-blown tented refugee camps on the borders of warzones. Take the Sahrawis, there for decades, or the Kakuma camp and several others in the Kenyan desert, or the camps housing thousands of Syrians in Jordan. These are refugees from largely intractable disputes who may never return, yet they are stuck in a sort of economically inactive limbo. Surely better to try to phase out this type of camp, where the refugees have no meaningful prospect of integration into the host country. Integration should be an option, after a period (say 2 years), and if neighbouring host countries can't afford this they should be funded by richer countries to do so.
Isn't the scenario in the first half of your comment exactly what the populist right wants?
Apparently Braverman thought a different plan could be UK officials process the claims in Rwanda and those successful could be returned to the UK . That would have been lawful .
If that was the proposal I suspect far more people would have supported it. I certainly would be far better disposed towards it.
Apparently Braverman thought a different plan could be UK officials process the claims in Rwanda and those successful could be returned to the UK . That would have been lawful . Instead the government seems to think that if parliament deems Rwanda safe then that would help , this is delusional .
Just saying a country is safe doesn’t make it so .
And they've chosen a country that, even if it were as safe and human rights-respecting as Norway (which it's not, it's an authoritarian regime with a penchant for extra-judicial killings), is going to be forever associated in many people's minds with genocide.
"Senior Tory says Rishi Sunak’s response to Supreme Court will be a ‘confidence issue’
Sir Simon Clarke has said Rishi Sunak’s response this evening to the Supreme Court’s ruling against Rwanda will be a “confidence issue”, implying it could threaten his leadership of the Conservative Party.
He told Sky News the Government must now respond “quickly and decisively”, and border control is now an “existential challenge” to the Government and democracy.
Asked whether Mr Sunak’s response will be a “critical issue” for him about whether Mr Sunak can lead the Tories into the next election, Sir Simon said “it is a confidence issue in his judgement and leadership of the Conservative Party”.
He warned that if the PM doesn’t step up to sort this issue out once and for all, it could mean letters of no confidence “but I don’t want us to go there”."
Comments
@BethRigby
·
6m
💥👀 So,,,c60 MPs in Commonsense/New Cons group + another 20 MPs would back leaving ECHR
Asked a v senior former cab min if, in the event of the PM deciding not to pursue leaving ECHR (if emergency law fail) whether he’d face a confidence vote, they said: “That’s very plausible”
V v v tight but...
Almost every major country in Europe now has a hardline anti-immigration party gaining significant ground.
If he'd kept her on, she'd be the one having to defend this mess. She'd probably end up resigning and blaming him, but it wouldn't be nearly as damaging - she'd still be the right wing moaner who never actually did anything.
By sacking her and provoking the letter, she's explained how he prevented the necessary parts of the bill before an audience of millions, predicted what will happen, and lo, it has happened. He's calling an emergency press conference - he should resign. Perhaps he will, and make Cameron the caretaker PM?
It was always a bad policy because as well as being inhumane, to work it required fundamental constitutional changes including withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights and making exceptions in our domestic human rights laws ('notwithstanding clauses') which would have targeted and excluded the most vulnerable, which the courts would have been very wary indeed of.
Because (as Braverman's letter very obviously points out) even this government was not willing to remove protection for the most vulnerable refugees, and rightly so, the policy was built on the shakiest of foundations, and was therefore a bad policy. Even the deterrence 'benefit' was very sketchy and unevidenced.
Don't let the government spin that it was the courts' fault the policy failed - it was a bad policy and the government never grappled with its potential unlawfulness.
https://twitter.com/AdamWagner1/status/1724736538523697397
We were basically proposing to outsource our asylum claims processing to Rwanda - without setting aside existing protections in UK, not international law.
The ECHR brouhaha is a Tory headbanger distraction - though it's possible some of them are stupid enough to believe it.
nico679 said:
» show previous quotes
So you’d rather have the US model then ?
I would prefer to have the Court of Session as it was always the top Scottish court rather than the fake English made up Supreme Court to gerrymander Scottish cases personally.
This excellent judgement from the SC is good news all round. It has the following effects:
It shows that Braverman pursued a policy that broke the government's own laws, as well as being deranged to anyone with a moral compass.
It enables Sunak (if he has any sense) to say that the idea was OK but implementation is impossible so let's think of other ways to appease the ultra right.
Most important it enables Starmer to say that whatever anyone's views might be on sending refugees to North Korea or Gaza or indeed anywhere, we need to move on from this unlawful Tory scheme and scapegoat someone else for a change (possibly Etonians) and get migrants picking the soft fruit that benefits junkies can't be bothered to do.
Finally, it comes just in time for Christmas so that more than 30 (see the judgement) impecunious barristers will be able to buy shoes for their children and gruel for the table to celebrate, toasting the taxpayer in water as they do so. God bless them every one.
I had a whole fictional process going on in my head. It was magnificent. And now it's worthless. Curse Blair and his constitutional hippy-dippyness.
[EDIT; can't we create a separate Supreme Military Court? Just a little one? It worked so well in Starship Troopers: what could possibly go wrong? ]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_Martial_Appeal_Court
Also, according to Sunak: "the cost of living is the number one priority for countries up and down the family".
That's a novel take.
The court itself does so some silly things, but I can see a consensus about that forming in Europe, and they could always be made to focus on the actual convention and stop trying to expand it.
None of which impacts on Rwanda one jot, where court decision would still be made under any sensible set of human rights principles in British law.
There certainly isn’t an answer which is both a good answer and a nice answer. (Though of course that doesn’t mean that an answer such as Rwanda which is neither good nor nice must therefore be the right answer).
I haven’t yet seen an answer to the problem better than @rcs1000’s Switzerland solution.
Is there any alternative on offer?
Needs to open with a long silence, an eye roll and a deep sigh. Then “where do I start?”
So whatever the Government does, it can't happen.
Used to work for the Romans.
That is no excuse though for devising hare-brained schemes which are as impractical as they are unlawful.
https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1724749823398596736?t=VVkhjxQa-67hjkpMw92Csw&s=19
I guess you're talking about asylum seekers?
Con Maj 13
Con Seat Losses:
None (or gains) 140
1-50 losses 32
The None and 1-50 Losses combined cover more outcomes - ie 315+ seats rather than 326+ seats but at much longer odds.
Presumably that sort of thinking is why Lord Cameron is FS.
In short, it's one of the few countries that were legally trustworthy and able and willing to do so. I would have gone for the Western Sahara but I am stupid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG0ecfs4ArU
Risk disorder!
Naughty.
One area of possibility is this: The rights of refugees in practice varies according to where to can get to. If you land in country X (poor and war torn) your prospects are rather grey. If you land in Westernrich country, your rights and prospects are greater. Cox's Bazaar and a hotel room in UK are very different.
The Refugee Convention could simply create a level playing field. Asylum claims can be made, but all seeker's rights are identical: a tent in a desert and 3 UN supplied meals a day and transport home the moment the precipitating crisis ends.
A further convention charges the UN with the duty to create conditions in states from which people are fleeing conducive to their return.
No, I don't like it either, but it would concentrate minds.
Opposition to the march 43% vs The march should be banned 48%
So more people want the march to be banned than oppose it....surely there are some who oppose the march but value the right to protest?
And who are the supporters of the march who don't think it should go ahead?
The problem isn't partisan politics, its the fact that the modern Conservative Party doesn't know how to do things. It expelled its brains, Truss exposed the obsolescence of its thought, and now it's moping around the house like a teenager screaming "BUT WHYYYYYY?".
Will somebody please kick this shower out of office so it can regroup and do its adulting? Nobody gains from this. Right-wing voters in the UK are being represented by fools.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12752487/Rishi-Sunak-Rwanda-human-rights-laws-Supreme-Court-Channel-Boats-Suella-Braverman.html
It looks as if my issues can be treated medically, and without surgery, but as a family we are so grateful for all our blessings
Indeed my issues pale into insignificance when we look at Gaza and Ukraine
(BTW being a Naval one, it hinged on exactly how to define an actual act of sodomy, so one does wonder how they reacted to that.)
I went for a swim today, and found that the leisure centre's chip-and-pin system was not working. As I did not have cash on me, they let me swim for free, as long as I paid double next time I come. They did not debit any account, or take any note of my entry.
I will, of course, mention this on Friday when I next swim. But how many people would not?
My fear is that Labour in power, never knowingly un-authoritarian, is not necessarily going to be the best protector here. Sooner or later there will be an inconvenient legal case that makes them start to flirt with the same options.
If I did bet my money would be on Cleverly for the LOTO after GE24 even though he has the hardest job in government
Just saying a country is safe doesn’t make it so .
Sir Simon Clarke has said Rishi Sunak’s response this evening to the Supreme Court’s ruling against Rwanda will be a “confidence issue”, implying it could threaten his leadership of the Conservative Party.
He told Sky News the Government must now respond “quickly and decisively”, and border control is now an “existential challenge” to the Government and democracy.
Asked whether Mr Sunak’s response will be a “critical issue” for him about whether Mr Sunak can lead the Tories into the next election, Sir Simon said “it is a confidence issue in his judgement and leadership of the Conservative Party”.
He warned that if the PM doesn’t step up to sort this issue out once and for all, it could mean letters of no confidence “but I don’t want us to go there”."
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1835137/Suella-Braverman-live-Rwanda-Court-Ruling-today-PMQs-latest-news