Skip to content

Trump is turning into Liz Truss but with more dictatorial behaviour – politicalbetting.com

1246

Comments

  • Sean_FearSean_Fear Posts: 84

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    I think there is a growing consensus across Europe that the migration provisions of the ECHR are unfit for purpose.

    I don't think that this will be an insuperable obstacle.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 30,807
    Leon said:

    nico67 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    OK, so the Reform "Operation Restoring Justice" headlines:

    Detain & Deport "absolutely everyone arriving legally" with no admissible asylum claim and a lifetime ban from the UK
    Leave the ECHR and all international treaties (UN Torture etc)
    Create a UK Migration Command to coordinate all agencies data to find people who have gone to ground
    Detain until deportation
    Return agreements with all countries - we leverage our power by withholding visas and applying sanctions
    Find a 3rd country to send undocumented / unreturnable. Discuss with Albania, Rwanda and others

    Putting it simply, Parliament is sovereign. We can pass any law we like in our own borders. It becomes a problem when we try and bring those laws into practice.

    I see three major barriers and all are operational:
    1. Detain until Deportation. The "patriots" will not allow anywhere to be used for this purpose. Nor will staff be easy to find - unless the job is to employ the "patriots"
    2. The flights. Yusuf said there would be an RAF Voyager on hot standby to fill in for an unavailable commercial plane. But if the UK has abrogated all international treaties, the flights would both be illegal and uninsurable. So unless the UK government is going to operate all flights they won't happen - and then they are military flights which countries do not have to just accept. If we are sovereign, so are they.
    3. Yusuf describes how hard it is to "count the uncountable". We don't know how many and therefore who they are and where they are. Farage states we would have Border Force squads lifting people - which will cause chaos. The operational issue is that so many of the "illegals" that FukU supporters want to deport aren't illegal...

    Uninsured doesn't matter as the MoD carries the risk on military registered aircraft. Civil/military makes no difference if they aren't cleared for traffic or landing.

    AirTanker still have 2 x Voyager leased to Jet2 that they can recall so they would have substantial capacity. The deportation racket should have been 100% RAF run anyway. Much simpler.

    Quibbling over the details misses the point anyway. Your average racist chav, ie Fukker voter, just sees a plan and a commitment to action. The British state certainly has the means to do mass deportations if it has the will which it currently does not.
    Not quibbling - genuinely curious. It's been an interesting watch - Farage credited the Blair government repeatedly for deporting people at speed.

    I have little doubt that this would have to be an RAF operation because they won't find aircraft otherwise. Why not just say so? Does it create issues with the counterparty government we're sending people to?
    According to big Dom the Royal Navy was quite prepared to tow back the small boats to France - the plan was up and running - they were happy to do it. Defending our seas is, after all, their one and only job

    It was the politicians who got nervous and then the human rights lawyers exploited their nerves

    All this “uninsurable” stuff is total gibberish. Also: What the F do you know you’re a north Scottish part time Tesla reviewer who believes in ghosts

    If we want to deport, we can deport. Enough of this spinelessness
    As always I am interested in the detail.

    We can pass any law we like. We can't compel an airline to carry deportees. Insurance was a live issue when Sunak tried to organise a Rwanda flight, so we know it is an issue.

    And what the F do you know, if that's your line? About insurance for airlines and aircraft leasing, specifically.
    DougSeal said:

    moonshine said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    I expect Farage will just withdraw from the ECHR no matter the consequences

    He is following the Trump playbook
    The backlash against mass third world migration is becoming as loud in Ireland as it is here. If the John Lennon no-borders types think a second version of the Northern Ireland Protocol will maintain their cosy status quo, I fear they will be disappointed.
    It's not the Protocol the ECHR is in but the Good Friday Agreement, which is an international treaty. If Farage wants to dump that, well, its a view I suppose. I just remember the status quo ante and am not that thrilled with the idea of round 2. Specifically:
    • Section 2 of Strand One: This section commits the British and Irish governments to incorporating the ECHR into the law of Northern Ireland and ensuring that relevant rights are protected.


    • The Agreement explicitly states that “the European Convention on Human Rights…shall apply in Northern Ireland”, and both governments commit to “take the necessary steps to ensure that the relevant rights are protected in law.” For the ECRH to apply in NI it has to be part of a country that is a signatory to the ECHR. You can't sign it for only part of your territory.

    While there are some protests about migration in Ireland they are nowhere near as loud as here and any protests against renegotiating or dumping the GFA, or restricting the open border, will, I can assure you, be exponentially bigger.
    This is nonsense. The protests about migration in Ireland are, relatively, even fiercer than here

    The Irish regularly burn down asylum seeker housing. They had huge riots in Dublin on this issue. And it’s only getting worse

    It is highly likely the Irish would be keen to tighten human rights laws on this subject. Because it threatens the peace in the south
    There is huge public support for the GFA in Ireland and you need them to be willing to re-negotiate that. You’d have to do that before the UK could leave the ECHR otherwise you’d breach the GFA and the EU UK trade agreement.
    No one has ever said fixing this would be easy and done in a day. But the bleating from the left says “this is legally and humanly impossible” - which is ridiculous

    All it requires is political will
    All things are possible! The point with all of it is there is almost always a counterparty to negotiate with.

    Farage - like Starmer and Sunak and especially Boris! before him - is offering crayon solutions. "its all very simple", "we just do it" etc etc. The only chink in that argument was when he was asked about the GFA and he said it won't be easy and it won't be quick.

    Here is the problem. The UK exiting the ECHR junks the GFA. We *could* choose to do that - with consequences. After all we would be junking so many other treaties would it matter some will ask? But yes, it matters because Norniron is part of the UK.

    Same with the other "oh we'll just do x" points. Great! How? Specifics matter because they are the things that stop you from just doing x.
  • nico67nico67 Posts: 5,894
    Leon said:

    nico67 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    OK, so the Reform "Operation Restoring Justice" headlines:

    Detain & Deport "absolutely everyone arriving legally" with no admissible asylum claim and a lifetime ban from the UK
    Leave the ECHR and all international treaties (UN Torture etc)
    Create a UK Migration Command to coordinate all agencies data to find people who have gone to ground
    Detain until deportation
    Return agreements with all countries - we leverage our power by withholding visas and applying sanctions
    Find a 3rd country to send undocumented / unreturnable. Discuss with Albania, Rwanda and others

    Putting it simply, Parliament is sovereign. We can pass any law we like in our own borders. It becomes a problem when we try and bring those laws into practice.

    I see three major barriers and all are operational:
    1. Detain until Deportation. The "patriots" will not allow anywhere to be used for this purpose. Nor will staff be easy to find - unless the job is to employ the "patriots"
    2. The flights. Yusuf said there would be an RAF Voyager on hot standby to fill in for an unavailable commercial plane. But if the UK has abrogated all international treaties, the flights would both be illegal and uninsurable. So unless the UK government is going to operate all flights they won't happen - and then they are military flights which countries do not have to just accept. If we are sovereign, so are they.
    3. Yusuf describes how hard it is to "count the uncountable". We don't know how many and therefore who they are and where they are. Farage states we would have Border Force squads lifting people - which will cause chaos. The operational issue is that so many of the "illegals" that FukU supporters want to deport aren't illegal...

    Uninsured doesn't matter as the MoD carries the risk on military registered aircraft. Civil/military makes no difference if they aren't cleared for traffic or landing.

    AirTanker still have 2 x Voyager leased to Jet2 that they can recall so they would have substantial capacity. The deportation racket should have been 100% RAF run anyway. Much simpler.

    Quibbling over the details misses the point anyway. Your average racist chav, ie Fukker voter, just sees a plan and a commitment to action. The British state certainly has the means to do mass deportations if it has the will which it currently does not.
    Not quibbling - genuinely curious. It's been an interesting watch - Farage credited the Blair government repeatedly for deporting people at speed.

    I have little doubt that this would have to be an RAF operation because they won't find aircraft otherwise. Why not just say so? Does it create issues with the counterparty government we're sending people to?
    According to big Dom the Royal Navy was quite prepared to tow back the small boats to France - the plan was up and running - they were happy to do it. Defending our seas is, after all, their one and only job

    It was the politicians who got nervous and then the human rights lawyers exploited their nerves

    All this “uninsurable” stuff is total gibberish. Also: What the F do you know you’re a north Scottish part time Tesla reviewer who believes in ghosts

    If we want to deport, we can deport. Enough of this spinelessness
    As always I am interested in the detail.

    We can pass any law we like. We can't compel an airline to carry deportees. Insurance was a live issue when Sunak tried to organise a Rwanda flight, so we know it is an issue.

    And what the F do you know, if that's your line? About insurance for airlines and aircraft leasing, specifically.
    DougSeal said:

    moonshine said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    I expect Farage will just withdraw from the ECHR no matter the consequences

    He is following the Trump playbook
    The backlash against mass third world migration is becoming as loud in Ireland as it is here. If the John Lennon no-borders types think a second version of the Northern Ireland Protocol will maintain their cosy status quo, I fear they will be disappointed.
    It's not the Protocol the ECHR is in but the Good Friday Agreement, which is an international treaty. If Farage wants to dump that, well, its a view I suppose. I just remember the status quo ante and am not that thrilled with the idea of round 2. Specifically:
    • Section 2 of Strand One: This section commits the British and Irish governments to incorporating the ECHR into the law of Northern Ireland and ensuring that relevant rights are protected.


    • The Agreement explicitly states that “the European Convention on Human Rights…shall apply in Northern Ireland”, and both governments commit to “take the necessary steps to ensure that the relevant rights are protected in law.” For the ECRH to apply in NI it has to be part of a country that is a signatory to the ECHR. You can't sign it for only part of your territory.

    While there are some protests about migration in Ireland they are nowhere near as loud as here and any protests against renegotiating or dumping the GFA, or restricting the open border, will, I can assure you, be exponentially bigger.
    This is nonsense. The protests about migration in Ireland are, relatively, even fiercer than here

    The Irish regularly burn down asylum seeker housing. They had huge riots in Dublin on this issue. And it’s only getting worse

    It is highly likely the Irish would be keen to tighten human rights laws on this subject. Because it threatens the peace in the south
    There is huge public support for the GFA in Ireland and you need them to be willing to re-negotiate that. You’d have to do that before the UK could leave the ECHR otherwise you’d breach the GFA and the EU UK trade agreement.
    No one has ever said fixing this would be easy and done in a day. But the bleating from the left says “this is legally and humanly impossible” - which is ridiculous

    All it requires is political will
    I never said it was impossible ! Just you’d need to negotiate a new agreement to replace the GFA .
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 6,062

    Leon, surely the biggest travel story in the world right now is that no-one wants to go to the US. Go to some resorts - find out if its true, speak to those who have braved it, see if they had worries, whether they still have worries having made the trip. Is it cheaper/more choice/smaller queues at Disneyland? Is it a brilliant time to travel there (depending on what you write might get you the Presidential Medal of Freedom....).

    The FT ran a piece - the collapse in foreign tourism is real and undeniable. With revenues being offset by an increase in domestic tourism. So the angle is "find a foreigner"
    The rise in incomes there means it’s no longer a cheap or even reasonable place to visit. And then there’s tipping culture reaching new heights of silliness. There’s a proper widening of the jaws happening with respect to wealth creation in the US vs the rest of the West now.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 64,584

    Leon said:

    nico67 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    OK, so the Reform "Operation Restoring Justice" headlines:

    Detain & Deport "absolutely everyone arriving legally" with no admissible asylum claim and a lifetime ban from the UK
    Leave the ECHR and all international treaties (UN Torture etc)
    Create a UK Migration Command to coordinate all agencies data to find people who have gone to ground
    Detain until deportation
    Return agreements with all countries - we leverage our power by withholding visas and applying sanctions
    Find a 3rd country to send undocumented / unreturnable. Discuss with Albania, Rwanda and others

    Putting it simply, Parliament is sovereign. We can pass any law we like in our own borders. It becomes a problem when we try and bring those laws into practice.

    I see three major barriers and all are operational:
    1. Detain until Deportation. The "patriots" will not allow anywhere to be used for this purpose. Nor will staff be easy to find - unless the job is to employ the "patriots"
    2. The flights. Yusuf said there would be an RAF Voyager on hot standby to fill in for an unavailable commercial plane. But if the UK has abrogated all international treaties, the flights would both be illegal and uninsurable. So unless the UK government is going to operate all flights they won't happen - and then they are military flights which countries do not have to just accept. If we are sovereign, so are they.
    3. Yusuf describes how hard it is to "count the uncountable". We don't know how many and therefore who they are and where they are. Farage states we would have Border Force squads lifting people - which will cause chaos. The operational issue is that so many of the "illegals" that FukU supporters want to deport aren't illegal...

    Uninsured doesn't matter as the MoD carries the risk on military registered aircraft. Civil/military makes no difference if they aren't cleared for traffic or landing.

    AirTanker still have 2 x Voyager leased to Jet2 that they can recall so they would have substantial capacity. The deportation racket should have been 100% RAF run anyway. Much simpler.

    Quibbling over the details misses the point anyway. Your average racist chav, ie Fukker voter, just sees a plan and a commitment to action. The British state certainly has the means to do mass deportations if it has the will which it currently does not.
    Not quibbling - genuinely curious. It's been an interesting watch - Farage credited the Blair government repeatedly for deporting people at speed.

    I have little doubt that this would have to be an RAF operation because they won't find aircraft otherwise. Why not just say so? Does it create issues with the counterparty government we're sending people to?
    According to big Dom the Royal Navy was quite prepared to tow back the small boats to France - the plan was up and running - they were happy to do it. Defending our seas is, after all, their one and only job

    It was the politicians who got nervous and then the human rights lawyers exploited their nerves

    All this “uninsurable” stuff is total gibberish. Also: What the F do you know you’re a north Scottish part time Tesla reviewer who believes in ghosts

    If we want to deport, we can deport. Enough of this spinelessness
    As always I am interested in the detail.

    We can pass any law we like. We can't compel an airline to carry deportees. Insurance was a live issue when Sunak tried to organise a Rwanda flight, so we know it is an issue.

    And what the F do you know, if that's your line? About insurance for airlines and aircraft leasing, specifically.
    DougSeal said:

    moonshine said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    I expect Farage will just withdraw from the ECHR no matter the consequences

    He is following the Trump playbook
    The backlash against mass third world migration is becoming as loud in Ireland as it is here. If the John Lennon no-borders types think a second version of the Northern Ireland Protocol will maintain their cosy status quo, I fear they will be disappointed.
    It's not the Protocol the ECHR is in but the Good Friday Agreement, which is an international treaty. If Farage wants to dump that, well, its a view I suppose. I just remember the status quo ante and am not that thrilled with the idea of round 2. Specifically:
    • Section 2 of Strand One: This section commits the British and Irish governments to incorporating the ECHR into the law of Northern Ireland and ensuring that relevant rights are protected.


    • The Agreement explicitly states that “the European Convention on Human Rights…shall apply in Northern Ireland”, and both governments commit to “take the necessary steps to ensure that the relevant rights are protected in law.” For the ECRH to apply in NI it has to be part of a country that is a signatory to the ECHR. You can't sign it for only part of your territory.

    While there are some protests about migration in Ireland they are nowhere near as loud as here and any protests against renegotiating or dumping the GFA, or restricting the open border, will, I can assure you, be exponentially bigger.
    This is nonsense. The protests about migration in Ireland are, relatively, even fiercer than here

    The Irish regularly burn down asylum seeker housing. They had huge riots in Dublin on this issue. And it’s only getting worse

    It is highly likely the Irish would be keen to tighten human rights laws on this subject. Because it threatens the peace in the south
    There is huge public support for the GFA in Ireland and you need them to be willing to re-negotiate that. You’d have to do that before the UK could leave the ECHR otherwise you’d breach the GFA and the EU UK trade agreement.
    No one has ever said fixing this would be easy and done in a day. But the bleating from the left says “this is legally and humanly impossible” - which is ridiculous

    All it requires is political will
    All things are possible! The point with all of it is there is almost always a counterparty to negotiate with.

    Farage - like Starmer and Sunak and especially Boris! before him - is offering crayon solutions. "its all very simple", "we just do it" etc etc. The only chink in that argument was when he was asked about the GFA and he said it won't be easy and it won't be quick.

    Here is the problem. The UK exiting the ECHR junks the GFA. We *could* choose to do that - with consequences. After all we would be junking so many other treaties would it matter some will ask? But yes, it matters because Norniron is part of the UK.

    Same with the other "oh we'll just do x" points. Great! How? Specifics matter because they are the things that stop you from just doing x.
    In the end who cares. It’s four years from the election

    All Farage has to do is sound passionately committed to this. And no one doubts that he is. He knows he has to get this done - above all else - if he is elected
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 56,547
    Leon said:

    nico67 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    OK, so the Reform "Operation Restoring Justice" headlines:

    Detain & Deport "absolutely everyone arriving legally" with no admissible asylum claim and a lifetime ban from the UK
    Leave the ECHR and all international treaties (UN Torture etc)
    Create a UK Migration Command to coordinate all agencies data to find people who have gone to ground
    Detain until deportation
    Return agreements with all countries - we leverage our power by withholding visas and applying sanctions
    Find a 3rd country to send undocumented / unreturnable. Discuss with Albania, Rwanda and others

    Putting it simply, Parliament is sovereign. We can pass any law we like in our own borders. It becomes a problem when we try and bring those laws into practice.

    I see three major barriers and all are operational:
    1. Detain until Deportation. The "patriots" will not allow anywhere to be used for this purpose. Nor will staff be easy to find - unless the job is to employ the "patriots"
    2. The flights. Yusuf said there would be an RAF Voyager on hot standby to fill in for an unavailable commercial plane. But if the UK has abrogated all international treaties, the flights would both be illegal and uninsurable. So unless the UK government is going to operate all flights they won't happen - and then they are military flights which countries do not have to just accept. If we are sovereign, so are they.
    3. Yusuf describes how hard it is to "count the uncountable". We don't know how many and therefore who they are and where they are. Farage states we would have Border Force squads lifting people - which will cause chaos. The operational issue is that so many of the "illegals" that FukU supporters want to deport aren't illegal...

    Uninsured doesn't matter as the MoD carries the risk on military registered aircraft. Civil/military makes no difference if they aren't cleared for traffic or landing.

    AirTanker still have 2 x Voyager leased to Jet2 that they can recall so they would have substantial capacity. The deportation racket should have been 100% RAF run anyway. Much simpler.

    Quibbling over the details misses the point anyway. Your average racist chav, ie Fukker voter, just sees a plan and a commitment to action. The British state certainly has the means to do mass deportations if it has the will which it currently does not.
    Not quibbling - genuinely curious. It's been an interesting watch - Farage credited the Blair government repeatedly for deporting people at speed.

    I have little doubt that this would have to be an RAF operation because they won't find aircraft otherwise. Why not just say so? Does it create issues with the counterparty government we're sending people to?
    According to big Dom the Royal Navy was quite prepared to tow back the small boats to France - the plan was up and running - they were happy to do it. Defending our seas is, after all, their one and only job

    It was the politicians who got nervous and then the human rights lawyers exploited their nerves

    All this “uninsurable” stuff is total gibberish. Also: What the F do you know you’re a north Scottish part time Tesla reviewer who believes in ghosts

    If we want to deport, we can deport. Enough of this spinelessness
    As always I am interested in the detail.

    We can pass any law we like. We can't compel an airline to carry deportees. Insurance was a live issue when Sunak tried to organise a Rwanda flight, so we know it is an issue.

    And what the F do you know, if that's your line? About insurance for airlines and aircraft leasing, specifically.
    DougSeal said:

    moonshine said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    I expect Farage will just withdraw from the ECHR no matter the consequences

    He is following the Trump playbook
    The backlash against mass third world migration is becoming as loud in Ireland as it is here. If the John Lennon no-borders types think a second version of the Northern Ireland Protocol will maintain their cosy status quo, I fear they will be disappointed.
    It's not the Protocol the ECHR is in but the Good Friday Agreement, which is an international treaty. If Farage wants to dump that, well, its a view I suppose. I just remember the status quo ante and am not that thrilled with the idea of round 2. Specifically:
    • Section 2 of Strand One: This section commits the British and Irish governments to incorporating the ECHR into the law of Northern Ireland and ensuring that relevant rights are protected.


    • The Agreement explicitly states that “the European Convention on Human Rights…shall apply in Northern Ireland”, and both governments commit to “take the necessary steps to ensure that the relevant rights are protected in law.” For the ECRH to apply in NI it has to be part of a country that is a signatory to the ECHR. You can't sign it for only part of your territory.

    While there are some protests about migration in Ireland they are nowhere near as loud as here and any protests against renegotiating or dumping the GFA, or restricting the open border, will, I can assure you, be exponentially bigger.
    This is nonsense. The protests about migration in Ireland are, relatively, even fiercer than here

    The Irish regularly burn down asylum seeker housing. They had huge riots in Dublin on this issue. And it’s only getting worse

    It is highly likely the Irish would be keen to tighten human rights laws on this subject. Because it threatens the peace in the south
    There is huge public support for the GFA in Ireland and you need them to be willing to re-negotiate that. You’d have to do that before the UK could leave the ECHR otherwise you’d breach the GFA and the EU UK trade agreement.
    No one has ever said fixing this would be easy and done in a day. But the bleating from the left says “this is legally and humanly impossible” - which is ridiculous

    All it requires is political will
    All that is required is the right kind of independent judges

    2028: Grauniad - “Immigration judge rules that not sinking boats in Channel breaches right to family life.”
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 80,586
    ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    This is an interesting article about wage caps, post Black Death.
    Is it kosher history ? @ydoethur ?

    Age of Invention: The Century-Long Depression
    https://www.ageofinvention.xyz/p/age-of-invention-the-century-long

    Yes, although it's a bit narrow because it doesn't consider the wide regional variations that there were.

    For example, it overlooks this classic article on the situation in Durham:

    https://www.jstor.org/stable/651008 (should be available with a Google sign in)

    And also the major difference there were in city economies, which did boom after the Black Death due to the vast amount of coin in circulation and limits to what it could be spent on:

    https://www2.glos.ac.uk/bgas/tbgas/v103/bg103149.pdf

    But the general thrust of it is correct. There were innumerable attempts, down to the end of Elizabeth's reign and arguably the Civil War, to control the labour supply and all of them were distinctly unfortunate in their effects.
    A period of economic history I'm largely ignorant of.
    So thank you.
  • nico67nico67 Posts: 5,894

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    In which case you’d end up with a legal vacuum. The GFA has been tweaked with the agreement of all parties not one party deciding to do whatever it likes.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 80,586
    Ukraine has recaptured all of Pokrovsk, by the way.
    https://x.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1960264355091550623
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 25,724
    edited August 26

    Leon said:

    nico67 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    OK, so the Reform "Operation Restoring Justice" headlines:

    Detain & Deport "absolutely everyone arriving legally" with no admissible asylum claim and a lifetime ban from the UK
    Leave the ECHR and all international treaties (UN Torture etc)
    Create a UK Migration Command to coordinate all agencies data to find people who have gone to ground
    Detain until deportation
    Return agreements with all countries - we leverage our power by withholding visas and applying sanctions
    Find a 3rd country to send undocumented / unreturnable. Discuss with Albania, Rwanda and others

    Putting it simply, Parliament is sovereign. We can pass any law we like in our own borders. It becomes a problem when we try and bring those laws into practice.

    I see three major barriers and all are operational:
    1. Detain until Deportation. The "patriots" will not allow anywhere to be used for this purpose. Nor will staff be easy to find - unless the job is to employ the "patriots"
    2. The flights. Yusuf said there would be an RAF Voyager on hot standby to fill in for an unavailable commercial plane. But if the UK has abrogated all international treaties, the flights would both be illegal and uninsurable. So unless the UK government is going to operate all flights they won't happen - and then they are military flights which countries do not have to just accept. If we are sovereign, so are they.
    3. Yusuf describes how hard it is to "count the uncountable". We don't know how many and therefore who they are and where they are. Farage states we would have Border Force squads lifting people - which will cause chaos. The operational issue is that so many of the "illegals" that FukU supporters want to deport aren't illegal...

    Uninsured doesn't matter as the MoD carries the risk on military registered aircraft. Civil/military makes no difference if they aren't cleared for traffic or landing.

    AirTanker still have 2 x Voyager leased to Jet2 that they can recall so they would have substantial capacity. The deportation racket should have been 100% RAF run anyway. Much simpler.

    Quibbling over the details misses the point anyway. Your average racist chav, ie Fukker voter, just sees a plan and a commitment to action. The British state certainly has the means to do mass deportations if it has the will which it currently does not.
    Not quibbling - genuinely curious. It's been an interesting watch - Farage credited the Blair government repeatedly for deporting people at speed.

    I have little doubt that this would have to be an RAF operation because they won't find aircraft otherwise. Why not just say so? Does it create issues with the counterparty government we're sending people to?
    According to big Dom the Royal Navy was quite prepared to tow back the small boats to France - the plan was up and running - they were happy to do it. Defending our seas is, after all, their one and only job

    It was the politicians who got nervous and then the human rights lawyers exploited their nerves

    All this “uninsurable” stuff is total gibberish. Also: What the F do you know you’re a north Scottish part time Tesla reviewer who believes in ghosts

    If we want to deport, we can deport. Enough of this spinelessness
    As always I am interested in the detail.

    We can pass any law we like. We can't compel an airline to carry deportees. Insurance was a live issue when Sunak tried to organise a Rwanda flight, so we know it is an issue.

    And what the F do you know, if that's your line? About insurance for airlines and aircraft leasing, specifically.
    DougSeal said:

    moonshine said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    I expect Farage will just withdraw from the ECHR no matter the consequences

    He is following the Trump playbook
    The backlash against mass third world migration is becoming as loud in Ireland as it is here. If the John Lennon no-borders types think a second version of the Northern Ireland Protocol will maintain their cosy status quo, I fear they will be disappointed.
    It's not the Protocol the ECHR is in but the Good Friday Agreement, which is an international treaty. If Farage wants to dump that, well, its a view I suppose. I just remember the status quo ante and am not that thrilled with the idea of round 2. Specifically:
    • Section 2 of Strand One: This section commits the British and Irish governments to incorporating the ECHR into the law of Northern Ireland and ensuring that relevant rights are protected.


    • The Agreement explicitly states that “the European Convention on Human Rights…shall apply in Northern Ireland”, and both governments commit to “take the necessary steps to ensure that the relevant rights are protected in law.” For the ECRH to apply in NI it has to be part of a country that is a signatory to the ECHR. You can't sign it for only part of your territory.

    While there are some protests about migration in Ireland they are nowhere near as loud as here and any protests against renegotiating or dumping the GFA, or restricting the open border, will, I can assure you, be exponentially bigger.
    This is nonsense. The protests about migration in Ireland are, relatively, even fiercer than here

    The Irish regularly burn down asylum seeker housing. They had huge riots in Dublin on this issue. And it’s only getting worse

    It is highly likely the Irish would be keen to tighten human rights laws on this subject. Because it threatens the peace in the south
    There is huge public support for the GFA in Ireland and you need them to be willing to re-negotiate that. You’d have to do that before the UK could leave the ECHR otherwise you’d breach the GFA and the EU UK trade agreement.
    No one has ever said fixing this would be easy and done in a day. But the bleating from the left says “this is legally and humanly impossible” - which is ridiculous

    All it requires is political will
    All things are possible! The point with all of it is there is almost always a counterparty to negotiate with.

    Farage - like Starmer and Sunak and especially Boris! before him - is offering crayon solutions. "its all very simple", "we just do it" etc etc. The only chink in that argument was when he was asked about the GFA and he said it won't be easy and it won't be quick.

    Here is the problem. The UK exiting the ECHR junks the GFA. We *could* choose to do that - with consequences. After all we would be junking so many other treaties would it matter some will ask? But yes, it matters because Norniron is part of the UK.

    Same with the other "oh we'll just do x" points. Great! How? Specifics matter because they are the things that stop you from just doing x.
    You're putting the cart before the horse, as many here did during the Brexit negotiations.

    Yes, absolutely, renegotiating the GFA may not be quick and easy. The mistake many here make is thinking that needs to be done first, then you do what you want.

    No, it needs to be the other way around. Do what you have voted to do. Then fix the GFA to reflect the new circumstances.

    If you are prepared to do x then there is nothing that stops you from just doing x. Issues like the GFA amendments can be dealt with after x is done, not before.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 6,062
    nico67 said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    In which case you’d end up with a legal vacuum. The GFA has been tweaked with the agreement of all parties not one party deciding to do whatever it likes.
    Much of the echr / human rights act will be adopted in any new legislation. The bits that would be taken out would refer to people from third countries using said legislation to remain in the country after illegal entry, or criminality after a legal approval. Hard to see how this affects the GFA in practice assuming all parties are reasonable and want a mutually beneficial outcome.
  • nico67 said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    In which case you’d end up with a legal vacuum. The GFA has been tweaked with the agreement of all parties not one party deciding to do whatever it likes.
    Yes, there's been legal vacuums and Stormont suspended many times.

    Do what we have voted to do, whatever it is, then fix the GFA afterwards. Not the other way around.
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    nico67 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    OK, so the Reform "Operation Restoring Justice" headlines:

    Detain & Deport "absolutely everyone arriving legally" with no admissible asylum claim and a lifetime ban from the UK
    Leave the ECHR and all international treaties (UN Torture etc)
    Create a UK Migration Command to coordinate all agencies data to find people who have gone to ground
    Detain until deportation
    Return agreements with all countries - we leverage our power by withholding visas and applying sanctions
    Find a 3rd country to send undocumented / unreturnable. Discuss with Albania, Rwanda and others

    Putting it simply, Parliament is sovereign. We can pass any law we like in our own borders. It becomes a problem when we try and bring those laws into practice.

    I see three major barriers and all are operational:
    1. Detain until Deportation. The "patriots" will not allow anywhere to be used for this purpose. Nor will staff be easy to find - unless the job is to employ the "patriots"
    2. The flights. Yusuf said there would be an RAF Voyager on hot standby to fill in for an unavailable commercial plane. But if the UK has abrogated all international treaties, the flights would both be illegal and uninsurable. So unless the UK government is going to operate all flights they won't happen - and then they are military flights which countries do not have to just accept. If we are sovereign, so are they.
    3. Yusuf describes how hard it is to "count the uncountable". We don't know how many and therefore who they are and where they are. Farage states we would have Border Force squads lifting people - which will cause chaos. The operational issue is that so many of the "illegals" that FukU supporters want to deport aren't illegal...

    Uninsured doesn't matter as the MoD carries the risk on military registered aircraft. Civil/military makes no difference if they aren't cleared for traffic or landing.

    AirTanker still have 2 x Voyager leased to Jet2 that they can recall so they would have substantial capacity. The deportation racket should have been 100% RAF run anyway. Much simpler.

    Quibbling over the details misses the point anyway. Your average racist chav, ie Fukker voter, just sees a plan and a commitment to action. The British state certainly has the means to do mass deportations if it has the will which it currently does not.
    Not quibbling - genuinely curious. It's been an interesting watch - Farage credited the Blair government repeatedly for deporting people at speed.

    I have little doubt that this would have to be an RAF operation because they won't find aircraft otherwise. Why not just say so? Does it create issues with the counterparty government we're sending people to?
    According to big Dom the Royal Navy was quite prepared to tow back the small boats to France - the plan was up and running - they were happy to do it. Defending our seas is, after all, their one and only job

    It was the politicians who got nervous and then the human rights lawyers exploited their nerves

    All this “uninsurable” stuff is total gibberish. Also: What the F do you know you’re a north Scottish part time Tesla reviewer who believes in ghosts

    If we want to deport, we can deport. Enough of this spinelessness
    As always I am interested in the detail.

    We can pass any law we like. We can't compel an airline to carry deportees. Insurance was a live issue when Sunak tried to organise a Rwanda flight, so we know it is an issue.

    And what the F do you know, if that's your line? About insurance for airlines and aircraft leasing, specifically.
    DougSeal said:

    moonshine said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    I expect Farage will just withdraw from the ECHR no matter the consequences

    He is following the Trump playbook
    The backlash against mass third world migration is becoming as loud in Ireland as it is here. If the John Lennon no-borders types think a second version of the Northern Ireland Protocol will maintain their cosy status quo, I fear they will be disappointed.
    It's not the Protocol the ECHR is in but the Good Friday Agreement, which is an international treaty. If Farage wants to dump that, well, its a view I suppose. I just remember the status quo ante and am not that thrilled with the idea of round 2. Specifically:
    • Section 2 of Strand One: This section commits the British and Irish governments to incorporating the ECHR into the law of Northern Ireland and ensuring that relevant rights are protected.


    • The Agreement explicitly states that “the European Convention on Human Rights…shall apply in Northern Ireland”, and both governments commit to “take the necessary steps to ensure that the relevant rights are protected in law.” For the ECRH to apply in NI it has to be part of a country that is a signatory to the ECHR. You can't sign it for only part of your territory.

    While there are some protests about migration in Ireland they are nowhere near as loud as here and any protests against renegotiating or dumping the GFA, or restricting the open border, will, I can assure you, be exponentially bigger.
    This is nonsense. The protests about migration in Ireland are, relatively, even fiercer than here

    The Irish regularly burn down asylum seeker housing. They had huge riots in Dublin on this issue. And it’s only getting worse

    It is highly likely the Irish would be keen to tighten human rights laws on this subject. Because it threatens the peace in the south
    There is huge public support for the GFA in Ireland and you need them to be willing to re-negotiate that. You’d have to do that before the UK could leave the ECHR otherwise you’d breach the GFA and the EU UK trade agreement.
    No one has ever said fixing this would be easy and done in a day. But the bleating from the left says “this is legally and humanly impossible” - which is ridiculous

    All it requires is political will
    All things are possible! The point with all of it is there is almost always a counterparty to negotiate with.

    Farage - like Starmer and Sunak and especially Boris! before him - is offering crayon solutions. "its all very simple", "we just do it" etc etc. The only chink in that argument was when he was asked about the GFA and he said it won't be easy and it won't be quick.

    Here is the problem. The UK exiting the ECHR junks the GFA. We *could* choose to do that - with consequences. After all we would be junking so many other treaties would it matter some will ask? But yes, it matters because Norniron is part of the UK.

    Same with the other "oh we'll just do x" points. Great! How? Specifics matter because they are the things that stop you from just doing x.
    In the end who cares. It’s four years from the election

    All Farage has to do is sound passionately committed to this. And no one doubts that he is. He knows he has to get this done - above all else - if he is elected
    That is the part that concerns me. I have for a long time on here warned not of Farage, but of what comes after Farage fails.

    The UK's political economy is broken at a fundamental level. Reform are asking the right questions but so far offer no substantive answers - or in many cases have proposals to make things worse.

    The pressure cooker isn't migration or flags. It's poverty and hopelessness. Our politics has gone crazy over the last decade as people chase one "solution" then another, all the while finding that things get worse not better with every step taken.

    From what we have seen so far, Reform UK in council have at best been ineffective (because there is little that any elected councillor can do to change the maths with regards to their budget crisis), and at worst have looked like utter idiots. If they win 400 seats at the election then 395 will be newly elected and all bar a minority will be new MPs, bound by Faragism.

    That doesn't give me huge confidence that they will have the drive and the nous to actually go after the significant reforms needed. Which means although migrants would go down, the poverty and hopelessness will not. So who do they vote for next? We are sliding towards autocracy not because of a left / right divide, but because leftright are the same...
    What proportion of Labour MPs were newly elected last time?

    And if Reform win 400 seats a chunk of them are likely to be ex Tory MPs.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 6,062

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    nico67 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    OK, so the Reform "Operation Restoring Justice" headlines:

    Detain & Deport "absolutely everyone arriving legally" with no admissible asylum claim and a lifetime ban from the UK
    Leave the ECHR and all international treaties (UN Torture etc)
    Create a UK Migration Command to coordinate all agencies data to find people who have gone to ground
    Detain until deportation
    Return agreements with all countries - we leverage our power by withholding visas and applying sanctions
    Find a 3rd country to send undocumented / unreturnable. Discuss with Albania, Rwanda and others

    Putting it simply, Parliament is sovereign. We can pass any law we like in our own borders. It becomes a problem when we try and bring those laws into practice.

    I see three major barriers and all are operational:
    1. Detain until Deportation. The "patriots" will not allow anywhere to be used for this purpose. Nor will staff be easy to find - unless the job is to employ the "patriots"
    2. The flights. Yusuf said there would be an RAF Voyager on hot standby to fill in for an unavailable commercial plane. But if the UK has abrogated all international treaties, the flights would both be illegal and uninsurable. So unless the UK government is going to operate all flights they won't happen - and then they are military flights which countries do not have to just accept. If we are sovereign, so are they.
    3. Yusuf describes how hard it is to "count the uncountable". We don't know how many and therefore who they are and where they are. Farage states we would have Border Force squads lifting people - which will cause chaos. The operational issue is that so many of the "illegals" that FukU supporters want to deport aren't illegal...

    Uninsured doesn't matter as the MoD carries the risk on military registered aircraft. Civil/military makes no difference if they aren't cleared for traffic or landing.

    AirTanker still have 2 x Voyager leased to Jet2 that they can recall so they would have substantial capacity. The deportation racket should have been 100% RAF run anyway. Much simpler.

    Quibbling over the details misses the point anyway. Your average racist chav, ie Fukker voter, just sees a plan and a commitment to action. The British state certainly has the means to do mass deportations if it has the will which it currently does not.
    Not quibbling - genuinely curious. It's been an interesting watch - Farage credited the Blair government repeatedly for deporting people at speed.

    I have little doubt that this would have to be an RAF operation because they won't find aircraft otherwise. Why not just say so? Does it create issues with the counterparty government we're sending people to?
    According to big Dom the Royal Navy was quite prepared to tow back the small boats to France - the plan was up and running - they were happy to do it. Defending our seas is, after all, their one and only job

    It was the politicians who got nervous and then the human rights lawyers exploited their nerves

    All this “uninsurable” stuff is total gibberish. Also: What the F do you know you’re a north Scottish part time Tesla reviewer who believes in ghosts

    If we want to deport, we can deport. Enough of this spinelessness
    As always I am interested in the detail.

    We can pass any law we like. We can't compel an airline to carry deportees. Insurance was a live issue when Sunak tried to organise a Rwanda flight, so we know it is an issue.

    And what the F do you know, if that's your line? About insurance for airlines and aircraft leasing, specifically.
    DougSeal said:

    moonshine said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    I expect Farage will just withdraw from the ECHR no matter the consequences

    He is following the Trump playbook
    The backlash against mass third world migration is becoming as loud in Ireland as it is here. If the John Lennon no-borders types think a second version of the Northern Ireland Protocol will maintain their cosy status quo, I fear they will be disappointed.
    It's not the Protocol the ECHR is in but the Good Friday Agreement, which is an international treaty. If Farage wants to dump that, well, its a view I suppose. I just remember the status quo ante and am not that thrilled with the idea of round 2. Specifically:
    • Section 2 of Strand One: This section commits the British and Irish governments to incorporating the ECHR into the law of Northern Ireland and ensuring that relevant rights are protected.


    • The Agreement explicitly states that “the European Convention on Human Rights…shall apply in Northern Ireland”, and both governments commit to “take the necessary steps to ensure that the relevant rights are protected in law.” For the ECRH to apply in NI it has to be part of a country that is a signatory to the ECHR. You can't sign it for only part of your territory.

    While there are some protests about migration in Ireland they are nowhere near as loud as here and any protests against renegotiating or dumping the GFA, or restricting the open border, will, I can assure you, be exponentially bigger.
    This is nonsense. The protests about migration in Ireland are, relatively, even fiercer than here

    The Irish regularly burn down asylum seeker housing. They had huge riots in Dublin on this issue. And it’s only getting worse

    It is highly likely the Irish would be keen to tighten human rights laws on this subject. Because it threatens the peace in the south
    There is huge public support for the GFA in Ireland and you need them to be willing to re-negotiate that. You’d have to do that before the UK could leave the ECHR otherwise you’d breach the GFA and the EU UK trade agreement.
    No one has ever said fixing this would be easy and done in a day. But the bleating from the left says “this is legally and humanly impossible” - which is ridiculous

    All it requires is political will
    All things are possible! The point with all of it is there is almost always a counterparty to negotiate with.

    Farage - like Starmer and Sunak and especially Boris! before him - is offering crayon solutions. "its all very simple", "we just do it" etc etc. The only chink in that argument was when he was asked about the GFA and he said it won't be easy and it won't be quick.

    Here is the problem. The UK exiting the ECHR junks the GFA. We *could* choose to do that - with consequences. After all we would be junking so many other treaties would it matter some will ask? But yes, it matters because Norniron is part of the UK.

    Same with the other "oh we'll just do x" points. Great! How? Specifics matter because they are the things that stop you from just doing x.
    In the end who cares. It’s four years from the election

    All Farage has to do is sound passionately committed to this. And no one doubts that he is. He knows he has to get this done - above all else - if he is elected
    That is the part that concerns me. I have for a long time on here warned not of Farage, but of what comes after Farage fails.

    The UK's political economy is broken at a fundamental level. Reform are asking the right questions but so far offer no substantive answers - or in many cases have proposals to make things worse.

    The pressure cooker isn't migration or flags. It's poverty and hopelessness. Our politics has gone crazy over the last decade as people chase one "solution" then another, all the while finding that things get worse not better with every step taken.

    From what we have seen so far, Reform UK in council have at best been ineffective (because there is little that any elected councillor can do to change the maths with regards to their budget crisis), and at worst have looked like utter idiots. If they win 400 seats at the election then 395 will be newly elected and all bar a minority will be new MPs, bound by Faragism.

    That doesn't give me huge confidence that they will have the drive and the nous to actually go after the significant reforms needed. Which means although migrants would go down, the poverty and hopelessness will not. So who do they vote for next? We are sliding towards autocracy not because of a left / right divide, but because leftright are the same...
    Yes I’ve been pondering the same thing for some time. There’s a cosy view that if/when Farage fails, the duopoly will rise again. But it might not.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 6,834

    nico67 said:

    carnforth said:

    If we can get away with NI being in the single market but GB not, why can't we get away with NI being in the ECHR but GB not?

    Legally that’s not possible . The UK can’t withdraw from the ECHR and leave NI in it .
    Let's do it and see if they litigate. It would mean losing NI from the ECHR if they do. Cutting off nose and all that...
    Let's all remember that the EU itself, despite promising to do so since 2009, has not joined the ECHR:

    https://www.coe.int/en/web/portal/eu-accession-echr-questions-and-answers

    "The Lisbon Treaty of 2009 included a legal commitment that the EU would accede to the Convention.

    Extensive negotiations took place between the Council of Europe member states and the European Commission, on behalf of the EU, between 2010 and 2013. However, in December 2014, the EU Court of Justice (CJEU) concluded that the resulting agreement was not compatible with EU law.

    In October 2019, the European Commission told the Council of Europe it was ready to restart negotiations. Formal negotiations resumed in October 2020, and the negotiators reached a provisional agreement on a revised draft accession agreement in March 2023.

    The revised agreement covers all of the issues raised by the CJEU except one, concerning jurisdiction over EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The EU has committed to resolving this issue internally."
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 66,497

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 30,807

    Leon said:

    nico67 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    OK, so the Reform "Operation Restoring Justice" headlines:

    Detain & Deport "absolutely everyone arriving legally" with no admissible asylum claim and a lifetime ban from the UK
    Leave the ECHR and all international treaties (UN Torture etc)
    Create a UK Migration Command to coordinate all agencies data to find people who have gone to ground
    Detain until deportation
    Return agreements with all countries - we leverage our power by withholding visas and applying sanctions
    Find a 3rd country to send undocumented / unreturnable. Discuss with Albania, Rwanda and others

    Putting it simply, Parliament is sovereign. We can pass any law we like in our own borders. It becomes a problem when we try and bring those laws into practice.

    I see three major barriers and all are operational:
    1. Detain until Deportation. The "patriots" will not allow anywhere to be used for this purpose. Nor will staff be easy to find - unless the job is to employ the "patriots"
    2. The flights. Yusuf said there would be an RAF Voyager on hot standby to fill in for an unavailable commercial plane. But if the UK has abrogated all international treaties, the flights would both be illegal and uninsurable. So unless the UK government is going to operate all flights they won't happen - and then they are military flights which countries do not have to just accept. If we are sovereign, so are they.
    3. Yusuf describes how hard it is to "count the uncountable". We don't know how many and therefore who they are and where they are. Farage states we would have Border Force squads lifting people - which will cause chaos. The operational issue is that so many of the "illegals" that FukU supporters want to deport aren't illegal...

    Uninsured doesn't matter as the MoD carries the risk on military registered aircraft. Civil/military makes no difference if they aren't cleared for traffic or landing.

    AirTanker still have 2 x Voyager leased to Jet2 that they can recall so they would have substantial capacity. The deportation racket should have been 100% RAF run anyway. Much simpler.

    Quibbling over the details misses the point anyway. Your average racist chav, ie Fukker voter, just sees a plan and a commitment to action. The British state certainly has the means to do mass deportations if it has the will which it currently does not.
    Not quibbling - genuinely curious. It's been an interesting watch - Farage credited the Blair government repeatedly for deporting people at speed.

    I have little doubt that this would have to be an RAF operation because they won't find aircraft otherwise. Why not just say so? Does it create issues with the counterparty government we're sending people to?
    According to big Dom the Royal Navy was quite prepared to tow back the small boats to France - the plan was up and running - they were happy to do it. Defending our seas is, after all, their one and only job

    It was the politicians who got nervous and then the human rights lawyers exploited their nerves

    All this “uninsurable” stuff is total gibberish. Also: What the F do you know you’re a north Scottish part time Tesla reviewer who believes in ghosts

    If we want to deport, we can deport. Enough of this spinelessness
    As always I am interested in the detail.

    We can pass any law we like. We can't compel an airline to carry deportees. Insurance was a live issue when Sunak tried to organise a Rwanda flight, so we know it is an issue.

    And what the F do you know, if that's your line? About insurance for airlines and aircraft leasing, specifically.
    DougSeal said:

    moonshine said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    I expect Farage will just withdraw from the ECHR no matter the consequences

    He is following the Trump playbook
    The backlash against mass third world migration is becoming as loud in Ireland as it is here. If the John Lennon no-borders types think a second version of the Northern Ireland Protocol will maintain their cosy status quo, I fear they will be disappointed.
    It's not the Protocol the ECHR is in but the Good Friday Agreement, which is an international treaty. If Farage wants to dump that, well, its a view I suppose. I just remember the status quo ante and am not that thrilled with the idea of round 2. Specifically:
    • Section 2 of Strand One: This section commits the British and Irish governments to incorporating the ECHR into the law of Northern Ireland and ensuring that relevant rights are protected.


    • The Agreement explicitly states that “the European Convention on Human Rights…shall apply in Northern Ireland”, and both governments commit to “take the necessary steps to ensure that the relevant rights are protected in law.” For the ECRH to apply in NI it has to be part of a country that is a signatory to the ECHR. You can't sign it for only part of your territory.

    While there are some protests about migration in Ireland they are nowhere near as loud as here and any protests against renegotiating or dumping the GFA, or restricting the open border, will, I can assure you, be exponentially bigger.
    This is nonsense. The protests about migration in Ireland are, relatively, even fiercer than here

    The Irish regularly burn down asylum seeker housing. They had huge riots in Dublin on this issue. And it’s only getting worse

    It is highly likely the Irish would be keen to tighten human rights laws on this subject. Because it threatens the peace in the south
    There is huge public support for the GFA in Ireland and you need them to be willing to re-negotiate that. You’d have to do that before the UK could leave the ECHR otherwise you’d breach the GFA and the EU UK trade agreement.
    No one has ever said fixing this would be easy and done in a day. But the bleating from the left says “this is legally and humanly impossible” - which is ridiculous

    All it requires is political will
    All things are possible! The point with all of it is there is almost always a counterparty to negotiate with.

    Farage - like Starmer and Sunak and especially Boris! before him - is offering crayon solutions. "its all very simple", "we just do it" etc etc. The only chink in that argument was when he was asked about the GFA and he said it won't be easy and it won't be quick.

    Here is the problem. The UK exiting the ECHR junks the GFA. We *could* choose to do that - with consequences. After all we would be junking so many other treaties would it matter some will ask? But yes, it matters because Norniron is part of the UK.

    Same with the other "oh we'll just do x" points. Great! How? Specifics matter because they are the things that stop you from just doing x.
    You're putting the cart before the horse, as many here did during the Brexit negotiations.

    Yes, absolutely, renegotiating the GFA may not be quick and easy. The mistake many here make is thinking that needs to be done first, then you do what you want.

    No, it needs to be the other way around. Do what you have voted to do. Then fix the GFA to reflect the new circumstances.

    If you are prepared to do x then there is nothing that stops you from just doing x. Issues like the GFA amendments can be dealt with after x is done, not before.
    The person who said it would need to be done first is *Nigel Farage* at the presser.

    Perhaps he is less absolutist than you are because he has the risk of actually being in charge?
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 6,062

    Leon said:

    nico67 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    OK, so the Reform "Operation Restoring Justice" headlines:

    Detain & Deport "absolutely everyone arriving legally" with no admissible asylum claim and a lifetime ban from the UK
    Leave the ECHR and all international treaties (UN Torture etc)
    Create a UK Migration Command to coordinate all agencies data to find people who have gone to ground
    Detain until deportation
    Return agreements with all countries - we leverage our power by withholding visas and applying sanctions
    Find a 3rd country to send undocumented / unreturnable. Discuss with Albania, Rwanda and others

    Putting it simply, Parliament is sovereign. We can pass any law we like in our own borders. It becomes a problem when we try and bring those laws into practice.

    I see three major barriers and all are operational:
    1. Detain until Deportation. The "patriots" will not allow anywhere to be used for this purpose. Nor will staff be easy to find - unless the job is to employ the "patriots"
    2. The flights. Yusuf said there would be an RAF Voyager on hot standby to fill in for an unavailable commercial plane. But if the UK has abrogated all international treaties, the flights would both be illegal and uninsurable. So unless the UK government is going to operate all flights they won't happen - and then they are military flights which countries do not have to just accept. If we are sovereign, so are they.
    3. Yusuf describes how hard it is to "count the uncountable". We don't know how many and therefore who they are and where they are. Farage states we would have Border Force squads lifting people - which will cause chaos. The operational issue is that so many of the "illegals" that FukU supporters want to deport aren't illegal...

    Uninsured doesn't matter as the MoD carries the risk on military registered aircraft. Civil/military makes no difference if they aren't cleared for traffic or landing.

    AirTanker still have 2 x Voyager leased to Jet2 that they can recall so they would have substantial capacity. The deportation racket should have been 100% RAF run anyway. Much simpler.

    Quibbling over the details misses the point anyway. Your average racist chav, ie Fukker voter, just sees a plan and a commitment to action. The British state certainly has the means to do mass deportations if it has the will which it currently does not.
    Not quibbling - genuinely curious. It's been an interesting watch - Farage credited the Blair government repeatedly for deporting people at speed.

    I have little doubt that this would have to be an RAF operation because they won't find aircraft otherwise. Why not just say so? Does it create issues with the counterparty government we're sending people to?
    According to big Dom the Royal Navy was quite prepared to tow back the small boats to France - the plan was up and running - they were happy to do it. Defending our seas is, after all, their one and only job

    It was the politicians who got nervous and then the human rights lawyers exploited their nerves

    All this “uninsurable” stuff is total gibberish. Also: What the F do you know you’re a north Scottish part time Tesla reviewer who believes in ghosts

    If we want to deport, we can deport. Enough of this spinelessness
    As always I am interested in the detail.

    We can pass any law we like. We can't compel an airline to carry deportees. Insurance was a live issue when Sunak tried to organise a Rwanda flight, so we know it is an issue.

    And what the F do you know, if that's your line? About insurance for airlines and aircraft leasing, specifically.
    DougSeal said:

    moonshine said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    I expect Farage will just withdraw from the ECHR no matter the consequences

    He is following the Trump playbook
    The backlash against mass third world migration is becoming as loud in Ireland as it is here. If the John Lennon no-borders types think a second version of the Northern Ireland Protocol will maintain their cosy status quo, I fear they will be disappointed.
    It's not the Protocol the ECHR is in but the Good Friday Agreement, which is an international treaty. If Farage wants to dump that, well, its a view I suppose. I just remember the status quo ante and am not that thrilled with the idea of round 2. Specifically:
    • Section 2 of Strand One: This section commits the British and Irish governments to incorporating the ECHR into the law of Northern Ireland and ensuring that relevant rights are protected.


    • The Agreement explicitly states that “the European Convention on Human Rights…shall apply in Northern Ireland”, and both governments commit to “take the necessary steps to ensure that the relevant rights are protected in law.” For the ECRH to apply in NI it has to be part of a country that is a signatory to the ECHR. You can't sign it for only part of your territory.

    While there are some protests about migration in Ireland they are nowhere near as loud as here and any protests against renegotiating or dumping the GFA, or restricting the open border, will, I can assure you, be exponentially bigger.
    This is nonsense. The protests about migration in Ireland are, relatively, even fiercer than here

    The Irish regularly burn down asylum seeker housing. They had huge riots in Dublin on this issue. And it’s only getting worse

    It is highly likely the Irish would be keen to tighten human rights laws on this subject. Because it threatens the peace in the south
    There is huge public support for the GFA in Ireland and you need them to be willing to re-negotiate that. You’d have to do that before the UK could leave the ECHR otherwise you’d breach the GFA and the EU UK trade agreement.
    No one has ever said fixing this would be easy and done in a day. But the bleating from the left says “this is legally and humanly impossible” - which is ridiculous

    All it requires is political will
    All things are possible! The point with all of it is there is almost always a counterparty to negotiate with.

    Farage - like Starmer and Sunak and especially Boris! before him - is offering crayon solutions. "its all very simple", "we just do it" etc etc. The only chink in that argument was when he was asked about the GFA and he said it won't be easy and it won't be quick.

    Here is the problem. The UK exiting the ECHR junks the GFA. We *could* choose to do that - with consequences. After all we would be junking so many other treaties would it matter some will ask? But yes, it matters because Norniron is part of the UK.

    Same with the other "oh we'll just do x" points. Great! How? Specifics matter because they are the things that stop you from just doing x.
    You're putting the cart before the horse, as many here did during the Brexit negotiations.

    Yes, absolutely, renegotiating the GFA may not be quick and easy. The mistake many here make is thinking that needs to be done first, then you do what you want.

    No, it needs to be the other way around. Do what you have voted to do. Then fix the GFA to reflect the new circumstances.

    If you are prepared to do x then there is nothing that stops you from just doing x. Issues like the GFA amendments can be dealt with after x is done, not before.
    The person who said it would need to be done first is *Nigel Farage* at the presser.

    Perhaps he is less absolutist than you are because he has the risk of actually being in charge?
    See: “this guy doesn’t have what it takes”.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 30,807

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
  • nico67nico67 Posts: 5,894

    Leon said:

    nico67 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    OK, so the Reform "Operation Restoring Justice" headlines:

    Detain & Deport "absolutely everyone arriving legally" with no admissible asylum claim and a lifetime ban from the UK
    Leave the ECHR and all international treaties (UN Torture etc)
    Create a UK Migration Command to coordinate all agencies data to find people who have gone to ground
    Detain until deportation
    Return agreements with all countries - we leverage our power by withholding visas and applying sanctions
    Find a 3rd country to send undocumented / unreturnable. Discuss with Albania, Rwanda and others

    Putting it simply, Parliament is sovereign. We can pass any law we like in our own borders. It becomes a problem when we try and bring those laws into practice.

    I see three major barriers and all are operational:
    1. Detain until Deportation. The "patriots" will not allow anywhere to be used for this purpose. Nor will staff be easy to find - unless the job is to employ the "patriots"
    2. The flights. Yusuf said there would be an RAF Voyager on hot standby to fill in for an unavailable commercial plane. But if the UK has abrogated all international treaties, the flights would both be illegal and uninsurable. So unless the UK government is going to operate all flights they won't happen - and then they are military flights which countries do not have to just accept. If we are sovereign, so are they.
    3. Yusuf describes how hard it is to "count the uncountable". We don't know how many and therefore who they are and where they are. Farage states we would have Border Force squads lifting people - which will cause chaos. The operational issue is that so many of the "illegals" that FukU supporters want to deport aren't illegal...

    Uninsured doesn't matter as the MoD carries the risk on military registered aircraft. Civil/military makes no difference if they aren't cleared for traffic or landing.

    AirTanker still have 2 x Voyager leased to Jet2 that they can recall so they would have substantial capacity. The deportation racket should have been 100% RAF run anyway. Much simpler.

    Quibbling over the details misses the point anyway. Your average racist chav, ie Fukker voter, just sees a plan and a commitment to action. The British state certainly has the means to do mass deportations if it has the will which it currently does not.
    Not quibbling - genuinely curious. It's been an interesting watch - Farage credited the Blair government repeatedly for deporting people at speed.

    I have little doubt that this would have to be an RAF operation because they won't find aircraft otherwise. Why not just say so? Does it create issues with the counterparty government we're sending people to?
    According to big Dom the Royal Navy was quite prepared to tow back the small boats to France - the plan was up and running - they were happy to do it. Defending our seas is, after all, their one and only job

    It was the politicians who got nervous and then the human rights lawyers exploited their nerves

    All this “uninsurable” stuff is total gibberish. Also: What the F do you know you’re a north Scottish part time Tesla reviewer who believes in ghosts

    If we want to deport, we can deport. Enough of this spinelessness
    As always I am interested in the detail.

    We can pass any law we like. We can't compel an airline to carry deportees. Insurance was a live issue when Sunak tried to organise a Rwanda flight, so we know it is an issue.

    And what the F do you know, if that's your line? About insurance for airlines and aircraft leasing, specifically.
    DougSeal said:

    moonshine said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    I expect Farage will just withdraw from the ECHR no matter the consequences

    He is following the Trump playbook
    The backlash against mass third world migration is becoming as loud in Ireland as it is here. If the John Lennon no-borders types think a second version of the Northern Ireland Protocol will maintain their cosy status quo, I fear they will be disappointed.
    It's not the Protocol the ECHR is in but the Good Friday Agreement, which is an international treaty. If Farage wants to dump that, well, its a view I suppose. I just remember the status quo ante and am not that thrilled with the idea of round 2. Specifically:
    • Section 2 of Strand One: This section commits the British and Irish governments to incorporating the ECHR into the law of Northern Ireland and ensuring that relevant rights are protected.


    • The Agreement explicitly states that “the European Convention on Human Rights…shall apply in Northern Ireland”, and both governments commit to “take the necessary steps to ensure that the relevant rights are protected in law.” For the ECRH to apply in NI it has to be part of a country that is a signatory to the ECHR. You can't sign it for only part of your territory.

    While there are some protests about migration in Ireland they are nowhere near as loud as here and any protests against renegotiating or dumping the GFA, or restricting the open border, will, I can assure you, be exponentially bigger.
    This is nonsense. The protests about migration in Ireland are, relatively, even fiercer than here

    The Irish regularly burn down asylum seeker housing. They had huge riots in Dublin on this issue. And it’s only getting worse

    It is highly likely the Irish would be keen to tighten human rights laws on this subject. Because it threatens the peace in the south
    There is huge public support for the GFA in Ireland and you need them to be willing to re-negotiate that. You’d have to do that before the UK could leave the ECHR otherwise you’d breach the GFA and the EU UK trade agreement.
    No one has ever said fixing this would be easy and done in a day. But the bleating from the left says “this is legally and humanly impossible” - which is ridiculous

    All it requires is political will
    All things are possible! The point with all of it is there is almost always a counterparty to negotiate with.

    Farage - like Starmer and Sunak and especially Boris! before him - is offering crayon solutions. "its all very simple", "we just do it" etc etc. The only chink in that argument was when he was asked about the GFA and he said it won't be easy and it won't be quick.

    Here is the problem. The UK exiting the ECHR junks the GFA. We *could* choose to do that - with consequences. After all we would be junking so many other treaties would it matter some will ask? But yes, it matters because Norniron is part of the UK.

    Same with the other "oh we'll just do x" points. Great! How? Specifics matter because they are the things that stop you from just doing x.
    You're putting the cart before the horse, as many here did during the Brexit negotiations.

    Yes, absolutely, renegotiating the GFA may not be quick and easy. The mistake many here make is thinking that needs to be done first, then you do what you want.

    No, it needs to be the other way around. Do what you have voted to do. Then fix the GFA to reflect the new circumstances.

    If you are prepared to do x then there is nothing that stops you from just doing x. Issues like the GFA amendments can be dealt with after x is done, not before.
    The person who said it would need to be done first is *Nigel Farage* at the presser.

    Perhaps he is less absolutist than you are because he has the risk of actually being in charge?
    I would have thought Farage would have been happy to avoid any delay in renegotiating the GFA and if he thought he could get away with it he would have just left the ECHR so clearly even he realizes you can’t .
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 27,117
    edited August 26
  • LeonLeon Posts: 64,584
    Thirteen million views of Musk’s “England flag” tweet

    He has more power than most global leaders. Gotta love the guy
  • Leon said:

    nico67 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    OK, so the Reform "Operation Restoring Justice" headlines:

    Detain & Deport "absolutely everyone arriving legally" with no admissible asylum claim and a lifetime ban from the UK
    Leave the ECHR and all international treaties (UN Torture etc)
    Create a UK Migration Command to coordinate all agencies data to find people who have gone to ground
    Detain until deportation
    Return agreements with all countries - we leverage our power by withholding visas and applying sanctions
    Find a 3rd country to send undocumented / unreturnable. Discuss with Albania, Rwanda and others

    Putting it simply, Parliament is sovereign. We can pass any law we like in our own borders. It becomes a problem when we try and bring those laws into practice.

    I see three major barriers and all are operational:
    1. Detain until Deportation. The "patriots" will not allow anywhere to be used for this purpose. Nor will staff be easy to find - unless the job is to employ the "patriots"
    2. The flights. Yusuf said there would be an RAF Voyager on hot standby to fill in for an unavailable commercial plane. But if the UK has abrogated all international treaties, the flights would both be illegal and uninsurable. So unless the UK government is going to operate all flights they won't happen - and then they are military flights which countries do not have to just accept. If we are sovereign, so are they.
    3. Yusuf describes how hard it is to "count the uncountable". We don't know how many and therefore who they are and where they are. Farage states we would have Border Force squads lifting people - which will cause chaos. The operational issue is that so many of the "illegals" that FukU supporters want to deport aren't illegal...

    Uninsured doesn't matter as the MoD carries the risk on military registered aircraft. Civil/military makes no difference if they aren't cleared for traffic or landing.

    AirTanker still have 2 x Voyager leased to Jet2 that they can recall so they would have substantial capacity. The deportation racket should have been 100% RAF run anyway. Much simpler.

    Quibbling over the details misses the point anyway. Your average racist chav, ie Fukker voter, just sees a plan and a commitment to action. The British state certainly has the means to do mass deportations if it has the will which it currently does not.
    Not quibbling - genuinely curious. It's been an interesting watch - Farage credited the Blair government repeatedly for deporting people at speed.

    I have little doubt that this would have to be an RAF operation because they won't find aircraft otherwise. Why not just say so? Does it create issues with the counterparty government we're sending people to?
    According to big Dom the Royal Navy was quite prepared to tow back the small boats to France - the plan was up and running - they were happy to do it. Defending our seas is, after all, their one and only job

    It was the politicians who got nervous and then the human rights lawyers exploited their nerves

    All this “uninsurable” stuff is total gibberish. Also: What the F do you know you’re a north Scottish part time Tesla reviewer who believes in ghosts

    If we want to deport, we can deport. Enough of this spinelessness
    As always I am interested in the detail.

    We can pass any law we like. We can't compel an airline to carry deportees. Insurance was a live issue when Sunak tried to organise a Rwanda flight, so we know it is an issue.

    And what the F do you know, if that's your line? About insurance for airlines and aircraft leasing, specifically.
    DougSeal said:

    moonshine said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    I expect Farage will just withdraw from the ECHR no matter the consequences

    He is following the Trump playbook
    The backlash against mass third world migration is becoming as loud in Ireland as it is here. If the John Lennon no-borders types think a second version of the Northern Ireland Protocol will maintain their cosy status quo, I fear they will be disappointed.
    It's not the Protocol the ECHR is in but the Good Friday Agreement, which is an international treaty. If Farage wants to dump that, well, its a view I suppose. I just remember the status quo ante and am not that thrilled with the idea of round 2. Specifically:
    • Section 2 of Strand One: This section commits the British and Irish governments to incorporating the ECHR into the law of Northern Ireland and ensuring that relevant rights are protected.


    • The Agreement explicitly states that “the European Convention on Human Rights…shall apply in Northern Ireland”, and both governments commit to “take the necessary steps to ensure that the relevant rights are protected in law.” For the ECRH to apply in NI it has to be part of a country that is a signatory to the ECHR. You can't sign it for only part of your territory.

    While there are some protests about migration in Ireland they are nowhere near as loud as here and any protests against renegotiating or dumping the GFA, or restricting the open border, will, I can assure you, be exponentially bigger.
    This is nonsense. The protests about migration in Ireland are, relatively, even fiercer than here

    The Irish regularly burn down asylum seeker housing. They had huge riots in Dublin on this issue. And it’s only getting worse

    It is highly likely the Irish would be keen to tighten human rights laws on this subject. Because it threatens the peace in the south
    There is huge public support for the GFA in Ireland and you need them to be willing to re-negotiate that. You’d have to do that before the UK could leave the ECHR otherwise you’d breach the GFA and the EU UK trade agreement.
    No one has ever said fixing this would be easy and done in a day. But the bleating from the left says “this is legally and humanly impossible” - which is ridiculous

    All it requires is political will
    All things are possible! The point with all of it is there is almost always a counterparty to negotiate with.

    Farage - like Starmer and Sunak and especially Boris! before him - is offering crayon solutions. "its all very simple", "we just do it" etc etc. The only chink in that argument was when he was asked about the GFA and he said it won't be easy and it won't be quick.

    Here is the problem. The UK exiting the ECHR junks the GFA. We *could* choose to do that - with consequences. After all we would be junking so many other treaties would it matter some will ask? But yes, it matters because Norniron is part of the UK.

    Same with the other "oh we'll just do x" points. Great! How? Specifics matter because they are the things that stop you from just doing x.
    You're putting the cart before the horse, as many here did during the Brexit negotiations.

    Yes, absolutely, renegotiating the GFA may not be quick and easy. The mistake many here make is thinking that needs to be done first, then you do what you want.

    No, it needs to be the other way around. Do what you have voted to do. Then fix the GFA to reflect the new circumstances.

    If you are prepared to do x then there is nothing that stops you from just doing x. Issues like the GFA amendments can be dealt with after x is done, not before.
    The person who said it would need to be done first is *Nigel Farage* at the presser.

    Perhaps he is less absolutist than you are because he has the risk of actually being in charge?
    Please give a quote saying he said it needs to be dealt with first, rather than just dealt with. Your comments earlier never said first.

    Not that I respect or agree with Farage anyway.
  • AnneJGPAnneJGP Posts: 3,877

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
    A bad case of Rule, Britannia, Britannia waives the rules.
  • OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
    We are sovereign, we absolutely can make the rules.

    If people want to cooperate, great.

    If people don't, that's fine too.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 75,084
    tlg86 said:
    Bell ends writing budget would surely not be news?
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 44,846
    A reminder of happier, simpler times when even PBers were having hand shandies over new patriotic Labour, some of them may even have gone on to vote for them. You can’t eat a fleg, or indeed sustain a credible government on performative patriotism.

    https://x.com/flying_rodent/status/1960310974574948712?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 52,667
    edited August 26
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sitting in my sitting room with shelves cleared. Going away for a few days

    When I get back all the walls will be a different colour entirely. It’s a slightly unsettling feeling

    Turquoise? ;)
    I’ve gone for a very bold blue. Hick’s Blue. Slightly nervous

    But I’m bored of these polite greys and creams and greige. I’m not getting any younger and I want to turn my flat into something radical - opulently weird. Stage set for Act 3

    Halfway there but this is a big step

    I guess if I hate it I can always paint it back. There is that
    And so the late midlife crisis continues.

    It’s quaint that he can describe his bedsit as different rooms depending on which way he’s facing at the time!

    Sinking down to the level of attempting a boast about your decorating, on a site devoted to discussing politics and betting, is extraordinarily sad. Clue: no-one else on here posts pictures of their walls at home.
  • nico67nico67 Posts: 5,894
    Farage would send women back to Afghanistan to be executed ! Not hyperbole , that’s the effect of their policy . Together with Farages admiration of Andrew Tate , his support for the mob attacking hotels 40% of those arrested had convictions for domestic abuse it’s clear that Farages alleged concern for women in areas of migrant hotels is just nonsense designed to dupe the public . Farage doesn’t give a flying fxck about women .
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 75,084

    A reminder of happier, simpler times when even PBers were having hand shandies over new patriotic Labour, some of them may even have gone on to vote for them. You can’t eat a fleg, or indeed sustain a credible government on performative patriotism.

    https://x.com/flying_rodent/status/1960310974574948712?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q

    I've been here long enough to remember the days when we used to discuss whether VAT should be charged on pasties if they were cold or only if they were hot.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 75,084
    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sitting in my sitting room with shelves cleared. Going away for a few days

    When I get back all the walls will be a different colour entirely. It’s a slightly unsettling feeling

    Turquoise? ;)
    I’ve gone for a very bold blue. Hick’s Blue. Slightly nervous

    But I’m bored of these polite greys and creams and greige. I’m not getting any younger and I want to turn my flat into something radical - opulently weird. Stage set for Act 3

    Halfway there but this is a big step

    I guess if I hate it I can always paint it back. There is that
    And so the late midlife crisis continues.

    It’s quaint that he can describe his bedsit as different rooms depending on which way he’s facing at the time!

    Sinking down to the level of attempting a boast about your decorating, on a site devoted to discussing politics and betting, is extraordinarily sad. Clue: no-one else on here posts pictures of their walls at home.
    I can if you want. I've been busy renovating a house over the summer and now its replastered I've been painting it.

    However, I've been using a standard clay paint and white.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,829

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
    Why is no one willing to make the argument that other choices we have collectively made mean that we need to import more young people to pay for all our pensioners? It’s that, get breeding, or slash the pension. Three options only.

    And anyway, even if lots of “fighting age” men are coming here seeking citizenship, surely that’s a good thing at a time when we need to expand the army on the cheap?
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 66,497
    659 came across the channel in small boats yesterday alone !!
  • eekeek Posts: 31,040
    edited August 26
    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    nico67 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    OK, so the Reform "Operation Restoring Justice" headlines:

    Detain & Deport "absolutely everyone arriving legally" with no admissible asylum claim and a lifetime ban from the UK
    Leave the ECHR and all international treaties (UN Torture etc)
    Create a UK Migration Command to coordinate all agencies data to find people who have gone to ground
    Detain until deportation
    Return agreements with all countries - we leverage our power by withholding visas and applying sanctions
    Find a 3rd country to send undocumented / unreturnable. Discuss with Albania, Rwanda and others

    Putting it simply, Parliament is sovereign. We can pass any law we like in our own borders. It becomes a problem when we try and bring those laws into practice.

    I see three major barriers and all are operational:
    1. Detain until Deportation. The "patriots" will not allow anywhere to be used for this purpose. Nor will staff be easy to find - unless the job is to employ the "patriots"
    2. The flights. Yusuf said there would be an RAF Voyager on hot standby to fill in for an unavailable commercial plane. But if the UK has abrogated all international treaties, the flights would both be illegal and uninsurable. So unless the UK government is going to operate all flights they won't happen - and then they are military flights which countries do not have to just accept. If we are sovereign, so are they.
    3. Yusuf describes how hard it is to "count the uncountable". We don't know how many and therefore who they are and where they are. Farage states we would have Border Force squads lifting people - which will cause chaos. The operational issue is that so many of the "illegals" that FukU supporters want to deport aren't illegal...

    Uninsured doesn't matter as the MoD carries the risk on military registered aircraft. Civil/military makes no difference if they aren't cleared for traffic or landing.

    AirTanker still have 2 x Voyager leased to Jet2 that they can recall so they would have substantial capacity. The deportation racket should have been 100% RAF run anyway. Much simpler.

    Quibbling over the details misses the point anyway. Your average racist chav, ie Fukker voter, just sees a plan and a commitment to action. The British state certainly has the means to do mass deportations if it has the will which it currently does not.
    Not quibbling - genuinely curious. It's been an interesting watch - Farage credited the Blair government repeatedly for deporting people at speed.

    I have little doubt that this would have to be an RAF operation because they won't find aircraft otherwise. Why not just say so? Does it create issues with the counterparty government we're sending people to?
    According to big Dom the Royal Navy was quite prepared to tow back the small boats to France - the plan was up and running - they were happy to do it. Defending our seas is, after all, their one and only job

    It was the politicians who got nervous and then the human rights lawyers exploited their nerves

    All this “uninsurable” stuff is total gibberish. Also: What the F do you know you’re a north Scottish part time Tesla reviewer who believes in ghosts

    If we want to deport, we can deport. Enough of this spinelessness
    As always I am interested in the detail.

    We can pass any law we like. We can't compel an airline to carry deportees. Insurance was a live issue when Sunak tried to organise a Rwanda flight, so we know it is an issue.

    And what the F do you know, if that's your line? About insurance for airlines and aircraft leasing, specifically.
    DougSeal said:

    moonshine said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    I expect Farage will just withdraw from the ECHR no matter the consequences

    He is following the Trump playbook
    The backlash against mass third world migration is becoming as loud in Ireland as it is here. If the John Lennon no-borders types think a second version of the Northern Ireland Protocol will maintain their cosy status quo, I fear they will be disappointed.
    It's not the Protocol the ECHR is in but the Good Friday Agreement, which is an international treaty. If Farage wants to dump that, well, its a view I suppose. I just remember the status quo ante and am not that thrilled with the idea of round 2. Specifically:
    • Section 2 of Strand One: This section commits the British and Irish governments to incorporating the ECHR into the law of Northern Ireland and ensuring that relevant rights are protected.


    • The Agreement explicitly states that “the European Convention on Human Rights…shall apply in Northern Ireland”, and both governments commit to “take the necessary steps to ensure that the relevant rights are protected in law.” For the ECRH to apply in NI it has to be part of a country that is a signatory to the ECHR. You can't sign it for only part of your territory.

    While there are some protests about migration in Ireland they are nowhere near as loud as here and any protests against renegotiating or dumping the GFA, or restricting the open border, will, I can assure you, be exponentially bigger.
    This is nonsense. The protests about migration in Ireland are, relatively, even fiercer than here

    The Irish regularly burn down asylum seeker housing. They had huge riots in Dublin on this issue. And it’s only getting worse

    It is highly likely the Irish would be keen to tighten human rights laws on this subject. Because it threatens the peace in the south
    There is huge public support for the GFA in Ireland and you need them to be willing to re-negotiate that. You’d have to do that before the UK could leave the ECHR otherwise you’d breach the GFA and the EU UK trade agreement.
    No one has ever said fixing this would be easy and done in a day. But the bleating from the left says “this is legally and humanly impossible” - which is ridiculous

    All it requires is political will
    All things are possible! The point with all of it is there is almost always a counterparty to negotiate with.

    Farage - like Starmer and Sunak and especially Boris! before him - is offering crayon solutions. "its all very simple", "we just do it" etc etc. The only chink in that argument was when he was asked about the GFA and he said it won't be easy and it won't be quick.

    Here is the problem. The UK exiting the ECHR junks the GFA. We *could* choose to do that - with consequences. After all we would be junking so many other treaties would it matter some will ask? But yes, it matters because Norniron is part of the UK.

    Same with the other "oh we'll just do x" points. Great! How? Specifics matter because they are the things that stop you from just doing x.
    In the end who cares. It’s four years from the election

    All Farage has to do is sound passionately committed to this. And no one doubts that he is. He knows he has to get this done - above all else - if he is elected
    That is the part that concerns me. I have for a long time on here warned not of Farage, but of what comes after Farage fails.

    The UK's political economy is broken at a fundamental level. Reform are asking the right questions but so far offer no substantive answers - or in many cases have proposals to make things worse.

    The pressure cooker isn't migration or flags. It's poverty and hopelessness. Our politics has gone crazy over the last decade as people chase one "solution" then another, all the while finding that things get worse not better with every step taken.

    From what we have seen so far, Reform UK in council have at best been ineffective (because there is little that any elected councillor can do to change the maths with regards to their budget crisis), and at worst have looked like utter idiots. If they win 400 seats at the election then 395 will be newly elected and all bar a minority will be new MPs, bound by Faragism.

    That doesn't give me huge confidence that they will have the drive and the nous to actually go after the significant reforms needed. Which means although migrants would go down, the poverty and hopelessness will not. So who do they vote for next? We are sliding towards autocracy not because of a left / right divide, but because leftright are the same...
    Yes I’ve been pondering the same thing for some time. There’s a cosy view that if/when Farage fails, the duopoly will rise again. But it might not.
    It may but it won’t - it depends on whether the country follows Redcar’s path of protest MP, back to Labour, protest vote ….

    Or we end up writing off the parties that fail and new parties crop up.

    I suspect we need to change our voting system rapidly before we start seeing incredibly strange elections where parties get a majority on 25% of the vote while 2 other parties on 24% do badly due to inefficient voting patterns
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,829
    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sitting in my sitting room with shelves cleared. Going away for a few days

    When I get back all the walls will be a different colour entirely. It’s a slightly unsettling feeling

    Turquoise? ;)
    I’ve gone for a very bold blue. Hick’s Blue. Slightly nervous

    But I’m bored of these polite greys and creams and greige. I’m not getting any younger and I want to turn my flat into something radical - opulently weird. Stage set for Act 3

    Halfway there but this is a big step

    I guess if I hate it I can always paint it back. There is that
    And so the late midlife crisis continues.

    It’s quaint that he can describe his bedsit as different rooms depending on which way he’s facing at the time!

    Sinking down to the level of attempting a boast about your decorating, on a site devoted to discussing politics and betting, is extraordinarily sad. Clue: no-one else on here posts pictures of their walls at home.
    I can if you want. I've been busy renovating a house over the summer and now its replastered I've been painting it.

    However, I've been using a standard clay paint and white.
    We need to pick a bathroom colour, having recently repainted the living room and hall half sage green and half white. All ideas welcome.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 30,807

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
    We are sovereign, we absolutely can make the rules.

    If people want to cooperate, great.

    If people don't, that's fine too.
    It isn't fine too when you are trying to land RAF planes full of people into their sovereign territory.

    They are sovereign and absolutely can make their own rules...

    I have no doubt that deals will be done. Some deals. A load of people will have (a) no paperwork and (b) no country willing to take them as they are "fighting age males"

    We have more chance of doing deals if we don't act like a limp-dicked beta male whining on about how we absolutely get to make the rules dictating to foreigners what happens in their country.
  • biggles said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
    Why is no one willing to make the argument that other choices we have collectively made mean that we need to import more young people to pay for all our pensioners? It’s that, get breeding, or slash the pension. Three options only.

    And anyway, even if lots of “fighting age” men are coming here seeking citizenship, surely that’s a good thing at a time when we need to expand the army on the cheap?
    People do regularly make that argument, but it's utter lump of labour bullshit.

    Lump of labour is a fallacy. Importing people doesn't create unemployment as demand increases and by the same logic it can't solve employment shortages.

    We need to invest to improve productivity.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 64,584
    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sitting in my sitting room with shelves cleared. Going away for a few days

    When I get back all the walls will be a different colour entirely. It’s a slightly unsettling feeling

    Turquoise? ;)
    I’ve gone for a very bold blue. Hick’s Blue. Slightly nervous

    But I’m bored of these polite greys and creams and greige. I’m not getting any younger and I want to turn my flat into something radical - opulently weird. Stage set for Act 3

    Halfway there but this is a big step

    I guess if I hate it I can always paint it back. There is that
    And so the late midlife crisis continues.

    It’s quaint that he can describe his bedsit as different rooms depending on which way he’s facing at the time!

    Sinking down to the level of attempting a boast about your decorating, on a site devoted to discussing politics and betting, is extraordinarily sad. Clue: no-one else on here posts pictures of their walls at home.
    You have only one friend. It’s a dog. You pointlessly travel the world with that solitary friend. A dog. You then come on to a site “devoted to discussing politics and betting” and you post 300,000 sad and eerie photos of you travelling the world totally alone with your only friend. Which is a dog.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,829
    eek said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    nico67 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    OK, so the Reform "Operation Restoring Justice" headlines:

    Detain & Deport "absolutely everyone arriving legally" with no admissible asylum claim and a lifetime ban from the UK
    Leave the ECHR and all international treaties (UN Torture etc)
    Create a UK Migration Command to coordinate all agencies data to find people who have gone to ground
    Detain until deportation
    Return agreements with all countries - we leverage our power by withholding visas and applying sanctions
    Find a 3rd country to send undocumented / unreturnable. Discuss with Albania, Rwanda and others

    Putting it simply, Parliament is sovereign. We can pass any law we like in our own borders. It becomes a problem when we try and bring those laws into practice.

    I see three major barriers and all are operational:
    1. Detain until Deportation. The "patriots" will not allow anywhere to be used for this purpose. Nor will staff be easy to find - unless the job is to employ the "patriots"
    2. The flights. Yusuf said there would be an RAF Voyager on hot standby to fill in for an unavailable commercial plane. But if the UK has abrogated all international treaties, the flights would both be illegal and uninsurable. So unless the UK government is going to operate all flights they won't happen - and then they are military flights which countries do not have to just accept. If we are sovereign, so are they.
    3. Yusuf describes how hard it is to "count the uncountable". We don't know how many and therefore who they are and where they are. Farage states we would have Border Force squads lifting people - which will cause chaos. The operational issue is that so many of the "illegals" that FukU supporters want to deport aren't illegal...

    Uninsured doesn't matter as the MoD carries the risk on military registered aircraft. Civil/military makes no difference if they aren't cleared for traffic or landing.

    AirTanker still have 2 x Voyager leased to Jet2 that they can recall so they would have substantial capacity. The deportation racket should have been 100% RAF run anyway. Much simpler.

    Quibbling over the details misses the point anyway. Your average racist chav, ie Fukker voter, just sees a plan and a commitment to action. The British state certainly has the means to do mass deportations if it has the will which it currently does not.
    Not quibbling - genuinely curious. It's been an interesting watch - Farage credited the Blair government repeatedly for deporting people at speed.

    I have little doubt that this would have to be an RAF operation because they won't find aircraft otherwise. Why not just say so? Does it create issues with the counterparty government we're sending people to?
    According to big Dom the Royal Navy was quite prepared to tow back the small boats to France - the plan was up and running - they were happy to do it. Defending our seas is, after all, their one and only job

    It was the politicians who got nervous and then the human rights lawyers exploited their nerves

    All this “uninsurable” stuff is total gibberish. Also: What the F do you know you’re a north Scottish part time Tesla reviewer who believes in ghosts

    If we want to deport, we can deport. Enough of this spinelessness
    As always I am interested in the detail.

    We can pass any law we like. We can't compel an airline to carry deportees. Insurance was a live issue when Sunak tried to organise a Rwanda flight, so we know it is an issue.

    And what the F do you know, if that's your line? About insurance for airlines and aircraft leasing, specifically.
    DougSeal said:

    moonshine said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    I expect Farage will just withdraw from the ECHR no matter the consequences

    He is following the Trump playbook
    The backlash against mass third world migration is becoming as loud in Ireland as it is here. If the John Lennon no-borders types think a second version of the Northern Ireland Protocol will maintain their cosy status quo, I fear they will be disappointed.
    It's not the Protocol the ECHR is in but the Good Friday Agreement, which is an international treaty. If Farage wants to dump that, well, its a view I suppose. I just remember the status quo ante and am not that thrilled with the idea of round 2. Specifically:
    • Section 2 of Strand One: This section commits the British and Irish governments to incorporating the ECHR into the law of Northern Ireland and ensuring that relevant rights are protected.


    • The Agreement explicitly states that “the European Convention on Human Rights…shall apply in Northern Ireland”, and both governments commit to “take the necessary steps to ensure that the relevant rights are protected in law.” For the ECRH to apply in NI it has to be part of a country that is a signatory to the ECHR. You can't sign it for only part of your territory.

    While there are some protests about migration in Ireland they are nowhere near as loud as here and any protests against renegotiating or dumping the GFA, or restricting the open border, will, I can assure you, be exponentially bigger.
    This is nonsense. The protests about migration in Ireland are, relatively, even fiercer than here

    The Irish regularly burn down asylum seeker housing. They had huge riots in Dublin on this issue. And it’s only getting worse

    It is highly likely the Irish would be keen to tighten human rights laws on this subject. Because it threatens the peace in the south
    There is huge public support for the GFA in Ireland and you need them to be willing to re-negotiate that. You’d have to do that before the UK could leave the ECHR otherwise you’d breach the GFA and the EU UK trade agreement.
    No one has ever said fixing this would be easy and done in a day. But the bleating from the left says “this is legally and humanly impossible” - which is ridiculous

    All it requires is political will
    All things are possible! The point with all of it is there is almost always a counterparty to negotiate with.

    Farage - like Starmer and Sunak and especially Boris! before him - is offering crayon solutions. "its all very simple", "we just do it" etc etc. The only chink in that argument was when he was asked about the GFA and he said it won't be easy and it won't be quick.

    Here is the problem. The UK exiting the ECHR junks the GFA. We *could* choose to do that - with consequences. After all we would be junking so many other treaties would it matter some will ask? But yes, it matters because Norniron is part of the UK.

    Same with the other "oh we'll just do x" points. Great! How? Specifics matter because they are the things that stop you from just doing x.
    In the end who cares. It’s four years from the election

    All Farage has to do is sound passionately committed to this. And no one doubts that he is. He knows he has to get this done - above all else - if he is elected
    That is the part that concerns me. I have for a long time on here warned not of Farage, but of what comes after Farage fails.

    The UK's political economy is broken at a fundamental level. Reform are asking the right questions but so far offer no substantive answers - or in many cases have proposals to make things worse.

    The pressure cooker isn't migration or flags. It's poverty and hopelessness. Our politics has gone crazy over the last decade as people chase one "solution" then another, all the while finding that things get worse not better with every step taken.

    From what we have seen so far, Reform UK in council have at best been ineffective (because there is little that any elected councillor can do to change the maths with regards to their budget crisis), and at worst have looked like utter idiots. If they win 400 seats at the election then 395 will be newly elected and all bar a minority will be new MPs, bound by Faragism.

    That doesn't give me huge confidence that they will have the drive and the nous to actually go after the significant reforms needed. Which means although migrants would go down, the poverty and hopelessness will not. So who do they vote for next? We are sliding towards autocracy not because of a left / right divide, but because leftright are the same...
    Yes I’ve been pondering the same thing for some time. There’s a cosy view that if/when Farage fails, the duopoly will rise again. But it might not.
    It may but it won’t - it depends on whether the country follows Redcar’s path of protest MP, back to Labour, protest vote ….

    Or we end up writing off the parties that fail and new parties crop up.

    I suspect we need to change our voting system rapidly before we start seeing incredibly strange elections where parties get a majority on 25% of the vote while 2 other parties on 24% do badly due to inefficient voting patterns
    Has Farage found an excuse to decide he actually quite likes FPTP yet?
  • eekeek Posts: 31,040

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
    We are sovereign, we absolutely can make the rules.

    If people want to cooperate, great.

    If people don't, that's fine too.
    It isn't fine too when you are trying to land RAF planes full of people into their sovereign territory.

    They are sovereign and absolutely can make their own rules...

    I have no doubt that deals will be done. Some deals. A load of people will have (a) no paperwork and (b) no country willing to take them as they are "fighting age males"

    We have more chance of doing deals if we don't act like a limp-dicked beta male whining on about how we absolutely get to make the rules dictating to foreigners what happens in their country.
    I pointed out last week that Bangladesh could revoke citizenship on every citizen who arrives in the UK and there wouldn’t be a thing we could do about removing them. And when pressed their answer would be you showed us how to do it, we are just implementing it
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 30,807
    biggles said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
    Why is no one willing to make the argument that other choices we have collectively made mean that we need to import more young people to pay for all our pensioners? It’s that, get breeding, or slash the pension. Three options only.

    And anyway, even if lots of “fighting age” men are coming here seeking citizenship, surely that’s a good thing at a time when we need to expand the army on the cheap?
    I've stopped making the economic point because (a) nobody cares and (b) migrants haven't filled the hole anyway.

    We need to fundamentally remake the way our economy supports our society. Import people we need short term? Sure. But it isn't a long term solution.

    We're losing the ability to look after older people as healthcare costs rise and pension provision falls. Which means investing to grow the economy and thus taxes. Have more people having babies is part of the mix but only part - you need jobs for them to do if you want them paying the taxes to pay pensions...
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,829

    biggles said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
    Why is no one willing to make the argument that other choices we have collectively made mean that we need to import more young people to pay for all our pensioners? It’s that, get breeding, or slash the pension. Three options only.

    And anyway, even if lots of “fighting age” men are coming here seeking citizenship, surely that’s a good thing at a time when we need to expand the army on the cheap?
    People do regularly make that argument, but it's utter lump of labour bullshit.

    Lump of labour is a fallacy. Importing people doesn't create unemployment as demand increases and by the same logic it can't solve employment shortages.

    We need to invest to improve productivity.
    It’d basic demographics. I think we’ll end up reducing immigration, cutting pensions, and trying to boost the birth rate. But people won’t like the “cutting pensions” bit.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 25,724
    edited August 26

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
    We are sovereign, we absolutely can make the rules.

    If people want to cooperate, great.

    If people don't, that's fine too.
    It isn't fine too when you are trying to land RAF planes full of people into their sovereign territory.

    They are sovereign and absolutely can make their own rules...

    I have no doubt that deals will be done. Some deals. A load of people will have (a) no paperwork and (b) no country willing to take them as they are "fighting age males"

    We have more chance of doing deals if we don't act like a limp-dicked beta male whining on about how we absolutely get to make the rules dictating to foreigners what happens in their country.
    Some deals is enough.

    For those countries willing to take people back (and that we are willing to send them to), send them there.

    For those unwilling, or where we are unwilling to send them to, have a Plan B. Eg like Rwanda.

    Rwanda didn't work under the Tories due to issues on our side, not theirs.

    That is workable, whether you like it or not. Bilateral agreements requiring only our agreement and the other parties agreement.

    What's not required is a multilateral treaty requiring unanimity and the lowest common denominator.
  • isamisam Posts: 42,361
    edited August 26
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    nico67 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    OK, so the Reform "Operation Restoring Justice" headlines:

    Detain & Deport "absolutely everyone arriving legally" with no admissible asylum claim and a lifetime ban from the UK
    Leave the ECHR and all international treaties (UN Torture etc)
    Create a UK Migration Command to coordinate all agencies data to find people who have gone to ground
    Detain until deportation
    Return agreements with all countries - we leverage our power by withholding visas and applying sanctions
    Find a 3rd country to send undocumented / unreturnable. Discuss with Albania, Rwanda and others

    Putting it simply, Parliament is sovereign. We can pass any law we like in our own borders. It becomes a problem when we try and bring those laws into practice.

    I see three major barriers and all are operational:
    1. Detain until Deportation. The "patriots" will not allow anywhere to be used for this purpose. Nor will staff be easy to find - unless the job is to employ the "patriots"
    2. The flights. Yusuf said there would be an RAF Voyager on hot standby to fill in for an unavailable commercial plane. But if the UK has abrogated all international treaties, the flights would both be illegal and uninsurable. So unless the UK government is going to operate all flights they won't happen - and then they are military flights which countries do not have to just accept. If we are sovereign, so are they.
    3. Yusuf describes how hard it is to "count the uncountable". We don't know how many and therefore who they are and where they are. Farage states we would have Border Force squads lifting people - which will cause chaos. The operational issue is that so many of the "illegals" that FukU supporters want to deport aren't illegal...

    Uninsured doesn't matter as the MoD carries the risk on military registered aircraft. Civil/military makes no difference if they aren't cleared for traffic or landing.

    AirTanker still have 2 x Voyager leased to Jet2 that they can recall so they would have substantial capacity. The deportation racket should have been 100% RAF run anyway. Much simpler.

    Quibbling over the details misses the point anyway. Your average racist chav, ie Fukker voter, just sees a plan and a commitment to action. The British state certainly has the means to do mass deportations if it has the will which it currently does not.
    Not quibbling - genuinely curious. It's been an interesting watch - Farage credited the Blair government repeatedly for deporting people at speed.

    I have little doubt that this would have to be an RAF operation because they won't find aircraft otherwise. Why not just say so? Does it create issues with the counterparty government we're sending people to?
    According to big Dom the Royal Navy was quite prepared to tow back the small boats to France - the plan was up and running - they were happy to do it. Defending our seas is, after all, their one and only job

    It was the politicians who got nervous and then the human rights lawyers exploited their nerves

    All this “uninsurable” stuff is total gibberish. Also: What the F do you know you’re a north Scottish part time Tesla reviewer who believes in ghosts

    If we want to deport, we can deport. Enough of this spinelessness
    As always I am interested in the detail.

    We can pass any law we like. We can't compel an airline to carry deportees. Insurance was a live issue when Sunak tried to organise a Rwanda flight, so we know it is an issue.

    And what the F do you know, if that's your line? About insurance for airlines and aircraft leasing, specifically.
    DougSeal said:

    moonshine said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    I expect Farage will just withdraw from the ECHR no matter the consequences

    He is following the Trump playbook
    The backlash against mass third world migration is becoming as loud in Ireland as it is here. If the John Lennon no-borders types think a second version of the Northern Ireland Protocol will maintain their cosy status quo, I fear they will be disappointed.
    It's not the Protocol the ECHR is in but the Good Friday Agreement, which is an international treaty. If Farage wants to dump that, well, its a view I suppose. I just remember the status quo ante and am not that thrilled with the idea of round 2. Specifically:
    • Section 2 of Strand One: This section commits the British and Irish governments to incorporating the ECHR into the law of Northern Ireland and ensuring that relevant rights are protected.


    • The Agreement explicitly states that “the European Convention on Human Rights…shall apply in Northern Ireland”, and both governments commit to “take the necessary steps to ensure that the relevant rights are protected in law.” For the ECRH to apply in NI it has to be part of a country that is a signatory to the ECHR. You can't sign it for only part of your territory.

    While there are some protests about migration in Ireland they are nowhere near as loud as here and any protests against renegotiating or dumping the GFA, or restricting the open border, will, I can assure you, be exponentially bigger.
    This is nonsense. The protests about migration in Ireland are, relatively, even fiercer than here

    The Irish regularly burn down asylum seeker housing. They had huge riots in Dublin on this issue. And it’s only getting worse

    It is highly likely the Irish would be keen to tighten human rights laws on this subject. Because it threatens the peace in the south
    There is huge public support for the GFA in Ireland and you need them to be willing to re-negotiate that. You’d have to do that before the UK could leave the ECHR otherwise you’d breach the GFA and the EU UK trade agreement.
    No one has ever said fixing this would be easy and done in a day. But the bleating from the left says “this is legally and humanly impossible” - which is ridiculous

    All it requires is political will
    All things are possible! The point with all of it is there is almost always a counterparty to negotiate with.

    Farage - like Starmer and Sunak and especially Boris! before him - is offering crayon solutions. "its all very simple", "we just do it" etc etc. The only chink in that argument was when he was asked about the GFA and he said it won't be easy and it won't be quick.

    Here is the problem. The UK exiting the ECHR junks the GFA. We *could* choose to do that - with consequences. After all we would be junking so many other treaties would it matter some will ask? But yes, it matters because Norniron is part of the UK.

    Same with the other "oh we'll just do x" points. Great! How? Specifics matter because they are the things that stop you from just doing x.
    In the end who cares. It’s four years from the election

    All Farage has to do is sound passionately committed to this. And no one doubts that he is. He knows he has to get this done - above all else - if he is elected
    This conversation made me think of a Fast Show sketch

    https://youtu.be/3qB14b8vMN0?si=hSnrKWk3xJe7d9SU

    Starmer and Cooper on the case, then Farage comes along
  • Leon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sitting in my sitting room with shelves cleared. Going away for a few days

    When I get back all the walls will be a different colour entirely. It’s a slightly unsettling feeling

    Turquoise? ;)
    I’ve gone for a very bold blue. Hick’s Blue. Slightly nervous

    But I’m bored of these polite greys and creams and greige. I’m not getting any younger and I want to turn my flat into something radical - opulently weird. Stage set for Act 3

    Halfway there but this is a big step

    I guess if I hate it I can always paint it back. There is that
    And so the late midlife crisis continues.

    It’s quaint that he can describe his bedsit as different rooms depending on which way he’s facing at the time!

    Sinking down to the level of attempting a boast about your decorating, on a site devoted to discussing politics and betting, is extraordinarily sad. Clue: no-one else on here posts pictures of their walls at home.
    You have only one friend. It’s a dog. You pointlessly travel the world with that solitary friend. A dog. You then come on to a site “devoted to discussing politics and betting” and you post 300,000 sad and eerie photos of you travelling the world totally alone with your only friend. Which is a dog.
    Don't be jealous about the fact that is one more than you.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,829

    biggles said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
    Why is no one willing to make the argument that other choices we have collectively made mean that we need to import more young people to pay for all our pensioners? It’s that, get breeding, or slash the pension. Three options only.

    And anyway, even if lots of “fighting age” men are coming here seeking citizenship, surely that’s a good thing at a time when we need to expand the army on the cheap?
    I've stopped making the economic point because (a) nobody cares and (b) migrants haven't filled the hole anyway.

    We need to fundamentally remake the way our economy supports our society. Import people we need short term? Sure. But it isn't a long term solution.

    We're losing the ability to look after older people as healthcare costs rise and pension provision falls. Which means investing to grow the economy and thus taxes. Have more people having babies is part of the mix but only part - you need jobs for them to do if you want them paying the taxes to pay pensions...
    There’s definitely also a need to give some of the economically inactive a kick up the arse in a humane way.
  • eekeek Posts: 31,040

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
    We are sovereign, we absolutely can make the rules.

    If people want to cooperate, great.

    If people don't, that's fine too.
    It isn't fine too when you are trying to land RAF planes full of people into their sovereign territory.

    They are sovereign and absolutely can make their own rules...

    I have no doubt that deals will be done. Some deals. A load of people will have (a) no paperwork and (b) no country willing to take them as they are "fighting age males"

    We have more chance of doing deals if we don't act like a limp-dicked beta male whining on about how we absolutely get to make the rules dictating to foreigners what happens in their country.
    Some deals is enough.

    For those countries willing to take people back (and that we are willing to send them to), send them there.

    For those unwilling, or where we are unwilling to send them to, have a Plan B. Eg like Rwanda.

    Rwanda didn't work under the Tories due to issues on our side, not theirs.

    That is workable, whether you like it or not. Bilateral agreements requiring only our agreement and the other parties agreement.

    What's not required is a multilateral treaty requiring unanimity and the lowest common denominator.
    Where exactly is there a plan b that isn’t going to cost us £1m+ per migrant
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 66,497
    edited August 26
    Maybe of interest to @Mexicanpete

    English flags graffitied onto Welsh beauty spot leaving locals horrified

    https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/english-flags-graffitied-onto-welsh-32350011#ICID=Android_DailyPostNewsApp_AppShare
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 52,667
    Leon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sitting in my sitting room with shelves cleared. Going away for a few days

    When I get back all the walls will be a different colour entirely. It’s a slightly unsettling feeling

    Turquoise? ;)
    I’ve gone for a very bold blue. Hick’s Blue. Slightly nervous

    But I’m bored of these polite greys and creams and greige. I’m not getting any younger and I want to turn my flat into something radical - opulently weird. Stage set for Act 3

    Halfway there but this is a big step

    I guess if I hate it I can always paint it back. There is that
    And so the late midlife crisis continues.

    It’s quaint that he can describe his bedsit as different rooms depending on which way he’s facing at the time!

    Sinking down to the level of attempting a boast about your decorating, on a site devoted to discussing politics and betting, is extraordinarily sad. Clue: no-one else on here posts pictures of their walls at home.
    You have only one friend. It’s a dog. You pointlessly travel the world with that solitary friend. A dog. You then come on to a site “devoted to discussing politics and betting” and you post 300,000 sad and eerie photos of you travelling the world totally alone with your only friend. Which is a dog.
    Go look in the mirror, my friend. If you don’t have one, you urgently need one.

    Indeed almost everything you post on here can be understood, by anyone with even the slightest understanding of psychology, as your railing against your own insecurities. You’d really do well to get some external help, rather than taking it all out on the rest of us.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 6,062
    eek said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
    We are sovereign, we absolutely can make the rules.

    If people want to cooperate, great.

    If people don't, that's fine too.
    It isn't fine too when you are trying to land RAF planes full of people into their sovereign territory.

    They are sovereign and absolutely can make their own rules...

    I have no doubt that deals will be done. Some deals. A load of people will have (a) no paperwork and (b) no country willing to take them as they are "fighting age males"

    We have more chance of doing deals if we don't act like a limp-dicked beta male whining on about how we absolutely get to make the rules dictating to foreigners what happens in their country.
    I pointed out last week that Bangladesh could revoke citizenship on every citizen who arrives in the UK and there wouldn’t be a thing we could do about removing them. And when pressed their answer would be you showed us how to do it, we are just implementing it
    Bangladesh might not like the UK putting in place a quota of zero for their goods and services. To impose a suspension on all new visas. To seize all assets held in the uk by the Bangladeshi state or its state officials.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 80,586
    Nigeria leapfrogs Egypt as African solar panel imports spike by 60%

    https://african.business/2025/08/energy-resources/nigeria-leapfrogs-egypt-as-african-solar-panel-imports-spike-by-60
    ..But Ember says that the volume of solar panels imported over the past 12 months “has the potential to significantly increase power generation in many African countries.”

    The thinktank says that if all solar panels imported into Sierra Leone in the last 12 months alone were installed, they would be able to generate electricity equivalent to 61% of reported electricity generation in 2023, the latest available data. For Chad, it would be 49%. In five other countries, imports in total could add electricity equivalent to more than 10% of reported 2023 generation. Altogether, 16 countries would see an increase of at least 5%. Multiple sectors in Africa are turning to solar on a large scale, including agribusiness and mining.

    The savings from avoiding diesel can repay the cost of a solar panel within six months in Nigeria, Ember says. In the country, a 420 Watt solar panel retails for around $60 USD ($0.14 USD/watt), and would produce 550 KWh in a year. At the current diesel price of $0.66 USD per litre, $60 USD of diesel would make only 275 KWh of electricity, implying a payback time of just six months...


    I predicted years ago that we'd reach a tipping point where developing economies in Africa would move straight to renewables, rather than first building out a fossil fuel infrastructure. That seems to have started.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 15,844
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 123,409
    isam said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    nico67 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    OK, so the Reform "Operation Restoring Justice" headlines:

    Detain & Deport "absolutely everyone arriving legally" with no admissible asylum claim and a lifetime ban from the UK
    Leave the ECHR and all international treaties (UN Torture etc)
    Create a UK Migration Command to coordinate all agencies data to find people who have gone to ground
    Detain until deportation
    Return agreements with all countries - we leverage our power by withholding visas and applying sanctions
    Find a 3rd country to send undocumented / unreturnable. Discuss with Albania, Rwanda and others

    Putting it simply, Parliament is sovereign. We can pass any law we like in our own borders. It becomes a problem when we try and bring those laws into practice.

    I see three major barriers and all are operational:
    1. Detain until Deportation. The "patriots" will not allow anywhere to be used for this purpose. Nor will staff be easy to find - unless the job is to employ the "patriots"
    2. The flights. Yusuf said there would be an RAF Voyager on hot standby to fill in for an unavailable commercial plane. But if the UK has abrogated all international treaties, the flights would both be illegal and uninsurable. So unless the UK government is going to operate all flights they won't happen - and then they are military flights which countries do not have to just accept. If we are sovereign, so are they.
    3. Yusuf describes how hard it is to "count the uncountable". We don't know how many and therefore who they are and where they are. Farage states we would have Border Force squads lifting people - which will cause chaos. The operational issue is that so many of the "illegals" that FukU supporters want to deport aren't illegal...

    Uninsured doesn't matter as the MoD carries the risk on military registered aircraft. Civil/military makes no difference if they aren't cleared for traffic or landing.

    AirTanker still have 2 x Voyager leased to Jet2 that they can recall so they would have substantial capacity. The deportation racket should have been 100% RAF run anyway. Much simpler.

    Quibbling over the details misses the point anyway. Your average racist chav, ie Fukker voter, just sees a plan and a commitment to action. The British state certainly has the means to do mass deportations if it has the will which it currently does not.
    Not quibbling - genuinely curious. It's been an interesting watch - Farage credited the Blair government repeatedly for deporting people at speed.

    I have little doubt that this would have to be an RAF operation because they won't find aircraft otherwise. Why not just say so? Does it create issues with the counterparty government we're sending people to?
    According to big Dom the Royal Navy was quite prepared to tow back the small boats to France - the plan was up and running - they were happy to do it. Defending our seas is, after all, their one and only job

    It was the politicians who got nervous and then the human rights lawyers exploited their nerves

    All this “uninsurable” stuff is total gibberish. Also: What the F do you know you’re a north Scottish part time Tesla reviewer who believes in ghosts

    If we want to deport, we can deport. Enough of this spinelessness
    As always I am interested in the detail.

    We can pass any law we like. We can't compel an airline to carry deportees. Insurance was a live issue when Sunak tried to organise a Rwanda flight, so we know it is an issue.

    And what the F do you know, if that's your line? About insurance for airlines and aircraft leasing, specifically.
    DougSeal said:

    moonshine said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    I expect Farage will just withdraw from the ECHR no matter the consequences

    He is following the Trump playbook
    The backlash against mass third world migration is becoming as loud in Ireland as it is here. If the John Lennon no-borders types think a second version of the Northern Ireland Protocol will maintain their cosy status quo, I fear they will be disappointed.
    It's not the Protocol the ECHR is in but the Good Friday Agreement, which is an international treaty. If Farage wants to dump that, well, its a view I suppose. I just remember the status quo ante and am not that thrilled with the idea of round 2. Specifically:
    • Section 2 of Strand One: This section commits the British and Irish governments to incorporating the ECHR into the law of Northern Ireland and ensuring that relevant rights are protected.


    • The Agreement explicitly states that “the European Convention on Human Rights…shall apply in Northern Ireland”, and both governments commit to “take the necessary steps to ensure that the relevant rights are protected in law.” For the ECRH to apply in NI it has to be part of a country that is a signatory to the ECHR. You can't sign it for only part of your territory.

    While there are some protests about migration in Ireland they are nowhere near as loud as here and any protests against renegotiating or dumping the GFA, or restricting the open border, will, I can assure you, be exponentially bigger.
    This is nonsense. The protests about migration in Ireland are, relatively, even fiercer than here

    The Irish regularly burn down asylum seeker housing. They had huge riots in Dublin on this issue. And it’s only getting worse

    It is highly likely the Irish would be keen to tighten human rights laws on this subject. Because it threatens the peace in the south
    There is huge public support for the GFA in Ireland and you need them to be willing to re-negotiate that. You’d have to do that before the UK could leave the ECHR otherwise you’d breach the GFA and the EU UK trade agreement.
    No one has ever said fixing this would be easy and done in a day. But the bleating from the left says “this is legally and humanly impossible” - which is ridiculous

    All it requires is political will
    All things are possible! The point with all of it is there is almost always a counterparty to negotiate with.

    Farage - like Starmer and Sunak and especially Boris! before him - is offering crayon solutions. "its all very simple", "we just do it" etc etc. The only chink in that argument was when he was asked about the GFA and he said it won't be easy and it won't be quick.

    Here is the problem. The UK exiting the ECHR junks the GFA. We *could* choose to do that - with consequences. After all we would be junking so many other treaties would it matter some will ask? But yes, it matters because Norniron is part of the UK.

    Same with the other "oh we'll just do x" points. Great! How? Specifics matter because they are the things that stop you from just doing x.
    In the end who cares. It’s four years from the election

    All Farage has to do is sound passionately committed to this. And no one doubts that he is. He knows he has to get this done - above all else - if he is elected
    This conversation made me think of a Fast Show sketch

    https://youtu.be/3qB14b8vMN0?si=hSnrKWk3xJe7d9SU

    Starmer and Cooper on the case, then Farage comes along
    Talking about The Fast Show…

    “Ted, do you want to paint a traffic island with me”



    https://x.com/robbfromderby/status/1959680939329519715?s=61&t=c6bcp0cjChLfQN5Tc8A_6g
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 15,844
    edited August 26
    Sean_Fear said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    I think there is a growing consensus across Europe that the migration provisions of the ECHR are unfit for purpose.

    I don't think that this will be an insuperable obstacle.
    But the changes somewhere like Italy or Greece, who are often the first safe country refugees come to, want are rather different to the changes somewhere like the UK wants, where the usual complaint is that the refugees haven't stopped in the first safe country they came to.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,819
    Leon said:

    MattW said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sitting in my sitting room with shelves cleared. Going away for a few days

    When I get back all the walls will be a different colour entirely. It’s a slightly unsettling feeling

    Turquoise? ;)
    I’ve gone for a very bold blue. Hick’s Blue. Slightly nervous

    But I’m bored of these polite greys and creams and greige. I’m not getting any younger and I want to turn my flat into something radical - opulently weird. Stage set for Act 3

    Halfway there but this is a big step

    I guess if I hate it I can always paint it back. There is that
    When I was in my early 20s I painted my living room a gorgeous rich shade of red. I loved that red.

    It was an awful choice for all four walls of a living room though.

    Sadly it is the case that the darker the colour you have on your walls the smaller and darker the room will feel. This is fine for a bedroom you won't spend much time in awake, but it's a mistake for any other room.

    You can get away with it on one or two walls, depending on how large your windows are, but any more than that will make you feel trapped in a small box.
    Yes it’s a risk. And that is the major risk

    However it’s more like three and a third walls. Because one wall is comprised of two enormous sash windows - floor to ceiling - which flood the room with light. And the room faces due south

    I’m relying on that, plus crisp white woodwork and a soft white ceiling, to save me from the oppressive jail feeling

    We shall see. Gulp! I won’t know until - inshallah - I walk back in here in about a week. I’ll know immediately

    An expensive mistake if it happens. I’ve done mock ups with ChatGPT and it looks great - but renderings often look great…

    OTOH I asked ChatGPT for advice on my hall and ChatGPT selected a colour - a kind of dusty pink - and I was unsure. Turns out to be a brilliant choice. Serene and airy and subtle

    🤷🏼‍♂️
    I will say that when you want it to be white or pink again, you will need to buy high quality paint.
    Now you’re all freaking me out. Aaaaaargh
    To balance it out, I do like the shade of blue you've chosen. Lush. And half a dozen strong lights will make a world of difference.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 30,807
    eek said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
    We are sovereign, we absolutely can make the rules.

    If people want to cooperate, great.

    If people don't, that's fine too.
    It isn't fine too when you are trying to land RAF planes full of people into their sovereign territory.

    They are sovereign and absolutely can make their own rules...

    I have no doubt that deals will be done. Some deals. A load of people will have (a) no paperwork and (b) no country willing to take them as they are "fighting age males"

    We have more chance of doing deals if we don't act like a limp-dicked beta male whining on about how we absolutely get to make the rules dictating to foreigners what happens in their country.
    I pointed out last week that Bangladesh could revoke citizenship on every citizen who arrives in the UK and there wouldn’t be a thing we could do about removing them. And when pressed their answer would be you showed us how to do it, we are just implementing it
    Right. Farage offered two items of leverage - revoke visas, and sanctions. Some countries will acquiesce of course, but the ones who won't will be the ones we need on board. Hence the need for "Albania or Rwanda" who will be delighted to agree to take "650,000 adults without children" also described as "fighting age males"
  • isamisam Posts: 42,361

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    nico67 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    OK, so the Reform "Operation Restoring Justice" headlines:

    Detain & Deport "absolutely everyone arriving legally" with no admissible asylum claim and a lifetime ban from the UK
    Leave the ECHR and all international treaties (UN Torture etc)
    Create a UK Migration Command to coordinate all agencies data to find people who have gone to ground
    Detain until deportation
    Return agreements with all countries - we leverage our power by withholding visas and applying sanctions
    Find a 3rd country to send undocumented / unreturnable. Discuss with Albania, Rwanda and others

    Putting it simply, Parliament is sovereign. We can pass any law we like in our own borders. It becomes a problem when we try and bring those laws into practice.

    I see three major barriers and all are operational:
    1. Detain until Deportation. The "patriots" will not allow anywhere to be used for this purpose. Nor will staff be easy to find - unless the job is to employ the "patriots"
    2. The flights. Yusuf said there would be an RAF Voyager on hot standby to fill in for an unavailable commercial plane. But if the UK has abrogated all international treaties, the flights would both be illegal and uninsurable. So unless the UK government is going to operate all flights they won't happen - and then they are military flights which countries do not have to just accept. If we are sovereign, so are they.
    3. Yusuf describes how hard it is to "count the uncountable". We don't know how many and therefore who they are and where they are. Farage states we would have Border Force squads lifting people - which will cause chaos. The operational issue is that so many of the "illegals" that FukU supporters want to deport aren't illegal...

    Uninsured doesn't matter as the MoD carries the risk on military registered aircraft. Civil/military makes no difference if they aren't cleared for traffic or landing.

    AirTanker still have 2 x Voyager leased to Jet2 that they can recall so they would have substantial capacity. The deportation racket should have been 100% RAF run anyway. Much simpler.

    Quibbling over the details misses the point anyway. Your average racist chav, ie Fukker voter, just sees a plan and a commitment to action. The British state certainly has the means to do mass deportations if it has the will which it currently does not.
    Not quibbling - genuinely curious. It's been an interesting watch - Farage credited the Blair government repeatedly for deporting people at speed.

    I have little doubt that this would have to be an RAF operation because they won't find aircraft otherwise. Why not just say so? Does it create issues with the counterparty government we're sending people to?
    According to big Dom the Royal Navy was quite prepared to tow back the small boats to France - the plan was up and running - they were happy to do it. Defending our seas is, after all, their one and only job

    It was the politicians who got nervous and then the human rights lawyers exploited their nerves

    All this “uninsurable” stuff is total gibberish. Also: What the F do you know you’re a north Scottish part time Tesla reviewer who believes in ghosts

    If we want to deport, we can deport. Enough of this spinelessness
    As always I am interested in the detail.

    We can pass any law we like. We can't compel an airline to carry deportees. Insurance was a live issue when Sunak tried to organise a Rwanda flight, so we know it is an issue.

    And what the F do you know, if that's your line? About insurance for airlines and aircraft leasing, specifically.
    DougSeal said:

    moonshine said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    I expect Farage will just withdraw from the ECHR no matter the consequences

    He is following the Trump playbook
    The backlash against mass third world migration is becoming as loud in Ireland as it is here. If the John Lennon no-borders types think a second version of the Northern Ireland Protocol will maintain their cosy status quo, I fear they will be disappointed.
    It's not the Protocol the ECHR is in but the Good Friday Agreement, which is an international treaty. If Farage wants to dump that, well, its a view I suppose. I just remember the status quo ante and am not that thrilled with the idea of round 2. Specifically:
    • Section 2 of Strand One: This section commits the British and Irish governments to incorporating the ECHR into the law of Northern Ireland and ensuring that relevant rights are protected.


    • The Agreement explicitly states that “the European Convention on Human Rights…shall apply in Northern Ireland”, and both governments commit to “take the necessary steps to ensure that the relevant rights are protected in law.” For the ECRH to apply in NI it has to be part of a country that is a signatory to the ECHR. You can't sign it for only part of your territory.

    While there are some protests about migration in Ireland they are nowhere near as loud as here and any protests against renegotiating or dumping the GFA, or restricting the open border, will, I can assure you, be exponentially bigger.
    This is nonsense. The protests about migration in Ireland are, relatively, even fiercer than here

    The Irish regularly burn down asylum seeker housing. They had huge riots in Dublin on this issue. And it’s only getting worse

    It is highly likely the Irish would be keen to tighten human rights laws on this subject. Because it threatens the peace in the south
    There is huge public support for the GFA in Ireland and you need them to be willing to re-negotiate that. You’d have to do that before the UK could leave the ECHR otherwise you’d breach the GFA and the EU UK trade agreement.
    No one has ever said fixing this would be easy and done in a day. But the bleating from the left says “this is legally and humanly impossible” - which is ridiculous

    All it requires is political will
    All things are possible! The point with all of it is there is almost always a counterparty to negotiate with.

    Farage - like Starmer and Sunak and especially Boris! before him - is offering crayon solutions. "its all very simple", "we just do it" etc etc. The only chink in that argument was when he was asked about the GFA and he said it won't be easy and it won't be quick.

    Here is the problem. The UK exiting the ECHR junks the GFA. We *could* choose to do that - with consequences. After all we would be junking so many other treaties would it matter some will ask? But yes, it matters because Norniron is part of the UK.

    Same with the other "oh we'll just do x" points. Great! How? Specifics matter because they are the things that stop you from just doing x.
    In the end who cares. It’s four years from the election

    All Farage has to do is sound passionately committed to this. And no one doubts that he is. He knows he has to get this done - above all else - if he is elected
    This conversation made me think of a Fast Show sketch

    https://youtu.be/3qB14b8vMN0?si=hSnrKWk3xJe7d9SU

    Starmer and Cooper on the case, then Farage comes along
    Talking about The Fast Show…

    “Ted, do you want to paint a traffic island with me”



    https://x.com/robbfromderby/status/1959680939329519715?s=61&t=c6bcp0cjChLfQN5Tc8A_6g
    I wouldn’t know about that Sir
  • isamisam Posts: 42,361
    It is fascinating watching The PBeople vs Leon. Almost biblical, an eternal story. I’m sure sociologists would have a field day
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 75,084
    Immigrants leave graffiti complaining about immigrants?

    Of course, 'We love Trump (a little bit anyway)' could be a reference to Stormy Daniels - after all, she loved him using his little bit.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 64,584
    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sitting in my sitting room with shelves cleared. Going away for a few days

    When I get back all the walls will be a different colour entirely. It’s a slightly unsettling feeling

    Turquoise? ;)
    I’ve gone for a very bold blue. Hick’s Blue. Slightly nervous

    But I’m bored of these polite greys and creams and greige. I’m not getting any younger and I want to turn my flat into something radical - opulently weird. Stage set for Act 3

    Halfway there but this is a big step

    I guess if I hate it I can always paint it back. There is that
    And so the late midlife crisis continues.

    It’s quaint that he can describe his bedsit as different rooms depending on which way he’s facing at the time!

    Sinking down to the level of attempting a boast about your decorating, on a site devoted to discussing politics and betting, is extraordinarily sad. Clue: no-one else on here posts pictures of their walls at home.
    You have only one friend. It’s a dog. You pointlessly travel the world with that solitary friend. A dog. You then come on to a site “devoted to discussing politics and betting” and you post 300,000 sad and eerie photos of you travelling the world totally alone with your only friend. Which is a dog.
    Go look in the mirror, my friend. If you don’t have one, you urgently need one.

    Indeed almost everything you post on here can be understood, by anyone with even the slightest understanding of psychology, as your railing against your own insecurities. You’d really do well to get some external help, rather than taking it all out on the rest of us.
    Woof
  • kjhkjh Posts: 13,106
    edited August 26
    Leon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sitting in my sitting room with shelves cleared. Going away for a few days

    When I get back all the walls will be a different colour entirely. It’s a slightly unsettling feeling

    Turquoise? ;)
    I’ve gone for a very bold blue. Hick’s Blue. Slightly nervous

    But I’m bored of these polite greys and creams and greige. I’m not getting any younger and I want to turn my flat into something radical - opulently weird. Stage set for Act 3

    Halfway there but this is a big step

    I guess if I hate it I can always paint it back. There is that
    And so the late midlife crisis continues.

    It’s quaint that he can describe his bedsit as different rooms depending on which way he’s facing at the time!

    Sinking down to the level of attempting a boast about your decorating, on a site devoted to discussing politics and betting, is extraordinarily sad. Clue: no-one else on here posts pictures of their walls at home.
    You have only one friend. It’s a dog. You pointlessly travel the world with that solitary friend. A dog. You then come on to a site “devoted to discussing politics and betting” and you post 300,000 sad and eerie photos of you travelling the world totally alone with your only friend. Which is a dog.
    I have one of those dilemmas because I know you know this and only do it for a reaction, but I'm afraid I can't resist, so well done @Leon, but you obviously do get the irony of that post when you have been posting for weeks about your flat decorating on a politics and betting site. And you travel the world posting pictures with not even a dog for a friend.

    And for gods sake when is it going to be finished. It is a one bedroom flat for crying out loud, not Buckingham Palace.

    Others will be glad to know there will not be a pedal by pedal and pot hole by pot hole report of my trip down the Canal du Midi which starts at the end of this week.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 75,084
    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sitting in my sitting room with shelves cleared. Going away for a few days

    When I get back all the walls will be a different colour entirely. It’s a slightly unsettling feeling

    Turquoise? ;)
    I’ve gone for a very bold blue. Hick’s Blue. Slightly nervous

    But I’m bored of these polite greys and creams and greige. I’m not getting any younger and I want to turn my flat into something radical - opulently weird. Stage set for Act 3

    Halfway there but this is a big step

    I guess if I hate it I can always paint it back. There is that
    And so the late midlife crisis continues.

    It’s quaint that he can describe his bedsit as different rooms depending on which way he’s facing at the time!

    Sinking down to the level of attempting a boast about your decorating, on a site devoted to discussing politics and betting, is extraordinarily sad. Clue: no-one else on here posts pictures of their walls at home.
    You have only one friend. It’s a dog. You pointlessly travel the world with that solitary friend. A dog. You then come on to a site “devoted to discussing politics and betting” and you post 300,000 sad and eerie photos of you travelling the world totally alone with your only friend. Which is a dog.
    Go look in the mirror, my friend. If you don’t have one, you urgently need one.
    A mirror, a friend, or a dog?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 52,667
    Leon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sitting in my sitting room with shelves cleared. Going away for a few days

    When I get back all the walls will be a different colour entirely. It’s a slightly unsettling feeling

    Turquoise? ;)
    I’ve gone for a very bold blue. Hick’s Blue. Slightly nervous

    But I’m bored of these polite greys and creams and greige. I’m not getting any younger and I want to turn my flat into something radical - opulently weird. Stage set for Act 3

    Halfway there but this is a big step

    I guess if I hate it I can always paint it back. There is that
    And so the late midlife crisis continues.

    It’s quaint that he can describe his bedsit as different rooms depending on which way he’s facing at the time!

    Sinking down to the level of attempting a boast about your decorating, on a site devoted to discussing politics and betting, is extraordinarily sad. Clue: no-one else on here posts pictures of their walls at home.
    You have only one friend. It’s a dog. You pointlessly travel the world with that solitary friend. A dog. You then come on to a site “devoted to discussing politics and betting” and you post 300,000 sad and eerie photos of you travelling the world totally alone with your only friend. Which is a dog.
    Go look in the mirror, my friend. If you don’t have one, you urgently need one.

    Indeed almost everything you post on here can be understood, by anyone with even the slightest understanding of psychology, as your railing against your own insecurities. You’d really do well to get some external help, rather than taking it all out on the rest of us.
    Woof
    Yes, you’d probably benefit from having a dog, as well. It would be a start. But I’d expect you are way too selfish and self-centred to be able to look after it.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 15,844
    moonshine said:

    eek said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
    We are sovereign, we absolutely can make the rules.

    If people want to cooperate, great.

    If people don't, that's fine too.
    It isn't fine too when you are trying to land RAF planes full of people into their sovereign territory.

    They are sovereign and absolutely can make their own rules...

    I have no doubt that deals will be done. Some deals. A load of people will have (a) no paperwork and (b) no country willing to take them as they are "fighting age males"

    We have more chance of doing deals if we don't act like a limp-dicked beta male whining on about how we absolutely get to make the rules dictating to foreigners what happens in their country.
    I pointed out last week that Bangladesh could revoke citizenship on every citizen who arrives in the UK and there wouldn’t be a thing we could do about removing them. And when pressed their answer would be you showed us how to do it, we are just implementing it
    Bangladesh might not like the UK putting in place a quota of zero for their goods and services. To impose a suspension on all new visas. To seize all assets held in the uk by the Bangladeshi state or its state officials.
    We could do all sorts of things. Generally, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. International cooperation works better than throwing your weight around, as the US economy is finding out.

    Sunak did a bilateral deal with Albania that was very successful in reducing the number of Albanians claiming asylum in the UK and speeding up the return of Albanians to Albania. That's a good model. This chest-beating nonsense from Farage and some posters here is not a good model.
  • ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sitting in my sitting room with shelves cleared. Going away for a few days

    When I get back all the walls will be a different colour entirely. It’s a slightly unsettling feeling

    Turquoise? ;)
    I’ve gone for a very bold blue. Hick’s Blue. Slightly nervous

    But I’m bored of these polite greys and creams and greige. I’m not getting any younger and I want to turn my flat into something radical - opulently weird. Stage set for Act 3

    Halfway there but this is a big step

    I guess if I hate it I can always paint it back. There is that
    And so the late midlife crisis continues.

    It’s quaint that he can describe his bedsit as different rooms depending on which way he’s facing at the time!

    Sinking down to the level of attempting a boast about your decorating, on a site devoted to discussing politics and betting, is extraordinarily sad. Clue: no-one else on here posts pictures of their walls at home.
    You have only one friend. It’s a dog. You pointlessly travel the world with that solitary friend. A dog. You then come on to a site “devoted to discussing politics and betting” and you post 300,000 sad and eerie photos of you travelling the world totally alone with your only friend. Which is a dog.
    Go look in the mirror, my friend. If you don’t have one, you urgently need one.
    A mirror, a friend, or a dog?
    Yes.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 6,062
    Nigelb said:

    Nigeria leapfrogs Egypt as African solar panel imports spike by 60%

    https://african.business/2025/08/energy-resources/nigeria-leapfrogs-egypt-as-african-solar-panel-imports-spike-by-60
    ..But Ember says that the volume of solar panels imported over the past 12 months “has the potential to significantly increase power generation in many African countries.”

    The thinktank says that if all solar panels imported into Sierra Leone in the last 12 months alone were installed, they would be able to generate electricity equivalent to 61% of reported electricity generation in 2023, the latest available data. For Chad, it would be 49%. In five other countries, imports in total could add electricity equivalent to more than 10% of reported 2023 generation. Altogether, 16 countries would see an increase of at least 5%. Multiple sectors in Africa are turning to solar on a large scale, including agribusiness and mining.

    The savings from avoiding diesel can repay the cost of a solar panel within six months in Nigeria, Ember says. In the country, a 420 Watt solar panel retails for around $60 USD ($0.14 USD/watt), and would produce 550 KWh in a year. At the current diesel price of $0.66 USD per litre, $60 USD of diesel would make only 275 KWh of electricity, implying a payback time of just six months...


    I predicted years ago that we'd reach a tipping point where developing economies in Africa would move straight to renewables, rather than first building out a fossil fuel infrastructure. That seems to have started.

    Bloody hell Chad. Those geezers combust unrefined crude oil to keep the lights on. All this mincing about with our tax codes and regulations that Miliband is doing. If your sole goal was global co2 reduction, building solar farms in places like chad would do the trick.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 75,084

    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sitting in my sitting room with shelves cleared. Going away for a few days

    When I get back all the walls will be a different colour entirely. It’s a slightly unsettling feeling

    Turquoise? ;)
    I’ve gone for a very bold blue. Hick’s Blue. Slightly nervous

    But I’m bored of these polite greys and creams and greige. I’m not getting any younger and I want to turn my flat into something radical - opulently weird. Stage set for Act 3

    Halfway there but this is a big step

    I guess if I hate it I can always paint it back. There is that
    And so the late midlife crisis continues.

    It’s quaint that he can describe his bedsit as different rooms depending on which way he’s facing at the time!

    Sinking down to the level of attempting a boast about your decorating, on a site devoted to discussing politics and betting, is extraordinarily sad. Clue: no-one else on here posts pictures of their walls at home.
    You have only one friend. It’s a dog. You pointlessly travel the world with that solitary friend. A dog. You then come on to a site “devoted to discussing politics and betting” and you post 300,000 sad and eerie photos of you travelling the world totally alone with your only friend. Which is a dog.
    Go look in the mirror, my friend. If you don’t have one, you urgently need one.
    A mirror, a friend, or a dog?
    Yes.
    Drink?

    Or would that be an ecumenical matter?
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 123,409
    Leon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sitting in my sitting room with shelves cleared. Going away for a few days

    When I get back all the walls will be a different colour entirely. It’s a slightly unsettling feeling

    Turquoise? ;)
    I’ve gone for a very bold blue. Hick’s Blue. Slightly nervous

    But I’m bored of these polite greys and creams and greige. I’m not getting any younger and I want to turn my flat into something radical - opulently weird. Stage set for Act 3

    Halfway there but this is a big step

    I guess if I hate it I can always paint it back. There is that
    And so the late midlife crisis continues.

    It’s quaint that he can describe his bedsit as different rooms depending on which way he’s facing at the time!

    Sinking down to the level of attempting a boast about your decorating, on a site devoted to discussing politics and betting, is extraordinarily sad. Clue: no-one else on here posts pictures of their walls at home.
    You have only one friend. It’s a dog. You pointlessly travel the world with that solitary friend. A dog. You then come on to a site “devoted to discussing politics and betting” and you post 300,000 sad and eerie photos of you travelling the world totally alone with your only friend. Which is a dog.
    Go look in the mirror, my friend. If you don’t have one, you urgently need one.

    Indeed almost everything you post on here can be understood, by anyone with even the slightest understanding of psychology, as your railing against your own insecurities. You’d really do well to get some external help, rather than taking it all out on the rest of us.
    Woof
    I see you were talking about AI again earlier.

    Next transgression and you will only be permitted to talk about the topic of the thread headers.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 80,586
    edited August 26
    moonshine said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigeria leapfrogs Egypt as African solar panel imports spike by 60%

    https://african.business/2025/08/energy-resources/nigeria-leapfrogs-egypt-as-african-solar-panel-imports-spike-by-60
    ..But Ember says that the volume of solar panels imported over the past 12 months “has the potential to significantly increase power generation in many African countries.”

    The thinktank says that if all solar panels imported into Sierra Leone in the last 12 months alone were installed, they would be able to generate electricity equivalent to 61% of reported electricity generation in 2023, the latest available data. For Chad, it would be 49%. In five other countries, imports in total could add electricity equivalent to more than 10% of reported 2023 generation. Altogether, 16 countries would see an increase of at least 5%. Multiple sectors in Africa are turning to solar on a large scale, including agribusiness and mining.

    The savings from avoiding diesel can repay the cost of a solar panel within six months in Nigeria, Ember says. In the country, a 420 Watt solar panel retails for around $60 USD ($0.14 USD/watt), and would produce 550 KWh in a year. At the current diesel price of $0.66 USD per litre, $60 USD of diesel would make only 275 KWh of electricity, implying a payback time of just six months...


    I predicted years ago that we'd reach a tipping point where developing economies in Africa would move straight to renewables, rather than first building out a fossil fuel infrastructure. That seems to have started.

    Bloody hell Chad. Those geezers combust unrefined crude oil to keep the lights on. All this mincing about with our tax codes and regulations that Miliband is doing. If your sole goal was global co2 reduction, building solar farms in places like chad would do the trick.
    I've been saying that for years, too.
    Would have been an excellent use of our now truncated foreign aid.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 75,084

    Leon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sitting in my sitting room with shelves cleared. Going away for a few days

    When I get back all the walls will be a different colour entirely. It’s a slightly unsettling feeling

    Turquoise? ;)
    I’ve gone for a very bold blue. Hick’s Blue. Slightly nervous

    But I’m bored of these polite greys and creams and greige. I’m not getting any younger and I want to turn my flat into something radical - opulently weird. Stage set for Act 3

    Halfway there but this is a big step

    I guess if I hate it I can always paint it back. There is that
    And so the late midlife crisis continues.

    It’s quaint that he can describe his bedsit as different rooms depending on which way he’s facing at the time!

    Sinking down to the level of attempting a boast about your decorating, on a site devoted to discussing politics and betting, is extraordinarily sad. Clue: no-one else on here posts pictures of their walls at home.
    You have only one friend. It’s a dog. You pointlessly travel the world with that solitary friend. A dog. You then come on to a site “devoted to discussing politics and betting” and you post 300,000 sad and eerie photos of you travelling the world totally alone with your only friend. Which is a dog.
    Go look in the mirror, my friend. If you don’t have one, you urgently need one.

    Indeed almost everything you post on here can be understood, by anyone with even the slightest understanding of psychology, as your railing against your own insecurities. You’d really do well to get some external help, rather than taking it all out on the rest of us.
    Woof
    I see you were talking about AI again earlier.

    Next transgression and you will only be permitted to talk about the topic of the thread headers.
    If the thread header references AI, would that mean he's forced to be quiet?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 64,584
    isam said:

    It is fascinating watching The PBeople vs Leon. Almost biblical, an eternal story. I’m sure sociologists would have a field day

    Indeed. 550 “flags”

    I seem to induce a kind of Leon Derangement Syndrome

    They all claim to ignore me or abhor me and then I come on here and they’ve been obsessively chuntering on about me, even in my absence

    I get the feeling @IanB2 has darkly erotic dreams about me and he wakes up to find he’s furiously and involuntarily ejaculating over his dog (who at least is used to it) and then he quietly weeps

    It’s one reason I avoid the Isle of Wight
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 52,667
    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sitting in my sitting room with shelves cleared. Going away for a few days

    When I get back all the walls will be a different colour entirely. It’s a slightly unsettling feeling

    Turquoise? ;)
    I’ve gone for a very bold blue. Hick’s Blue. Slightly nervous

    But I’m bored of these polite greys and creams and greige. I’m not getting any younger and I want to turn my flat into something radical - opulently weird. Stage set for Act 3

    Halfway there but this is a big step

    I guess if I hate it I can always paint it back. There is that
    And so the late midlife crisis continues.

    It’s quaint that he can describe his bedsit as different rooms depending on which way he’s facing at the time!

    Sinking down to the level of attempting a boast about your decorating, on a site devoted to discussing politics and betting, is extraordinarily sad. Clue: no-one else on here posts pictures of their walls at home.
    You have only one friend. It’s a dog. You pointlessly travel the world with that solitary friend. A dog. You then come on to a site “devoted to discussing politics and betting” and you post 300,000 sad and eerie photos of you travelling the world totally alone with your only friend. Which is a dog.
    Go look in the mirror, my friend. If you don’t have one, you urgently need one.

    Indeed almost everything you post on here can be understood, by anyone with even the slightest understanding of psychology, as your railing against your own insecurities. You’d really do well to get some external help, rather than taking it all out on the rest of us.
    Woof
    I see you were talking about AI again earlier.

    Next transgression and you will only be permitted to talk about the topic of the thread headers.
    If the thread header references AI, would that mean he's forced to be quiet?
    One can only hope. There must be a limit as to how much poison a single poster is allowed to spread.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 6,062

    moonshine said:

    eek said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
    We are sovereign, we absolutely can make the rules.

    If people want to cooperate, great.

    If people don't, that's fine too.
    It isn't fine too when you are trying to land RAF planes full of people into their sovereign territory.

    They are sovereign and absolutely can make their own rules...

    I have no doubt that deals will be done. Some deals. A load of people will have (a) no paperwork and (b) no country willing to take them as they are "fighting age males"

    We have more chance of doing deals if we don't act like a limp-dicked beta male whining on about how we absolutely get to make the rules dictating to foreigners what happens in their country.
    I pointed out last week that Bangladesh could revoke citizenship on every citizen who arrives in the UK and there wouldn’t be a thing we could do about removing them. And when pressed their answer would be you showed us how to do it, we are just implementing it
    Bangladesh might not like the UK putting in place a quota of zero for their goods and services. To impose a suspension on all new visas. To seize all assets held in the uk by the Bangladeshi state or its state officials.
    We could do all sorts of things. Generally, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. International cooperation works better than throwing your weight around, as the US economy is finding out.

    Sunak did a bilateral deal with Albania that was very successful in reducing the number of Albanians claiming asylum in the UK and speeding up the return of Albanians to Albania. That's a good model. This chest-beating nonsense from Farage and some posters here is not a good model.
    Yes indeed. I merely point out that if Bangladesh tried throwing piss in our eyes as was suggested, we could throw it back ten fold. The uk is ~10% of their exports. And that’s without getting to the more spicy actions we could take in terms of security cooperation.

    There’s an awful defeatism to the UK political conversation, nothing can be done because it’s too hard. The uk remains a preeminent economic, cultural and security power. It just needs a government with the will to judiciously deploy that power to achieve its goals.
  • moonshine said:

    eek said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
    We are sovereign, we absolutely can make the rules.

    If people want to cooperate, great.

    If people don't, that's fine too.
    It isn't fine too when you are trying to land RAF planes full of people into their sovereign territory.

    They are sovereign and absolutely can make their own rules...

    I have no doubt that deals will be done. Some deals. A load of people will have (a) no paperwork and (b) no country willing to take them as they are "fighting age males"

    We have more chance of doing deals if we don't act like a limp-dicked beta male whining on about how we absolutely get to make the rules dictating to foreigners what happens in their country.
    I pointed out last week that Bangladesh could revoke citizenship on every citizen who arrives in the UK and there wouldn’t be a thing we could do about removing them. And when pressed their answer would be you showed us how to do it, we are just implementing it
    Bangladesh might not like the UK putting in place a quota of zero for their goods and services. To impose a suspension on all new visas. To seize all assets held in the uk by the Bangladeshi state or its state officials.
    We could do all sorts of things. Generally, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. International cooperation works better than throwing your weight around, as the US economy is finding out.

    Sunak did a bilateral deal with Albania that was very successful in reducing the number of Albanians claiming asylum in the UK and speeding up the return of Albanians to Albania. That's a good model. This chest-beating nonsense from Farage and some posters here is not a good model.
    That was my point, bilateral agreements work far superior to multilateral lowest common denominator ones.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 75,084
    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sitting in my sitting room with shelves cleared. Going away for a few days

    When I get back all the walls will be a different colour entirely. It’s a slightly unsettling feeling

    Turquoise? ;)
    I’ve gone for a very bold blue. Hick’s Blue. Slightly nervous

    But I’m bored of these polite greys and creams and greige. I’m not getting any younger and I want to turn my flat into something radical - opulently weird. Stage set for Act 3

    Halfway there but this is a big step

    I guess if I hate it I can always paint it back. There is that
    And so the late midlife crisis continues.

    It’s quaint that he can describe his bedsit as different rooms depending on which way he’s facing at the time!

    Sinking down to the level of attempting a boast about your decorating, on a site devoted to discussing politics and betting, is extraordinarily sad. Clue: no-one else on here posts pictures of their walls at home.
    You have only one friend. It’s a dog. You pointlessly travel the world with that solitary friend. A dog. You then come on to a site “devoted to discussing politics and betting” and you post 300,000 sad and eerie photos of you travelling the world totally alone with your only friend. Which is a dog.
    Go look in the mirror, my friend. If you don’t have one, you urgently need one.

    Indeed almost everything you post on here can be understood, by anyone with even the slightest understanding of psychology, as your railing against your own insecurities. You’d really do well to get some external help, rather than taking it all out on the rest of us.
    Woof
    I see you were talking about AI again earlier.

    Next transgression and you will only be permitted to talk about the topic of the thread headers.
    If the thread header references AI, would that mean he's forced to be quiet?
    One can only hope. There must be a limit as to how much poison a single poster is allowed to spread.
    Well, Leon is not of course a single poster...
  • LeonLeon Posts: 64,584
    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sitting in my sitting room with shelves cleared. Going away for a few days

    When I get back all the walls will be a different colour entirely. It’s a slightly unsettling feeling

    Turquoise? ;)
    I’ve gone for a very bold blue. Hick’s Blue. Slightly nervous

    But I’m bored of these polite greys and creams and greige. I’m not getting any younger and I want to turn my flat into something radical - opulently weird. Stage set for Act 3

    Halfway there but this is a big step

    I guess if I hate it I can always paint it back. There is that
    And so the late midlife crisis continues.

    It’s quaint that he can describe his bedsit as different rooms depending on which way he’s facing at the time!

    Sinking down to the level of attempting a boast about your decorating, on a site devoted to discussing politics and betting, is extraordinarily sad. Clue: no-one else on here posts pictures of their walls at home.
    You have only one friend. It’s a dog. You pointlessly travel the world with that solitary friend. A dog. You then come on to a site “devoted to discussing politics and betting” and you post 300,000 sad and eerie photos of you travelling the world totally alone with your only friend. Which is a dog.
    I have one of those dilemmas because I know you know this and only do it for a reaction, but I'm afraid I can't resist, so well done @Leon, but you obviously do get the irony of that post when you have been posting for weeks about your flat decorating on a politics and betting site. And you travel the world posting pictures with not even a dog for a friend.

    And for gods sake when is it going to be finished. It is a one bedroom flat for crying out loud, not Buckingham Palace.

    Others will be glad to know there will not be a pedal by pedal and pot hole by pot hole report of my trip down the Canal du Midi which starts at the end of this week.
    Would that be the same trip for which you directly messaged me, asking for travel advice? Which I kindly gave you? Just wondering
  • eekeek Posts: 31,040

    Sean_Fear said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    I think there is a growing consensus across Europe that the migration provisions of the ECHR are unfit for purpose.

    I don't think that this will be an insuperable obstacle.
    But the changes somewhere like Italy or Greece, who are often the first safe country refugees come to, want are rather different to the changes somewhere like the UK wants, where the usual complaint is that the refugees haven't stopped in the first safe country they came to.
    What do Italy and Greece want because I suspect it’s the same across Europe - they want the migrants arriving in their country to go elsewhere.

    And when we look at it on a European level that comes back to not letting them arrive in the first place and then sending them back
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 32,448

    Leon, surely the biggest travel story in the world right now is that no-one wants to go to the US. Go to some resorts - find out if its true, speak to those who have braved it, see if they had worries, whether they still have worries having made the trip. Is it cheaper/more choice/smaller queues at Disneyland? Is it a brilliant time to travel there (depending on what you write might get you the Presidential Medal of Freedom....).

    Anecdata: the woman from the fish and chip shop who was planning to visit America next month is instead going to India for a couple of weeks.
  • BattlebusBattlebus Posts: 1,424

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
    We are sovereign, we absolutely can make the rules.

    If people want to cooperate, great.

    If people don't, that's fine too.
    It isn't fine too when you are trying to land RAF planes full of people into their sovereign territory.

    They are sovereign and absolutely can make their own rules...

    I have no doubt that deals will be done. Some deals. A load of people will have (a) no paperwork and (b) no country willing to take them as they are "fighting age males"

    We have more chance of doing deals if we don't act like a limp-dicked beta male whining on about how we absolutely get to make the rules dictating to foreigners what happens in their country.
    Some deals is enough.

    For those countries willing to take people back (and that we are willing to send them to), send them there.

    For those unwilling, or where we are unwilling to send them to, have a Plan B. Eg like Rwanda.

    Rwanda didn't work under the Tories due to issues on our side, not theirs.

    That is workable, whether you like it or not. Bilateral agreements requiring only our agreement and the other parties agreement.

    What's not required is a multilateral treaty requiring unanimity and the lowest common denominator.
    We're importing our food, our energy and even our monarchy in the past. We've just moved onto importing our people as we don't allow the young the financial base to plan and have a family. As another PB'er said, we are here by choice.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 30,807
    moonshine said:

    moonshine said:

    eek said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
    We are sovereign, we absolutely can make the rules.

    If people want to cooperate, great.

    If people don't, that's fine too.
    It isn't fine too when you are trying to land RAF planes full of people into their sovereign territory.

    They are sovereign and absolutely can make their own rules...

    I have no doubt that deals will be done. Some deals. A load of people will have (a) no paperwork and (b) no country willing to take them as they are "fighting age males"

    We have more chance of doing deals if we don't act like a limp-dicked beta male whining on about how we absolutely get to make the rules dictating to foreigners what happens in their country.
    I pointed out last week that Bangladesh could revoke citizenship on every citizen who arrives in the UK and there wouldn’t be a thing we could do about removing them. And when pressed their answer would be you showed us how to do it, we are just implementing it
    Bangladesh might not like the UK putting in place a quota of zero for their goods and services. To impose a suspension on all new visas. To seize all assets held in the uk by the Bangladeshi state or its state officials.
    We could do all sorts of things. Generally, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. International cooperation works better than throwing your weight around, as the US economy is finding out.

    Sunak did a bilateral deal with Albania that was very successful in reducing the number of Albanians claiming asylum in the UK and speeding up the return of Albanians to Albania. That's a good model. This chest-beating nonsense from Farage and some posters here is not a good model.
    Yes indeed. I merely point out that if Bangladesh tried throwing piss in our eyes as was suggested, we could throw it back ten fold. The uk is ~10% of their exports. And that’s without getting to the more spicy actions we could take in terms of security cooperation.

    There’s an awful defeatism to the UK political conversation, nothing can be done because it’s too hard. The uk remains a preeminent economic, cultural and security power. It just needs a government with the will to judiciously deploy that power to achieve its goals.
    The key word there is *judiciously* - there are no simple, quick, easy solutions. I suspect that much of the proposal made earlier was aimed at the ill-informed to reassure them that "we will act" - I did see a few signs of Reform actually starting to think detail as well as that will sink them otherwise.

    I said the same thing to LibDem colleagues a month ago after I had a conversation with Reform activists - they are serious about power, even if they are saying unserious things to get it.
  • CiceroCicero Posts: 3,746
    Leon said:

    Thirteen million views of Musk’s “England flag” tweet

    He has more power than most global leaders. Gotta love the guy

    With bots you could make it another 13 million. He has 3 MPs. His policies are a travesty of Trump. He is the most disliked political leader in the UK. But sure, build up your Aunt Sally.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 52,667
    Leon said:

    isam said:

    It is fascinating watching The PBeople vs Leon. Almost biblical, an eternal story. I’m sure sociologists would have a field day

    Indeed. 550 “flags”

    I seem to induce a kind of Leon Derangement Syndrome

    They all claim to ignore me or abhor me and then I come on here and they’ve been obsessively chuntering on about me, even in my absence

    I get the feeling @IanB2 has darkly erotic dreams about me and he wakes up to find he’s furiously and involuntarily ejaculating over his dog (who at least is used to it) and then he quietly weeps

    It’s one reason I avoid the Isle of Wight
    lol !! Once again, you need to go look in the mirror. I spent nearly two weeks away from this site, fed up with having to wade daily through your poisonous ignorant shit, and when I returned and checked my notifications, I saw that during that time despite absolutely no contributions from me, you had mentioned me repeatedly.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 13,492

    Leon, surely the biggest travel story in the world right now is that no-one wants to go to the US. Go to some resorts - find out if its true, speak to those who have braved it, see if they had worries, whether they still have worries having made the trip. Is it cheaper/more choice/smaller queues at Disneyland? Is it a brilliant time to travel there (depending on what you write might get you the Presidential Medal of Freedom....).

    Anecdata: the woman from the fish and chip shop who was planning to visit America next month is instead going to India for a couple of weeks.
    Fits with what I've been hearing on the doorstep
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 56,547

    biggles said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
    Why is no one willing to make the argument that other choices we have collectively made mean that we need to import more young people to pay for all our pensioners? It’s that, get breeding, or slash the pension. Three options only.

    And anyway, even if lots of “fighting age” men are coming here seeking citizenship, surely that’s a good thing at a time when we need to expand the army on the cheap?
    People do regularly make that argument, but it's utter lump of labour bullshit.

    Lump of labour is a fallacy. Importing people doesn't create unemployment as demand increases and by the same logic it can't solve employment shortages.

    We need to invest to improve productivity.
    My eldest daughter and her friends tell me that at the lower end types of work (hospitality, shop work etc) jobs are incredibly scarce at the moment.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 64,584
    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    It is fascinating watching The PBeople vs Leon. Almost biblical, an eternal story. I’m sure sociologists would have a field day

    Indeed. 550 “flags”

    I seem to induce a kind of Leon Derangement Syndrome

    They all claim to ignore me or abhor me and then I come on here and they’ve been obsessively chuntering on about me, even in my absence

    I get the feeling @IanB2 has darkly erotic dreams about me and he wakes up to find he’s furiously and involuntarily ejaculating over his dog (who at least is used to it) and then he quietly weeps

    It’s one reason I avoid the Isle of Wight
    lol !! Once again, you need to go look in the mirror. I spent nearly two weeks away from this site, fed up with having to wade daily through your poisonous ignorant shit, and when I returned and checked my notifications, I saw that during that time despite absolutely no contributions from me, you had mentioned me repeatedly.
    I’m right about the nocturnal emissions tho, aren’t I? Apparently you can get special pants. Probably a few stockists in Ventnor
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 6,062

    moonshine said:

    moonshine said:

    eek said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
    We are sovereign, we absolutely can make the rules.

    If people want to cooperate, great.

    If people don't, that's fine too.
    It isn't fine too when you are trying to land RAF planes full of people into their sovereign territory.

    They are sovereign and absolutely can make their own rules...

    I have no doubt that deals will be done. Some deals. A load of people will have (a) no paperwork and (b) no country willing to take them as they are "fighting age males"

    We have more chance of doing deals if we don't act like a limp-dicked beta male whining on about how we absolutely get to make the rules dictating to foreigners what happens in their country.
    I pointed out last week that Bangladesh could revoke citizenship on every citizen who arrives in the UK and there wouldn’t be a thing we could do about removing them. And when pressed their answer would be you showed us how to do it, we are just implementing it
    Bangladesh might not like the UK putting in place a quota of zero for their goods and services. To impose a suspension on all new visas. To seize all assets held in the uk by the Bangladeshi state or its state officials.
    We could do all sorts of things. Generally, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. International cooperation works better than throwing your weight around, as the US economy is finding out.

    Sunak did a bilateral deal with Albania that was very successful in reducing the number of Albanians claiming asylum in the UK and speeding up the return of Albanians to Albania. That's a good model. This chest-beating nonsense from Farage and some posters here is not a good model.
    Yes indeed. I merely point out that if Bangladesh tried throwing piss in our eyes as was suggested, we could throw it back ten fold. The uk is ~10% of their exports. And that’s without getting to the more spicy actions we could take in terms of security cooperation.

    There’s an awful defeatism to the UK political conversation, nothing can be done because it’s too hard. The uk remains a preeminent economic, cultural and security power. It just needs a government with the will to judiciously deploy that power to achieve its goals.
    The key word there is *judiciously* - there are no simple, quick, easy solutions. I suspect that much of the proposal made earlier was aimed at the ill-informed to reassure them that "we will act" - I did see a few signs of Reform actually starting to think detail as well as that will sink them otherwise.

    I said the same thing to LibDem colleagues a month ago after I had a conversation with Reform activists - they are serious about power, even if they are saying unserious things to get it.
    Yes agreed. As I mentioned recently, I have heard of them approaching very high calibre people from outside of politics to help form the detail in the background, with the implicit appeal being “help us in the national interest”. The question remains what the foreground looks like. At some point Farage needs to tell us who his chancellor would be. Can he attract a serious person from business? Or are we stuck with Tice?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 52,667
    Leon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    It is fascinating watching The PBeople vs Leon. Almost biblical, an eternal story. I’m sure sociologists would have a field day

    Indeed. 550 “flags”

    I seem to induce a kind of Leon Derangement Syndrome

    They all claim to ignore me or abhor me and then I come on here and they’ve been obsessively chuntering on about me, even in my absence

    I get the feeling @IanB2 has darkly erotic dreams about me and he wakes up to find he’s furiously and involuntarily ejaculating over his dog (who at least is used to it) and then he quietly weeps

    It’s one reason I avoid the Isle of Wight
    lol !! Once again, you need to go look in the mirror. I spent nearly two weeks away from this site, fed up with having to wade daily through your poisonous ignorant shit, and when I returned and checked my notifications, I saw that during that time despite absolutely no contributions from me, you had mentioned me repeatedly.
    I’m right about the nocturnal emissions tho, aren’t I? Apparently you can get special pants. Probably a few stockists in Ventnor
    Both of us are approaching the age at which we will only need it for taking a p*ss, mostly during the night.

    In your case, that will truly be a liberation, since you can finally stop worrying about how small it is.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 6,982
    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Thirteen million views of Musk’s “England flag” tweet

    He has more power than most global leaders. Gotta love the guy

    With bots you could make it another 13 million. He has 3 MPs. His policies are a travesty of Trump. He is the most disliked political leader in the UK. But sure, build up your Aunt Sally.
    Musk’s a UK political leader? That’s new.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 9,012

    Leon, surely the biggest travel story in the world right now is that no-one wants to go to the US. Go to some resorts - find out if its true, speak to those who have braved it, see if they had worries, whether they still have worries having made the trip. Is it cheaper/more choice/smaller queues at Disneyland? Is it a brilliant time to travel there (depending on what you write might get you the Presidential Medal of Freedom....).

    Anecdata: the woman from the fish and chip shop who was planning to visit America next month is instead going to India for a couple of weeks.
    She obviously thinks India is the batter choice.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 64,584
    Battlebus said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
    We are sovereign, we absolutely can make the rules.

    If people want to cooperate, great.

    If people don't, that's fine too.
    It isn't fine too when you are trying to land RAF planes full of people into their sovereign territory.

    They are sovereign and absolutely can make their own rules...

    I have no doubt that deals will be done. Some deals. A load of people will have (a) no paperwork and (b) no country willing to take them as they are "fighting age males"

    We have more chance of doing deals if we don't act like a limp-dicked beta male whining on about how we absolutely get to make the rules dictating to foreigners what happens in their country.
    Some deals is enough.

    For those countries willing to take people back (and that we are willing to send them to), send them there.

    For those unwilling, or where we are unwilling to send them to, have a Plan B. Eg like Rwanda.

    Rwanda didn't work under the Tories due to issues on our side, not theirs.

    That is workable, whether you like it or not. Bilateral agreements requiring only our agreement and the other parties agreement.

    What's not required is a multilateral treaty requiring unanimity and the lowest common denominator.
    We're importing our food, our energy and even our monarchy in the past. We've just moved onto importing our people as we don't allow the young the financial base to plan and have a family. As another PB'er said, we are here by choice.
    This is a misframing

    Yes uk birthrates are falling - but they are falling almost everywhere outside Africa (and drifting down even there). They are falling in religious countries and secular countries, empty countries and crowded countries, countries with cheap houses and countries with expensive houses

    No one is entirely sure why
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 52,667
    Anyhow, today is UK National Dog Day. Wise up, folks! Household dog ownership in the UK is one of the highest in Europe, exceeded only by some of the countries in the east.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 6,062
    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Thirteen million views of Musk’s “England flag” tweet

    He has more power than most global leaders. Gotta love the guy

    With bots you could make it another 13 million. He has 3 MPs. His policies are a travesty of Trump. He is the most disliked political leader in the UK. But sure, build up your Aunt Sally.
    Is this a Worzel Gummidge reference?
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 32,448

    biggles said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
    Why is no one willing to make the argument that other choices we have collectively made mean that we need to import more young people to pay for all our pensioners? It’s that, get breeding, or slash the pension. Three options only.

    And anyway, even if lots of “fighting age” men are coming here seeking citizenship, surely that’s a good thing at a time when we need to expand the army on the cheap?
    People do regularly make that argument, but it's utter lump of labour bullshit.

    Lump of labour is a fallacy. Importing people doesn't create unemployment as demand increases and by the same logic it can't solve employment shortages.

    We need to invest to improve productivity.
    My eldest daughter and her friends tell me that at the lower end types of work (hospitality, shop work etc) jobs are incredibly scarce at the moment.
    Sounds right. Yet the government has a bee in its bonnet about forcing people off the dole back into work. There are already not enough vacancies to go round so let's prioritise those desperate for jobs.
  • isamisam Posts: 42,361
    Something else for youngsters to be upset about; goodbye office, hello building site

    Very important paper, for two reasons:

    1) Key finding: employment *is* falling in early-career roles exposed to LLM automation

    2) Shows that administrative data (millions of payroll records) is much better than survey data for questions requiring precision (occupation x age)

    https://x.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1960324626254327882?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 22,469
    Farage is making all the political running, and it doesn’t appear as if other parties have a coherent response.

    It’s very sad.
    It should be obvious that a Farage or Reform government will end up debauching and impoverishing the country, perhaps slowly at first and then probably quite quickly.

    Yet I feel that such a government is increasingly odds-on.

    On the policy announcements, the broad strokes actually make sense. The intent to resile from any and all international humanitarian agreements does not - and leads to disaster; as others have pointed out, the smarter way to go is via renegotiation and/or re-interpretation of the ECHR.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 6,062
    Leon said:

    Battlebus said:

    OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

    No, Parliament is sovereign.

    Just quit the ECHR and then renegotiate the GFA as per the new circumstances.

    The GFA has been tweaked many times already. If it were Ireland wanting to quit they wouldn't let the tail wag the dog and neither should we.
    When Lord Blumkett and others in Labour want to leave the ECHR then consensus appears to be broadening

    Those who do not want Farage need to realise the status quo is only going to increase that likelihood
    I advocate changing much of the status quo, so I don't care much for the "we can't do x" arguments. We can, the valid question is whether we should and if so, how?

    The simple truth is that the populist right spin a picture that only Britain is under siege by "fighting age men". Incorrect. We get fewer than many of our neighbours. There is no need for us to abrogate agreements that many now look to amend, and any "just send them home" plan by definition needs a counterparty to agree to receive them. As Farage stated.

    So the solution is international cooperation, not WE ARE BRITAIN WE MAKE THE RULES displays.
    We are sovereign, we absolutely can make the rules.

    If people want to cooperate, great.

    If people don't, that's fine too.
    It isn't fine too when you are trying to land RAF planes full of people into their sovereign territory.

    They are sovereign and absolutely can make their own rules...

    I have no doubt that deals will be done. Some deals. A load of people will have (a) no paperwork and (b) no country willing to take them as they are "fighting age males"

    We have more chance of doing deals if we don't act like a limp-dicked beta male whining on about how we absolutely get to make the rules dictating to foreigners what happens in their country.
    Some deals is enough.

    For those countries willing to take people back (and that we are willing to send them to), send them there.

    For those unwilling, or where we are unwilling to send them to, have a Plan B. Eg like Rwanda.

    Rwanda didn't work under the Tories due to issues on our side, not theirs.

    That is workable, whether you like it or not. Bilateral agreements requiring only our agreement and the other parties agreement.

    What's not required is a multilateral treaty requiring unanimity and the lowest common denominator.
    We're importing our food, our energy and even our monarchy in the past. We've just moved onto importing our people as we don't allow the young the financial base to plan and have a family. As another PB'er said, we are here by choice.
    This is a misframing

    Yes uk birthrates are falling - but they are falling almost everywhere outside Africa (and drifting down even there). They are falling in religious countries and secular countries, empty countries and crowded countries, countries with cheap houses and countries with expensive houses

    No one is entirely sure why
    I think the answers pretty obvious to be honest but you get told off for saying it out loud. The places with very high birth rates correlate with there being very little personal independence for women. As the opportunity cost to women of having children rises, they have fewer children. Ultimately to the level where fertility rates fall well below replacement rate.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 32,448
    Re Trump trashing the dollar. Remember, it might be deliberate in order to boost exports. (Weakening the USD's status as the world's reserve currency is a problem for the next guy.)
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 80,586
    edited August 26
    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    It is fascinating watching The PBeople vs Leon. Almost biblical, an eternal story. I’m sure sociologists would have a field day

    Indeed. 550 “flags”

    I seem to induce a kind of Leon Derangement Syndrome

    They all claim to ignore me or abhor me and then I come on here and they’ve been obsessively chuntering on about me, even in my absence

    I get the feeling @IanB2 has darkly erotic dreams about me and he wakes up to find he’s furiously and involuntarily ejaculating over his dog (who at least is used to it) and then he quietly weeps

    It’s one reason I avoid the Isle of Wight
    lol !! Once again, you need to go look in the mirror. I spent nearly two weeks away from this site, fed up with having to wade daily through your poisonous ignorant shit, and when I returned and checked my notifications, I saw that during that time despite absolutely no contributions from me, you had mentioned me repeatedly.
    Seriously, he's best ignored when on another of his extended trolls.

    It winds him up at least 10x more than any other response.
Sign In or Register to comment.