Starmer is adept at U-Turns so he should just admit cancelling Rwanda was a bad idea, sent totally the wrong message, and bring it make with a tweak and call it the Labour version.
Simply because Labour knows it wouldn't work just as the Conservatives probably did.
In truth, no one has come up with a coherent, legal, practical, workable and above all inexpensive solution to the problem of "the boats". If such a solution existed, it would have been implemented by either this Government or the last Government.
If withdrawing from the ECHR is the panacea some seem to think it would have been done by this Government or the last Government.
You could try the Greek response and immediately arrest and deport all those who come over illegally but that wouldn't stop them coming.
I feel like maybe we should give the Greek response a go. Starmer could get away with that if we committed to maintaining or increasing the number of people we grant asylum via direct entry from UK Embassies in Turkey, Pakistan etc.
It's the queue-jumping that is really toxic here. Brits are typically exceptionally tolerant, and welcoming of refugees and even economic migrants, but a sense of of fair play is keenly felt. It's why there is a such a deep loathing of travellers in rural areas - when someone leaves litter all over the place and trespasses on someone's field for weeks...
The problems are not really political, they are legal. Rwanda would probably work. Vastly reducing the grant rate would (less quickly and showily) work. Reducing the eligibility of coming to the UK by housing asylum seekers in less comfortable conditions would have an effect. Foxy's Danish solution sounds quite good. But the fact is that any attempt to implement any such solutions would (and do) simply get rugby tackled down by legal challenges. Asylum seekers don't even get deported when their claims are rejected - they can challenge the verdict legally an unlimited number of times.
Literally nobody has said leaving the ECHR is a panacea - that's a straw man argument. But it is looking like a necessary precursor to doing anything about this. I doubt we could even fudge or disapply bits of it these days, as again you'd have a judicial review.
Leaving the ECHR allows you to take the necessary steps. After which you simply make it a rock hard, no exceptions rule that anyone entering the uk illegally will be barred for life from ever entering the uk again. Sweep them off the beach into a detention facility before swiftly deporting them to country of origin regardless of their relationship with their home government. If they have tossed their ID into the sea, then it’s the morning flight to [Rwanda]. You are not an asylum seeker if you’re coming from France, the end.
Starmer is adept at U-Turns so he should just admit cancelling Rwanda was a bad idea, sent totally the wrong message, and bring it make with a tweak and call it the Labour version.
Simply because Labour knows it wouldn't work just as the Conservatives probably did.
In truth, no one has come up with a coherent, legal, practical, workable and above all inexpensive solution to the problem of "the boats". If such a solution existed, it would have been implemented by either this Government or the last Government.
If withdrawing from the ECHR is the panacea some seem to think it would have been done by this Government or the last Government.
You could try the Greek response and immediately arrest and deport all those who come over illegally but that wouldn't stop them coming.
I feel like maybe we should give the Greek response a go. Starmer could get away with that if we committed to maintaining or increasing the number of people we grant asylum via direct entry from UK Embassies in Turkey, Pakistan etc.
It's the queue-jumping that is really toxic here. Brits are typically exceptionally tolerant, and welcoming of refugees and even economic migrants, but a sense of of fair play is keenly felt. It's why there is a such a deep loathing of travellers in rural areas - when someone leaves litter all over the place and trespasses on someone's field for weeks...
The problems are not really political, they are legal. Rwanda would probably work. Vastly reducing the grant rate would (less quickly and showily) work. Reducing the eligibility of coming to the UK by housing asylum seekers in less comfortable conditions would have an effect. Foxy's Danish solution sounds quite good. But the fact is that any attempt to implement any such solutions would (and do) simply get rugby tackled down by legal challenges. Asylum seekers don't even get deported when their claims are rejected - they can challenge the verdict legally an unlimited number of times.
Literally nobody has said leaving the ECHR is a panacea - that's a straw man argument. But it is looking like a necessary precursor to doing anything about this. I doubt we could even fudge or disapply bits of it these days, as again you'd have a judicial review.
Leaving the ECHR allows you to take the necessary steps. After which you simply make it a rock hard, no exceptions rule that anyone entering the uk illegally will be barred for life from ever entering the uk again. Sweep them off the beach into a detention facility before swiftly deporting them to country of origin regardless of their relationship with their home government. If they have tossed their ID into the sea, then it’s the morning flight to [Rwanda]. You are not an asylum seeker if you’re coming from France, the end.
The theory - and the reality. Supreme Court case when trying to deport a Belarussian. You need to work with other countries and it may come at a cost.
AM is a Belarusian national. He arrived in the UK in 1998 and claimed asylum. His asylum claim was refused on 12 December 2000 and he was deported to Belarus on 29 June 2001. As AM told the Belarussian authorities that he was not a Belarussian citizen, he was refused entry and returned to the UK. Attempts by the Secretary of State to obtain necessary travel authorisations for AM from Belarussian authorities failed and he remains in the UK.
Starmer is adept at U-Turns so he should just admit cancelling Rwanda was a bad idea, sent totally the wrong message, and bring it make with a tweak and call it the Labour version.
Simply because Labour knows it wouldn't work just as the Conservatives probably did.
In truth, no one has come up with a coherent, legal, practical, workable and above all inexpensive solution to the problem of "the boats". If such a solution existed, it would have been implemented by either this Government or the last Government.
If withdrawing from the ECHR is the panacea some seem to think it would have been done by this Government or the last Government.
You could try the Greek response and immediately arrest and deport all those who come over illegally but that wouldn't stop them coming.
And, small boat crossings have increased 50% since it was cancellled.
Nice weather.
I doubt your average Afghan boat person has any idea of the Rwanda deterrent, or now, lack thereof.
Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.
It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.
Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.
This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
It is - of course - worth remembering that British foreign policy for the last 500 years has been to avoid a European continental hegemon emerging. It led to us fighting in the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701–1714; the Napoleonic Wars from 1803 to 1815, and then both the World Wars in the 20th Century.
The view - rightly or wrongly - was that Britain was strongest when Europe was fractured. (And I would argue that the fracturing of the European continent was -mostly- good for citizens too. It meant countries were competing and innovating.)
So... you can argue that Britain should have avoided the First World War, but you do have to remember that would have had consequences too.
We had no choice.
France and Russia would have both been defeated (Russia was as it is, and France came close in 1917) and we'd have faced a totally German dominated Europe. They could have united the fleets of up to 4 navies against us, and would have occupied the low countries and the Channel coast, which would have meant the UK's safety and its links to the Empire would have been utterly at its mercy. The Royal Navy wouldn't have been able to protect our independence.
We want to believe it was avoidable due to the terrible cost. But, whilst a catastrophe, the alternative for this country would have been worse.
We had to fight.
No, I don't really think that holds water. Even with whatever survived of France and Russia's Navies that had not been scuttled or come to us, Germany would not have been a serious naval threat. And where is the solid evidence that the Kaiser would have been more successful in conquering Russia than Napoleon before him?
A Germany that had only recently united itself acting as the overlord of an annoyed Europe would have had far more pressing problems than attacking Britain at sea.
It was just a catastrophical error. We have to accept it, forgive, and move on.
I suppose the evidence is that in 1918 Germany had successfully conquered Russia.
Yes, one only needs to read the Treaty of Brest-Litovskt. For France, look at the annexed territory in Alsace-Lorraine in 1871.
The Royal Navy had about 36 dreadnoughts to 21 German, roughly a 60% advantage, but nothing like an insurmountable one.
A German victory would have annexed the low countries, disarmed along the Channel and absorbed most of the French Navy. It would certainly want to profit from its victory, and not have to worry about Britain again by ensuring it was strong enough to dictate terms.
How much of the French fleet was successfully absorbed and used by Germany in World War 2?
Starmer is adept at U-Turns so he should just admit cancelling Rwanda was a bad idea, sent totally the wrong message, and bring it make with a tweak and call it the Labour version.
Simply because Labour knows it wouldn't work just as the Conservatives probably did.
In truth, no one has come up with a coherent, legal, practical, workable and above all inexpensive solution to the problem of "the boats". If such a solution existed, it would have been implemented by either this Government or the last Government.
If withdrawing from the ECHR is the panacea some seem to think it would have been done by this Government or the last Government.
You could try the Greek response and immediately arrest and deport all those who come over illegally but that wouldn't stop them coming.
I feel like maybe we should give the Greek response a go. Starmer could get away with that if we committed to maintaining or increasing the number of people we grant asylum via direct entry from UK Embassies in Turkey, Pakistan etc.
It's the queue-jumping that is really toxic here. Brits are typically exceptionally tolerant, and welcoming of refugees and even economic migrants, but a sense of of fair play is keenly felt. It's why there is a such a deep loathing of travellers in rural areas - when someone leaves litter all over the place and trespasses on someone's field for weeks...
The problems are not really political, they are legal. Rwanda would probably work. Vastly reducing the grant rate would (less quickly and showily) work. Reducing the eligibility of coming to the UK by housing asylum seekers in less comfortable conditions would have an effect. Foxy's Danish solution sounds quite good. But the fact is that any attempt to implement any such solutions would (and do) simply get rugby tackled down by legal challenges. Asylum seekers don't even get deported when their claims are rejected - they can challenge the verdict legally an unlimited number of times.
Literally nobody has said leaving the ECHR is a panacea - that's a straw man argument. But it is looking like a necessary precursor to doing anything about this. I doubt we could even fudge or disapply bits of it these days, as again you'd have a judicial review.
See the recent judgements in Ireland and France. It’s not the ECHR - it’s activist legal theory using things like the right to family life to overrule nearly any attempts at removal.
Change the judges….
If judges become legislators, which I think is how Lord Bingham saw them becoming, ultimately politicians will pack the Courts with their own supporters, as in the USA.
Either, you cut back the whole thicket of human rights law/adherence to international law, or you just accept that the judiciary are political actors, and make sure that your political actors get appointed to key positions.
Was Bingham the old fashioned establishment type who disliked democracy? He doesn't strike me as the revolutionary sort.
Which was the whole point. Instead of the politicians and the ghastly Head Count who vote for them, Top Judges in an Ivory Tower would rule. Plato’s Philosopher Kings made manifest.
“Keep the coinage and the courts. Let the rabble have the rest”
The slight problem is that the judges are remarkably unable to tell when their opinions are political opinions, not the perfectly balanced musings of a theorist following Pure Law.
I think that Lord Bingham took the view that large areas of policy-making should simply be removed from the political sphere.
The Head Count could still argue over things like changes in tax rates, but human rights law (which inevitably compasses immigration law, criminal justice, the rights and obligations of citizens and those of non-citizens), and even large swathes of foreign policy were far too important to be determined by elected politicians.
That’s what I was saying….
It wouldn’t be long before tax rates became a human rights issue.
The sophistry comes from claiming that the judgements are not political - just extracting pure, neutral Truth from the Aether.
Starmer is adept at U-Turns so he should just admit cancelling Rwanda was a bad idea, sent totally the wrong message, and bring it make with a tweak and call it the Labour version.
Simply because Labour knows it wouldn't work just as the Conservatives probably did.
In truth, no one has come up with a coherent, legal, practical, workable and above all inexpensive solution to the problem of "the boats". If such a solution existed, it would have been implemented by either this Government or the last Government.
If withdrawing from the ECHR is the panacea some seem to think it would have been done by this Government or the last Government.
You could try the Greek response and immediately arrest and deport all those who come over illegally but that wouldn't stop them coming.
I feel like maybe we should give the Greek response a go. Starmer could get away with that if we committed to maintaining or increasing the number of people we grant asylum via direct entry from UK Embassies in Turkey, Pakistan etc.
It's the queue-jumping that is really toxic here. Brits are typically exceptionally tolerant, and welcoming of refugees and even economic migrants, but a sense of of fair play is keenly felt. It's why there is a such a deep loathing of travellers in rural areas - when someone leaves litter all over the place and trespasses on someone's field for weeks...
The problems are not really political, they are legal. Rwanda would probably work. Vastly reducing the grant rate would (less quickly and showily) work. Reducing the eligibility of coming to the UK by housing asylum seekers in less comfortable conditions would have an effect. Foxy's Danish solution sounds quite good. But the fact is that any attempt to implement any such solutions would (and do) simply get rugby tackled down by legal challenges. Asylum seekers don't even get deported when their claims are rejected - they can challenge the verdict legally an unlimited number of times.
Literally nobody has said leaving the ECHR is a panacea - that's a straw man argument. But it is looking like a necessary precursor to doing anything about this. I doubt we could even fudge or disapply bits of it these days, as again you'd have a judicial review.
I think it's pretty obvious we need to reform the convention - something that hasn't kept up with the increased mobility of people around the world. It's particularly urgent if the models are broadly correct and some of the poorest and most populous parts of the world get hammered by climate change.
And like gay marriage for the Conservatives, it's actually a Labour government that has the best chance of making that stick and finding a consensus.
Starmer's Government did not even participate in the recent letter by several EU Governments asking for reform of the convention. Which by the way was comprehensively rebuffed.
Starmer could have been part of this effort - it fits with his theme of working with EU countries. He chose not to because he doesn't believe in reform of the Convention.
Even if he did want to reform it, he would never contemplate leaving it, which is the only possible way that the ECHR would consider reforming.
No government, no settled borders, and in future no Palestinian refugees as they'd be within their own new state.
I don't have a firm view on the Palestine statehood push, but it is pretty pathetic that a Government so apparently slavish to 'international law' that it gives up territory on the strength of an advisory ruling by the ICR has apparently failed to do its homework so badly. Worst Government ever.
No government, no settled borders, and in future no Palestinian refugees as they'd be within their own new state.
I don't have a firm view on the Palestine statehood push, but it is pretty pathetic that a Government so apparently slavish to 'international law' that it gives up territory on the strength of an advisory ruling by the ICR has apparently failed to do its homework so badly. Worst Government ever.
Starmer is adept at U-Turns so he should just admit cancelling Rwanda was a bad idea, sent totally the wrong message, and bring it make with a tweak and call it the Labour version.
Simply because Labour knows it wouldn't work just as the Conservatives probably did.
In truth, no one has come up with a coherent, legal, practical, workable and above all inexpensive solution to the problem of "the boats". If such a solution existed, it would have been implemented by either this Government or the last Government.
If withdrawing from the ECHR is the panacea some seem to think it would have been done by this Government or the last Government.
You could try the Greek response and immediately arrest and deport all those who come over illegally but that wouldn't stop them coming.
And, small boat crossings have increased 50% since it was cancellled.
Nice weather.
I doubt your average Afghan boat person has any idea of the Rwanda deterrent, or now, lack thereof.
Before the election Today had regular interviews with charity people in the Calais region and former border officials working with organisations who were very clear that the Rwanda plan was well known by asylum seekers and the threat of it was real to potential boaters.
I know that’s not ideal, something you really don’t like actually working, but the evidence was clearly there and with tweaks such as allowing successful applicants to come to the UK and non successful to stay in Rwanda or confirm and return to their county of origin, it might have worked very well but too many people were blinded to Rwanda because it was the Tories’ plan or frankly, they just don’t want to do anything about the problem.
No government, no settled borders, and in future no Palestinian refugees as they'd be within their own new state.
I don't have a firm view on the Palestine statehood push, but it is pretty pathetic that a Government so apparently slavish to 'international law' that it gives up territory on the strength of an advisory ruling by the ICR has apparently failed to do its homework so badly. Worst Government ever.
Parody accounts should be a bit subtle.
And funny. That's where yours falls down I feel. The unremitting baleful misery is certainly artistic but it isn't particularly entertaining.
No government, no settled borders, and in future no Palestinian refugees as they'd be within their own new state.
You realize that we are not a signatory to the Montevideo Convention?
It was aimed at the USA to prevent it interfering in other states in the Americas. Only states in the Americas signed it. Interestingly Canada didn't. It is nothing to do with the UK or the other 147 (out of 193) UN member states who have recognised the Palestinian State. You would expect the 40 peers to do their homework.
Comments
The plans are part of a move by the Health Secretary to shift treatment away from hospitals and into the community
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/nurses-prescribe-medicines-social-care-patients-keep-out-hospital-3834676 (£££ or cookies)
Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt said the terrorist group must play no part in the future of Palestine
https://www.independent.co.uk/world/palestine-israel-hamas-qatar-egypt-saudi-arabia-b2798929.html (£££ or adverts)
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/MITuyvWVZnQ
She specifically said her future does not lie in electoral politics.
https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2022-0113
I doubt your average Afghan boat person has any idea of the Rwanda deterrent, or now, lack thereof.
Not that we had primary schools as such – infants and then junior schools for me. Five to 11 seems one heck of an age range.
It wouldn’t be long before tax rates became a human rights issue.
The sophistry comes from claiming that the judgements are not political - just extracting pure, neutral Truth from the Aether.
https://www.eunews.it/en/2025/05/23/italy-denmark-migrants-eu/
Starmer could have been part of this effort - it fits with his theme of working with EU countries. He chose not to because he doesn't believe in reform of the Convention.
Even if he did want to reform it, he would never contemplate leaving it, which is the only possible way that the ECHR would consider reforming.
I wonder whether the Saturday marches will now be demanding Hamas Out.
NEW THREAD
I know that’s not ideal, something you really don’t like actually working, but the evidence was clearly there and with tweaks such as allowing successful applicants to come to the UK and non successful to stay in Rwanda or confirm and return to their county of origin, it might have worked very well but too many people were blinded to Rwanda because it was the Tories’ plan or frankly, they just don’t want to do anything about the problem.
Worrying GFS chart for Monday. Looks like large swathes of Wales and England will get a good six inches. Maybe even more.
https://x.com/theiaincameron/status/1950807730056298527
Only states in the Americas signed it. Interestingly Canada didn't.
It is nothing to do with the UK or the other 147 (out of 193) UN member states who have recognised the Palestinian State.
You would expect the 40 peers to do their homework.