The children of Windrush

[Gramsci]

The response of the state is the response of local capital.

The response of the working class must be working class solidarity. And that's the side that's missed in this narrative. But don't mistake solidarity for an order from above to be generous. Solidarity is a two way bond. It is horizontal. It is not a top down command.

I'm a descendant of immigrants in a very similar (though not identical) set of circumstances to the post war "Commonwealth Immigrants". Like them, my ancestors were told they came from a land that was not to be seen as distinct from the centre. It was then, but is not now, part of a greater entity of which Great Britain, and England in particular, was to be seen, so the official version went, as the Motherland. Like them, they came because they were told their labour was wanted. And like them they discovered the welcome was scant and not universal.

And the divide that was thereby created was very much a tool of rule.

In response, many of the immigrants of my ancestors' day worked hard to create a politics of working class solidarity. And it was a hard slog. And 140 years later it is still not entirely won. People from my background are still seen by some as other.

But that doesn't mean the endeavour to build solidarity, to build networks of mutual aid, to build bonds of trust is not worth undertaking. It is worth it. Nor is it a passive act. It is neither meek nor mild, it is a show of strength. Both altruistic and reciprocal, it benefits the participants. It is not cerebral, but practical. It is our best response to attack.

I'd agree with your sentiment.

In Brixton there is an example of this.

In the Ritzy cinema dispute the cinema workers are trying to get the living wage. I know that the Ritzy workforce are a diverse bunch. Including Poles. The Ritzy dispute is an example of solidarity across people from very different backgrounds.

Immigrants often are scapegoats for poor wages and conditions. The Ritzy dispute shows there is another way to fight this. Not bring in more immigration controls but for workers from different backgrounds to see what they have in common.

 

[GarveyLives]

But what is your opinion? Posting up links is ok once in a while but you aren't engaging with the thread.

I feel certain that there are plenty of others better placed to 'engage' with the facts:

​

 

[Gramsci]

If anyone is bored, the Hansard record of the debates around the Immigration Act 2014 makes humorous reading; almost all of the problems that the Windrush scandal have exposed were raised at the time, often by what is now the Labour front bench:

BBC Radio 4 - Unreliable Evidence, Asylum

This radio program is relevant to that quote. Lawyers discussing helping there clients in immigration cases. I've only caught a third of program.

Program shows how tough already are laws here compared to other countries. This was no accident.

 

[agricola]

BBC Radio 4 - Unreliable Evidence, Asylum

This radio program is relevant to that quote. Lawyers discussing helping there clients in immigration cases. I've only caught a third of program.

Program shows how tough already are laws here compared to other countries. This was no accident.

"Tough" laws would be an improvement on this shambles. Worked here all your life? Sod off. Have money to fight us? By all means hang around, in fact if you've got that much money why not take advantage of our burgeoning financial sector and property market.

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

Kenan Malik recently:

"In demonising a figure such as Hopkins, we often give a free pass to politicians and institutions that are far more influential in promoting reactionary ideas, both in policy and in shaping public opinion.

Consider one of her most infamous columns for the Sun, in which she described immigrants as ‘cockroaches’ and called for gunboats to ‘drive them back to their shores’. It was an obnoxious, hate-filled piece that drew a torrent of outrage.

Yet I am always struck by how silent liberals are when it comes to the actual use by European nations of gunboats against refugees and the attempt to wall off Europe by paying millions to the most unsavoury regimes from Turkey to Eritrea to Libya to lock up would-be immigrants in hell-hole detention centres just out of sight of Brussels, Paris and London.

If half the energy expended on denouncing Hopkins had been used to challenge European migration policy, migrants might be in a better place now. But, then, to have done so would not have satisfied the demand for cheap outrage." (My emphasis).

ON THE ASSASSINATION OF KATIE HOPKINS

Yes!!! The thing I love about that guy is his ability to translate your gut feelings and shite into an extremely robust argument. I hope next time he comes to the far north he takes the ferry to Orkney

 

[teqniq]

Mother of Windrush citizen blames passport problems for his death

 

[teuchter]

No idea where you get this from: "So you would like to see parliament remove all border restrictions, but you wouldn't propose that borders are made significantly more open" because it isn't what I said.

I got it from here:

Let's say parliament. Would you like to see parliament pass the necessary legislation to remove all restrictions on who can enter the UK. There's my specific question.

Yes. I'd also like to see it dissolve itself and dismantle capitalism. It isn't going to do either, though.

and here:

Or maybe your proposal is that borders are made significantly more open, and that potential difficulties arising from a large inflow of immigrants can be dealt with by adopting the kind of approaches you describe above.

No. My proposal is that governments stop being cunts. Given the unrealistic nature of that project my back up plan is working class solidarity.

(my bold)

 

[teqniq]

What a fucking clown. He seems to mistakenly believe this in some way absolves her. Timothy is a columnist for the torygraph and the scum.

 

[not-bono-ever]

May is a dull uninspired mechanist. there is zero chance. ZERO . that she would have allowed some kind of Laissez-faire policy development to occur under her watch.

also a fucking nasty evasive liar

 

[killer b]

This twitter thread is slamming - click through and read the lot.

 

[Treacle Toes]

Been wondering on the exact figures...

 

[Slo-mo]

I do wonder if, in hindsight (and hindsight is always 20-20 of course), we would have been better going with nu Labs ID card scheme. If people had been told in 2010 " in 3 years everyone will need an ID card, start planning now", these problems would have come up sooner.

Instead we suddenly went *BOOM* straight in to hostile environment with no preparation time at all.

 

[killer b]

how about just not having the hostile environment. that would have been a much better option.

 

[Slo-mo]

how about just not having the hostile environment. that would have been a much better option.

But of course that brings us back full circle to open borders yes/no.

If you are going to have immigration laws, and the vast majority of people, including most BME people, say we do, then we really need to enforce them.

 

[killer b]

sure, it's neofascism or open borders. nothing inbetween.

 

[Slo-mo]

sure, it's neofascism or open borders. nothing inbetween.

But we've got the 'neofascist' element of ID cards in that a British passport has become a de facto requirement to work, claim benefits, rent property or access healthcare.

We've got the database element of the ID card scheme too, in everything but name.

Having both those without the actual ID cards themselves is arguably the worst of all worlds?

 

[danny la rouge]

I got it from here:

and here:

(my bold)

You asked me a hypothetical, to which I answered yes with qualifications. You then set out something that wasn't my position, saying "maybe your proposal is", to which I said no it isn't.

You are now claiming that those two answers add up to a third proposition, "So you would like to see parliament remove all border restrictions, but you wouldn't propose that borders are made significantly more open". They do not.

There's really no point in continuing to discuss this with you if you are going to so openly misrepresent my position. This thread doesn't deserve it.

But one final time: I do not see a parliamentary road to socialism. I do not think parliaments represent the interests of the people, but the interests of the ruling class. I therefore do not have a preferred program for anything (not just borders and immigration) that involves acts of parliament.

Would I like open borders? - Yes. Do I think they can be implemented unilaterally by a neoliberal government? - I wouldn't trust them to do so with concomitant conditions that would benefit either immigrants or "indigenous" populations. Can I imagine a Europe of social democracies which could successfully multilaterally provide open borders both internally and externally? - Yes. Would that be better than what we have now? - Yes, definitely. Is that round the corner? - No.

Seriously. We could wait several lifetimes for parliaments to give us what we want. Sign petitions. Hope for capitalism to find a nicer side. Or we can respond to what we're dealt in a way that builds solidarity, mutual aid and community self management principles.

So rather than create a wish list of what parliament might do (about anything), I'd prefer a more pragmatic, community-centred, direct action approach.

 

[SpookyFrank]

What a fucking clown. He seems to mistakenly believe this in some way absolves her. Timothy is a columnist for the torygraph and the scum.

View attachment 133171

I missed the bit about her firing the underling responsible when she got back from Skeggy

 

[teuchter]

You asked me a hypothetical, to which I answered yes with qualifications. You then set out something that wasn't my position, saying "maybe your proposal is", to which I said no it isn't.

You are now claiming that those two answers add up to a third proposition, "So you would like to see parliament remove all border restrictions, but you wouldn't propose that borders are made significantly more open". They do not.

Tell me which part of that proposition is false, if you like.

So rather than create a wish list of what parliament might do (about anything), I'd prefer a more pragmatic, community-centred, direct action approach.

Sure, I get that. What you call a pragmatic approach has nothing to say about what should happen at the UK borders, though, as far as I can work out. Like I say, fair enough. But my original question was specifically about what should happen at the UK's borders. That's the question that you initially responded to, and which started this exchange. If you don't want to engage with it then that's fine, but instead of simply saying that, you seem to be giving me oblique and/or seemingly contradictory answers and then saying I am misrepresenting you, and calling my questions disingenuous rather than simply questions you're not interested in answering.

 

[Pickman's model]

Tell me which part of that proposition is false, if you like.

i think danny la rouge is saying all of it.

 

[danny la rouge]

Tell me which part of that proposition is false, if you like.

The second part of "So you would like to see parliament remove all border restrictions, but you wouldn't propose that borders are made significantly more open" is a complete misrepresentation of anything I've said. The first part is an inaccurate rewording of something I gave a qualified answer to.

what should happen at the UK borders, though, as far as I can work out. Like I say, fair enough. But my original question was specifically about what should happen at the UK's borders.

Well, no it wasn't. You may think it was, but it's not exactly what you said. And you may think that's nitpicky, but it isn't. It's important to be precise about who is doing the doing, what doings are open to whom, where the various doings would take place, how effective any of the doings might be, over whom I have influence, and so on.

This exchange reminds me of the YouGov surveys I do (I thought I'd get more politics than I do). "How likely are you to recommend product x to a friend?" "Certain not to". "You say you would recommend friends avoid product x. Why is that?" "No, I didn't say that. But in answer to the second part, I wouldn't recommend product x to a friend because I don't have those sorts of conversations with friends. And if anyone attempted to have those sorts of conversations with me I'd make it clear we were not friends".

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I'd agree with your sentiment.

In Brixton there is an example of this.

In the Ritzy cinema dispute the cinema workers are trying to get the living wage. I know that the Ritzy workforce are a diverse bunch. Including Poles. The Ritzy dispute is an example of solidarity across people from very different backgrounds.

Immigrants often are scapegoats for poor wages and conditions. The Ritzy dispute shows there is another way to fight this. Not bring in more immigration controls but for workers from different backgrounds to see what they have in common.

Well said, and a good example. Immigrants don't drive down wages. Employers do. And the conditions that allow them to do it include such things as fracturing worker solidarity by blaming immigrants for driving down wages.

 

[SpookyFrank]

May is a dull uninspired mechanist. there is zero chance. ZERO . that she would have allowed some kind of Laissez-faire policy development to occur under her watch.

also a fucking nasty evasive liar

Irrelevant who made the call, it was her department and her responsibility.

 

[Slo-mo]

Well said, and a good example. Immigrants don't drive down wages. Employers do. And the conditions that allow them to do it include such things as fracturing worker solidarity by blaming immigrants for driving down wages.

I don't blame immigrants for driving down wages. I blame immigration policy. Do people understand the difference?

 

[andysays]

I don't blame immigrants for driving down wages. I blame immigration policy. Do people understand the difference?

So what you're effectively saying is that you want the state to change policy to prevent the immigrants from coming here.

I'm not sure that the distinction between blaming the policy and blaming the immigrants is as real as you and others are making out, TBH

 

[Slo-mo]

So what you're effectively saying is that you want the state to change policy to prevent the immigrants from coming here.

Basically, yes.

 

[andysays]

Basically, yes.

I'm sure potential and existing immigrants will be hugely consoled by the knowledge that you don't blame them, you just want them to be prevented from being here...

 

[Slo-mo]

I'm sure potential and existing immigrants will be hugely consoled by the knowledge that you don't blame them, you just want them to be prevented from being here...

Potential immigrants ,yes. As I've said before existing immigrants should be allowed to stay in the UK as long as they want. The time to say no is at the border...or ideally earlier...

But yes, I think both existing immigrants and British born people would be better off with a bit less future immigration.

 

[Slo-mo]

I'm sure potential and existing immigrants will be hugely consoled by the knowledge that you don't blame them, you just want them to be prevented from being here...

I just also wanted to share this link, since this thread is about Windrushers and their kids and grandkids.

I realise this guy doesn't speak for all Black Britons anymore than I speak for all white Britons but it's worth watching

 

[Treacle Toes]

I just also wanted to share this link, since this thread is about Windrushers and their kids and grandkids.

I realise this guy doesn't speak for all Black Britons anymore than I speak for all white Britons but it's worth watching

So your point is 'oh look, here's a Black guy who agrees with me'?

He isn't an immigrant btw.

If you want to discuss brexit can you take your arguments to a brexit thread please? There are loads of them.

Picking a vid of guy whose parents are likely to have come to from the Caribbean doesn't make your points on topic at all. You are basically attempting to hijack the thread.