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

[Silas Loom]

The Rwanda Plan is Deader than Maggie T (may she burn in hell) . Yeah, Sevenbins can change the law and re-negotiate the treaty to make it lawful but by the time the law changes make it through Parliament and survive the inevitable trip through the courts, Sevenbins will have gone back to his mansion to count his shekels and many of the rest of them will be finding out first hand how unforgiving the DWP is.
I don't know if Starmer objects in principle to the plan (not sure Starmer knows if he objects or not) but whatever else he is, he's not stupid. He is not going to waste time, money or political capital in trying to resurrect something do dumb.
All this now is just posturing for the base.

The ECHR is the really important one with proper legal clout but it doesn't matter. The UK isn't withdrawing from the ECHR just to placate the Tory backbenchers and to chuck out a probably very small number of immigrants.
The row it will cause with the EU (member or not) is just not worth it.

 

[kebabking]

Please tell me you think using 'shekels', in relation to a practicing Hindi is anti-Semitic?

Christ on a fucking boat, although hang on, Jesus was Jewish.

 

[Silas Loom]

Please tell me you think using 'shekels', in relation to a practicing Hindi is anti-Semitic?

Christ on a fucking boat, although hang on, Jesus was Jewish.

It certainly seemed odd. He might have been thinking of thirty pieces of silver, but those would most likely have been denarii.

Anyway, easily addressed: MickiQ , why shekels in particular? Why should they automatically spring to mind as a default currency for ill-gotten gains?

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Please tell me you think using 'shekels', in relation to a practicing Hindi is anti-Semitic?

Christ on a fucking boat, although hang on, Jesus was Jewish.

JC famously having no need for boats.

And Shekels equally famously being a synonym for wealth.

 

[Silas Loom]

And Shekels equally famously being a synonym for wealth.

 

[kebabking]

And Shekels equally famously being a synonym for wealth.

I'd use it interchangeably with sheets, notes, quid...

 

[Silas Loom]

I'd use it interchangeably with sheets, notes, quid...

Would you bollocks.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Would you bollocks.

First entry on google:

 

[pbsmooth]

he was just desparate to say "send them back"

 

[Silas Loom]

First entry on google:

View attachment 400146

Third, rather than first. In a questionable online dictionary, which doesn’t have the lexicographical clout to delve into the unspoken assumptions behind the usage. Which are that it’s amusing and telling to associate Jews with money. Or to indicate whether that usage is current: I’ve never heard it.

 

[A380]

I was thinking of your memory

I remember when you used to be funny, so my long term memory is fine…

 

[SpookyFrank]

The party of law and order?

Send them back? Does...does he think we're talking about deporting Rwandan people back to Rwanda? What a ludicrous fuckwit this man is.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

I’ve never heard it.

Not entirely sure if the test for whether something is a thing or not is if you've heard of it.

 

[kebabking]

Would you bollocks.

A quick search says I've used it three times on Urban - outside of this thread - all in a 'itll cost you 300 shekels..' context, and none of them indicating any kind of shadiness.

But thanks for telling me how I use language.

Twat.

 

[Silas Loom]

A quick search says I've used it three times on Urban - outside of this thread - all in a 'itll cost you 300 shekels..' context, and none of them indicating any kind of shadiness.

But thanks for telling me how I use language.

Twat.

Well, perhaps you should rethink this particular usage.

Twat.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Oy vey!

 

[MickiQ]

It certainly seemed odd. He might have been thinking of thirty pieces of silver, but those would most likely have been denarii.

Anyway, easily addressed: MickiQ , why shekels in particular? Why should they automatically spring to mind as a default currency for ill-gotten gains?

As others have pointed out already

• informal
  money; wealth.
  "thank you for saving me time, not to mention hard-won shekels"

surprised that you claim never to have heard that saying before, I've heard it used loads of times.

 

[Silas Loom]

As others have pointed out already

• informal
  money; wealth.
  "thank you for saving me time, not to mention hard-won shekels"

surprised that you claim never to have heard that saying before, I've heard it used loads of times.

I suppose it all depends on the circles within which you mix. Anyone who thought a little before speaking would choose a currency freighted with fewer implications: anything from groats to doubloons, depending on what they wanted jocularly to convey.

 

[teqniq]

Regarding the decision, it is worth reading this:

Supreme Court Rwanda ruling is a victory – but not the slam dunk you think

In other news 30p Lee is a complete scumbag, who knew?

 

[kebabking]

Well, perhaps you should rethink this particular usage.

Twat.

No, I won't - I can see how using the word in an anti-Semitic context, say in accusing a politician of being secretly funded by 'the Israel lobby', would be anti-Semitic in itself, but the word used in exactly the same way you might use pounds, or notes, or quid in saying how much a bike, or car, or meal out cost you, is not in any way anti-semitic, it's simply one of many non-English words that have made it into the common lexicon, and the common lexicon is better off for it.

 

[Silas Loom]

No, I won't - I can see how using the word in an anti-Semitic context, say in accusing a politician of being secretly funded by 'the Israel lobby', would be anti-Semitic in itself, but the word used in exactly the same way you might use pounds, or notes, or quid in saying how much a bike, or car, or meal out cost you, is not in any way anti-semitic, it's simply one of many non-English words that have made it into the common lexicon, and the common lexicon is better off for it.

We’re in “Jews don’t count” territory here. In any other circumstance where it’s pointed out that a term might be racially offensive, the people using it would wonder if they’d been unthinkingly careless. They’d do a quick check to see whether the term is frequently used by racists (the online alt-right loves to talk about shekels). But because it’s only antisemitism at stake, it’s safe to double down and explain patronisingly that the person raising the issue is simply ignorant about language.

 

[Spymaster]

Third, rather than first. In a questionable online dictionary, which doesn’t have the lexicographical clout to delve into the unspoken assumptions behind the usage. Which are that it’s amusing and telling to associate Jews with money. Or to indicate whether that usage is current: I’ve never heard it.

Seriously?

It's very well know slang/informal for money.

Are you very young (under 30)?

 

[Spymaster]

We’re in “Jews don’t count” territory here. In any other circumstance where it’s pointed out that a term might be racially offensive, the people using it would wonder if they’d been unthinkingly careless. They’d do a quick check to see whether the term is frequently used by racists (the online alt-right loves to talk about shekels). But because it’s only antisemitism at stake, it’s safe to double down and explain patronisingly that the person raising the issue is simply ignorant about language.

You’ve got this wrong, fella.

 

[ElizabethofYork]

Send them back? Does...does he think we're talking about deporting Rwandan people back to Rwanda? What a ludicrous fuckwit this man is.

It's all forrin, innit.

 

[StoneRoad]

I've frequently - almost constantly, tbh - used "shekels" as a synonym for cash / money / pounds since I was a teenager.
During those more than five decades I've lived in several places, including the West Midlands, Gateshead, Newcastle upon Tyne and North Wales.
The connotation in all those places was always understood to be money and no-one has ever accused me of using it in a racially derogatory way.

 

[PR1Berske]

As an aside, I've long since stopped saying "going around like a wandering Jew" because whilst it felt comfortable saying it because Dad did, it's not as acceptable now.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Regarding the decision, it is worth reading this:

Supreme Court Rwanda ruling is a victory – but not the slam dunk you think

In other news 30p Lee is a complete scumbag, who knew?

Rwanda, where 100% of people from Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan have had their asylum claims rejected.

Just let the insanity of this proposal sink in.

 

[Spymaster]

As an aside, I've long since stopped saying "going around like a wandering Jew" because whilst it felt comfortable saying it because Dad did, it's not as acceptable now.

That's very different to "shekels" for money though, which is used in the same way as dough, dosh, dollar, quid, Bens, bread, brass ... etc.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

At risk of being the liberal here, I think both sides have a point. Use of the slang 'shekel' for money is probably Bible-based, I would think. But it's also true enough, as SL says, that it is used in explicitly antisemitic circles. Language usage changes and with it we sometimes need to change. The term 'Aryan' was entirely neutral once upon a time, but we say 'Indo-European' now because that term was hijacked by racists. Sometimes words are hijacked by racists and there's not a lot we can do about it except use something else.

 

[Silas Loom]

At risk of being the liberal here, I think both sides have a point. Use of the slang 'shekel' for money is probably Bible-based, I would think. But it's also true enough, as SL says, that it is used in explicitly antisemitic circles. Language usage changes and with it we sometimes need to change. The term 'Aryan' was entirely neutral once upon a time, but we say 'Indo-European' now because that term was hijacked by racists. Sometimes words are hijacked by racists and there's not a lot we can do about it except use something else.

One of of the irritants of etymology is that words gain popularity for multiple reasons. Perhaps one aspect of the slang term’s origin is with people who were so steeped in Biblical lore that they reckoned in cubits, gossiped in begats, and budgeted in shekels.

But it’s not much of a stretch to assume that the term also took off in some communities because it was felt to be amusingly appropriate in contexts which good old-fashioned English folk associated with Jews, such as haggling, parsimony, over-charging and so on. MickiQ just happened to use it to describe the loot that Sunak might gloat over. And that might also explain why it isn’t common currency (as it were) in polite corners of North London - I have genuinely never heard it used.

Also, there are no synonyms which aren’t slightly freighted with extra context. If they didn’t add something to language, they wouldn’t exist.

So I’m not totally satisfied with the “perfectly good term unfortunately corrupted by explicit antisemites” excuse, though it’s good of you to weigh in with an acknowledgment of that recent trend, and definitely appreciated.