The Home Office and UK government policy concerning asylum seekers/Rwanda deportations

[bimble]

It’s going to be their election slogan isn’t it. Going to be worse than the bloody referendum.

 

[stethoscope]

"Stop the Boats" sounds like a bad take on "Stop the Pigeon".

Which wouldn't be so bad if the tabloid-style rhetoric wasn't so dangerous and going to be enacted just as badly.

 

[Petcha]

It’s going to be their election slogan isn’t it. Going to be worse than the bloody referendum.

Probably yes, well they've got 5 of them. But yes, this is the dog whistle one.

It's shameful.

 

[bimble]

They probably know that they’ll lose the election so are left trying to claw what they can of the voters who would otherwise go for the Reform Uk party. Stealing their thunder by aping / becoming them, same as they did with UKIP.

 

[stethoscope]

Dog whistle politics has become the Tories approach to everything...

 

[Petcha]

I did see Farage being interviewed the other day and he was asked whether he would stand down his candidates in certain constituencies in order to get Tories in as he did last time and he said 'definitely not'. So that's one thing.

 

[Tanya1982]

I’m fed up with the amount of attention being expended on this. It’s as if nothing else is happening. It’s not actually a crisis in itself, it’s a manufactured diversion from multiple crises. I resent it massively.

 

[agricola]

They know:

As it is now it absolutely will fail, legally and practically. Add a plausible alternative and I am not sure it will (in either context).

I think it's a real plan, but it's a plan to do virtually nothing. The headline is "stop the boats", but the smallprint is "do nothing to stop the boats, but call them illegal". Even according to the government, they will be creating exceptions in order to comply with the ECHR (and they know that if they don't do it, the courts will), which means that the overall asylum system will remain pretty unchanged. They may still hope to lock people up and/or send them to Rwanda, but that's not new.

The only problem with that is that it would be a rod for their own backs if passed as it is; as "the boats" will continue to come and the poor people aboard will not hand themselves in anymore. They'll make a bad situation worse, though I do concede that is a specialization of theirs.

 

[teqniq]

I’m fed up with the amount of attention being expended on this. It’s as if nothing else is happening. It’s not actually a crisis in itself, it’s a manufactured diversion from multiple crises. I resent it massively.

Yes and no. i agree it is largely being manufactured as dogwhistle politics but there is a very real thing that has been going on since late last year which is to deny support to victims of modern day slavery. This has culminated in the new rules requiring asylum seekers to provide documentary evidence of trafficking (sorry for repeating myself here) something which will be virtually impossible for them to do. If you have heard half the stories that I have heard you will know that will mean that there will be a lot of damaged people with no support likely to be refused asylum as well.

 

[Elpenor]

I did see Farage being interviewed the other day and he was asked whether he would stand down his candidates in certain constituencies in order to get Tories in as he did last time and he said 'definitely not'. So that's one thing.

Famously a man of his word, Nigel Farage

 

[stethoscope]

The right, with the media/press as PR wing, have always been effective as casting everybody else as the authoritarians, whilst passing some of the most draconian, reactionary, and genuinely authoritarian policies. Again and again.

 

[stethoscope]

And heres, ahem, Labours Stephen Kinnock...

 

[Raheem]

The only problem with that is that it would be a rod for their own backs if passed as it is; as "the boats" will continue to come and the poor people aboard will not hand themselves in anymore. They'll make a bad situation worse, though I do concede that is a specialization of theirs.

They hope to keep it a live issue up to the General Election in order to avoid wipeout. Which could conceivably work.

But I do think that, when you scratch the surface, this plan doesn't actually amount to very much. The headlines and rhetoric can't translate into reality, but I think the plan behind it is mainly a zero-sum thing. A ban on boats with loopholes that any boat can fit through.

 

[teqniq]

And heres, ahem, Labours Stephen Kinnock...

Yes. I was deeply suspicious of that. My first thought was 'Where's he going with this?'

 

[stethoscope]

Yes. I was deeply suspicious of that. My first thought was 'Where's he going withy this?'

Sending people back by being more effficient and less nasty I think, as is the usual Labour counter-proposal these days...

I don't see much emphasis on actually helping those seeking asylum.

 

[belboid]

Number 3 (having well managed safe and legal routes) would actually make a massive difference. Which is why they won’t stress it publicly.

 

[Pickman's model]

Sending people back by being more effficient and less nasty I think, as is the usual Labour counter-proposal these days...

I don't see much emphasis on actually helping those seeking asylum.

I can think of two criminal gangs without any effort who shammer would have the police leave well alone - the tory and labour parties

 

[stethoscope]

Damian Green (when hes not looking at porn on a work computer) has just been on C4 News and already going with the 'public care more about boats than anything else'

 

[existentialist]

And heres, ahem, Labours Stephen Kinnock...

The trouble here is that he is framing the failing in the very terms - ie, utterly and solely financial - of this failure that the Tories are using to justify their behaviour in the first place.

 

[belboid]

I think whichever civil servant had to design this must have been deliberately taking the piss

 

[agricola]

They hope to keep it a live issue up to the General Election in order to avoid wipeout. Which could conceivably work.

But I do think that, when you scratch the surface, this plan doesn't actually amount to very much. The headlines and rhetoric can't translate into reality, but I think the plan behind it is mainly a zero-sum thing. A ban on boats with loopholes that any boat can fit through.

I am not sure - the direction of travel for Sunak's government so far seems to be a lot more pragmatic than to needlessly stoke up divisions as Johnson and Truss would have. The NI deal, these breakthroughs in terms of negotiations over strikes suggest to me anyway an attempt to get actual achievements, see a positive change in the economy / society thereby and then use that. Fixing (or appearing to fix) the problem will do far more than trying to keep it alive will.

 

[Raheem]

Fixing (or appearing to fix) the problem will do far more than trying to keep it alive will.

The problem with that is that it's difficult, and impossible without doing all sorts of things that don't look very tough on foreigners.

 

[brogdale]

Damian Green (when hes not looking at porn on a work computer) has just been on C4 News and already going with the 'public care more about boats than anything else'

He doesn't even believe that; he's been de-selected by the local executive of his boundary re-drawn seat and his only hope of staying on the gravy train will be if he can win over the local membership. So pandering to the aged racists of Weald of Kent is his priority...probably the only reason he agreed to do the C4 gig.

 

[bimble]

Even though i think its a ploy a desperate culture wars gambit & not any kind of serious plan, the damage is and will be real still .
Just as a start if you read about some other local country who just basically announced 'we intend to make it illegal to seek asylum here, anyone who comes is gonna be a criminal and get incarcerated & deported to fuck knows maybe rwanda' that's just, not what normal countries do or pretend to do.

 

[Flavour]

I agree with teqniq that defining people as migrants dehumanizes them and makes it easier to talk about them as a problem to be fixed rather than, you know, human beings who suffer

 

[not a trot]

Sending people back by being more effficient and less nasty I think, as is the usual Labour counter-proposal these days...

I don't see much emphasis on actually helping those seeking asylum.

Sadly anyone proposing helping Asylum Seekers isn't going to appeal to a large section of the British public at present. And the media would certainly give them a hard time. And the fucking Tories now that.

 

[Humberto]

Sadly anyone proposing helping Asylum Seekers isn't going to appeal to a large section of the British public at present. And the media would certainly give them a hard time. And the fucking Tories now that.

That's the thinking, I imagine. I don't quite know why Braverman only has to whip up a manufactured scandal and take a dramatic position that then leads to the Labour ranks falling in line lest they be attacked for being out of touch. Y Cooper was pretty clear that it's a load of self-serving, cynical shite though. I paraphrase like. They have to get their hands a bit dirty, rather being dragged around by the agenda of an unpopular and discredited government. Do they want to though?

 

[eatmorecheese]

It's been a thirty year descent to this point, with a relentless tabloid drive towards demonisation.

It will take decades to drive that back. That would be the brave, principled and humane thing to do. So no ambitious politician in either of the main two parties will countenance drawing a fucking line in the sand and actually speaking with some perspective rather than using asylum seekers as to.blame for all the social and economic disintegration we see happening in British communities.

It's inhumane and debased us all.

 

[Elpenor]

He doesn't even believe that; he's been de-selected by the local executive of his boundary re-drawn seat and his only hope of staying on the gravy train will be if he can win over the local membership. So pandering to the aged racists of Weald of Kent is his priority...probably the only reason he agreed to do the C4 gig.

My Dad’s constituency. He is certainly the former if not the latter

 

[Petcha]

I love john crace...

Shortly after 12.30pm, Braverman, flanked by a nervously grinning Rish! – he’s more and more becoming an absence rather than a presence – got up to deliver her statement on the illegal migration bill. Aptly named, because most of it is illegal.

The Tories are doing the same thing yet again and nobody expects results | John Crace

Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman unveil a plan for small boats that is performative and cruel

www.theguardian.com