Politics Thread (encompassing Brexit) - 21 June 2017 onwards

[Sharpe's Fox]

4 hours ago, MattP said:

Social values like importance of family, structure and creating a society that upholds things

everyone who has these politics are either a shagger, addicted to something or a nonce. Just the worst people ever. Name any politician who holds these ideals and I’ll tell you why they’re scum.

[Guest]

43 minutes ago, Foxin_mad said:

I would question some of the logic used in that site for calculating too.

 

For instance Labour will count the removal of a Director Business Development (from a council) from jobs as a 'cut'. 

 

As a general rule Labour councils have a reputation of being quite wasteful so it stands to reason, they may have seen bigger 'cuts'

The cuts are in funding.

Councils will have lost 75% of their central (which is by far their main) funding by the time all announced cuts have finished.

[Strokes]

9 minutes ago, toddybad said:

The cuts are in funding.

Councils will have lost 75% of their central (which is by far their main) funding by the time all announced cuts have finished.

Good, they’ll only fill their own pockets if given more.

[AlloverthefloorYesNdidi]

33 minutes ago, Webbo said:

This "journalist" tells us that not only does he knows what's said in May's secret phonecall to Trump but also he was privy to the private conversation Mrs May had with her husband. That immediately sets alarm bells ringing for me, this bloke is either a crank or a Russian bot. Now I have to take his word for it that this business I've never heard of actually exists, Phillip Hammond has some sort of relationship with them and they and him would profit in some way from Syria being bombed, not just by France and America but us as well?

Well, if you're going to put all unsourced and unverified materials under the microscope i may as well stop posting unsubstantiated hard left anti tory propaganda completely!

[Buce]

Amber Rudd boasted of harsher immigration strategy, leak reveals

Exclusive: home secretary told PM she would give officials more ‘teeth’ to deport migrants

 

Amber Rudd privately boasted to the prime minister that she would give immigration officials more “teeth” to hunt down and deport thousands more illegal migrants and accelerate the UK’s deportation programme, a leaked private letter has revealed.

In a robust private memo to Theresa May just months before long-settled Windrush migrants were threatened with deportation, Rudd set out her “ambitious” plan to increase removals and focus officials on “arresting, detaining and forcibly removing illegal migrants” while “ruthlessly” prioritising Home Office resources to that programme .

The four-page document, obtained exclusively by the Guardian, reveals Rudd promised the prime minister she would oversee the forced or voluntary departure of 10% more people than May managed when she was home secretary, partly by switching money for crime-fighting to her immigration enforcement programme. Her goal implied she wanted to throw out an extra 4,000 illegal migrants every year.

The letter was sent on 30 January 2017. A few months later Paulette Wilson, a grandmother from Jamaica who had lived in Britain for 50 years, became the first of more than 20 Windrush migrants to tell the Guardian how they were facing deportation or a loss of rights to health, housing and work because of Home Office policy.

The aggressive language and tone of Rudd’s approach to immigration enforcement emerged after the home secretary attempted to blame officials in her own department for the Windrush scandal in which it emerged up to 50,000 mostly Commonwealth migrants were facing possible deportation despite having lived in Britain for decades.

Rudd claimed in parliament on Monday she was “concerned that the Home Office has become too concerned with policy and strategy and sometimes loses sight of the individual”.

 

That appeared to be an attempt to suggest she had inherited a hardline system from May, who as home secretary announced a policy to create “a really hostile environment for illegal migrants” across government departments.

But in the private memo, Rudd said she believed in the fundamental importance of that hostile environment agenda, which she referred to as the “compliant environment”, an attempted rebranding of the policy by ministers a few months earlier.

The culture that agenda inspired has been widely blamed for members of the Windrush-era generation being threatened in recent months with deportation and denied access to housing, healthcare and jobs.

In 2016, 39,626 people were deported or left the UK voluntarily, according to the UK Migration Observatory, but Rudd’s letter to May indicates a home secretary determined to make her mark and toughen up even further an immigration enforcement regime which uses liveried vans that have become an increasingly common sight in areas with large migrant communities.

 

She wrote: “Illegal and would-be illegal migrants and the public more widely, need to know that our immigration system has ‘teeth’, and that if people do not comply on their own we will enforce their return, including through arresting and detaining them. That is why I will be refocusing immigration enforcement’s work to concentrate on enforced removals. In particular I will be reallocating £10m (including from low-level crime and intelligence) with the aim of increasing the number of enforced removals by more than 10% over the next few years: something I believe is ambitious, but deliverable.”

 

Rudd told May her proposals to reduce the overall illegal population had been “informed by the review that you commissioned whilst home secretary”. She concluded: “Everything I have outlined above is aimed not just at radically reshaping and refocusing immigration enforcement but at increasing the public’s confidence in our immigration system.”

Nowhere in the memo does Rudd mention the possible human cost of getting her immigration policy wrong.

 

Rudd told May that her strategy was “informed by the review that you commissioned as home secretary”. On Thursday, Nick Clegg, who was deputy prime minister from 2010 to 2015, said May’s Home Office had pursued “nasty politics” over immigration.

“They kept resorting to these glib silly unproven headline-grabbing gimmicks and that does create the administrative climate when someone somewhere down the food chain thinks … [for example] we won’t take on good faith what the Windrush generation is saying to us.”

Rudd’s memo was sent as the government stepped up its attempts to bring net migration down into the tens of thousands. The previous year, the figure was 248,000. Four months earlier, May rebooted the government’s immigration taskforce, chairing a committee of 12 cabinet ministers – including the three key Brexit supporters, Liam Fox, Boris Johnson and David Davis – to ensure a new regime was introduced to slash the net number of arrivals into the UK to below 100,000 a year.

Other measures she told May about included obtaining biometric data from countries such as Pakistan, which she said could be “a potential game changer in terms of the numbers we can remove”. She asked for the prime minister’s help to persuade the leaders of other countries to supply such data.

Rudd also said she wanted illegal migrants who were being housed in detention centres before removal to either be sent back to their origin country, released into the community on licence, or tagged to free up beds for the new people that her immigration enforcement team will be picking up.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Illegal immigration impacts the whole of society, putting pressure on taxpayer-funded public services, leaving vulnerable people at the mercy of exploitative employers or landlords, and at worst, fuelling the abhorrent crimes of modern slavery and human trafficking.

“People from the Windrush generation are of course here legally. The Home Secretary has recognised the huge contribution they have made to our society, and has apologised unreservedly to them. We are taking urgent action to help them to evidence their legal right to live in the UK, and have set up a dedicated taskforce to do so.

“It is wilfully misleading to conflate the situation experienced by people from the Windrush generation with measures in place to tackle illegal immigration and protect the UK taxpayer. It is clearly essential that we continue to take action against people who are here illegally.”

 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/20/amber-rudd-boasted-harsher-immigration-strategy-leak-reveals

 

[Rogstanley]

27 minutes ago, Buce said:

Amber Rudd boasted of harsher immigration strategy, leak reveals

Exclusive: home secretary told PM she would give officials more ‘teeth’ to deport migrants

 

Amber Rudd privately boasted to the prime minister that she would give immigration officials more “teeth” to hunt down and deport thousands more illegal migrants and accelerate the UK’s deportation programme, a leaked private letter has revealed.

In a robust private memo to Theresa May just months before long-settled Windrush migrants were threatened with deportation, Rudd set out her “ambitious” plan to increase removals and focus officials on “arresting, detaining and forcibly removing illegal migrants” while “ruthlessly” prioritising Home Office resources to that programme .

The four-page document, obtained exclusively by the Guardian, reveals Rudd promised the prime minister she would oversee the forced or voluntary departure of 10% more people than May managed when she was home secretary, partly by switching money for crime-fighting to her immigration enforcement programme. Her goal implied she wanted to throw out an extra 4,000 illegal migrants every year.

The letter was sent on 30 January 2017. A few months later Paulette Wilson, a grandmother from Jamaica who had lived in Britain for 50 years, became the first of more than 20 Windrush migrants to tell the Guardian how they were facing deportation or a loss of rights to health, housing and work because of Home Office policy.

The aggressive language and tone of Rudd’s approach to immigration enforcement emerged after the home secretary attempted to blame officials in her own department for the Windrush scandal in which it emerged up to 50,000 mostly Commonwealth migrants were facing possible deportation despite having lived in Britain for decades.

Rudd claimed in parliament on Monday she was “concerned that the Home Office has become too concerned with policy and strategy and sometimes loses sight of the individual”.

 

That appeared to be an attempt to suggest she had inherited a hardline system from May, who as home secretary announced a policy to create “a really hostile environment for illegal migrants” across government departments.

But in the private memo, Rudd said she believed in the fundamental importance of that hostile environment agenda, which she referred to as the “compliant environment”, an attempted rebranding of the policy by ministers a few months earlier.

The culture that agenda inspired has been widely blamed for members of the Windrush-era generation being threatened in recent months with deportation and denied access to housing, healthcare and jobs.

In 2016, 39,626 people were deported or left the UK voluntarily, according to the UK Migration Observatory, but Rudd’s letter to May indicates a home secretary determined to make her mark and toughen up even further an immigration enforcement regime which uses liveried vans that have become an increasingly common sight in areas with large migrant communities.

 

She wrote: “Illegal and would-be illegal migrants and the public more widely, need to know that our immigration system has ‘teeth’, and that if people do not comply on their own we will enforce their return, including through arresting and detaining them. That is why I will be refocusing immigration enforcement’s work to concentrate on enforced removals. In particular I will be reallocating £10m (including from low-level crime and intelligence) with the aim of increasing the number of enforced removals by more than 10% over the next few years: something I believe is ambitious, but deliverable.”

 

Rudd told May her proposals to reduce the overall illegal population had been “informed by the review that you commissioned whilst home secretary”. She concluded: “Everything I have outlined above is aimed not just at radically reshaping and refocusing immigration enforcement but at increasing the public’s confidence in our immigration system.”

Nowhere in the memo does Rudd mention the possible human cost of getting her immigration policy wrong.

 

Rudd told May that her strategy was “informed by the review that you commissioned as home secretary”. On Thursday, Nick Clegg, who was deputy prime minister from 2010 to 2015, said May’s Home Office had pursued “nasty politics” over immigration.

“They kept resorting to these glib silly unproven headline-grabbing gimmicks and that does create the administrative climate when someone somewhere down the food chain thinks … [for example] we won’t take on good faith what the Windrush generation is saying to us.”

Rudd’s memo was sent as the government stepped up its attempts to bring net migration down into the tens of thousands. The previous year, the figure was 248,000. Four months earlier, May rebooted the government’s immigration taskforce, chairing a committee of 12 cabinet ministers – including the three key Brexit supporters, Liam Fox, Boris Johnson and David Davis – to ensure a new regime was introduced to slash the net number of arrivals into the UK to below 100,000 a year.

Other measures she told May about included obtaining biometric data from countries such as Pakistan, which she said could be “a potential game changer in terms of the numbers we can remove”. She asked for the prime minister’s help to persuade the leaders of other countries to supply such data.

Rudd also said she wanted illegal migrants who were being housed in detention centres before removal to either be sent back to their origin country, released into the community on licence, or tagged to free up beds for the new people that her immigration enforcement team will be picking up.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Illegal immigration impacts the whole of society, putting pressure on taxpayer-funded public services, leaving vulnerable people at the mercy of exploitative employers or landlords, and at worst, fuelling the abhorrent crimes of modern slavery and human trafficking.

“People from the Windrush generation are of course here legally. The Home Secretary has recognised the huge contribution they have made to our society, and has apologised unreservedly to them. We are taking urgent action to help them to evidence their legal right to live in the UK, and have set up a dedicated taskforce to do so.

“It is wilfully misleading to conflate the situation experienced by people from the Windrush generation with measures in place to tackle illegal immigration and protect the UK taxpayer. It is clearly essential that we continue to take action against people who are here illegally.”

 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/20/amber-rudd-boasted-harsher-immigration-strategy-leak-reveals

 

Sickening. And I bet May had a right vigorous fiddle while reading that. Surely heads must roll over this. I've never been so disgusted by politicians and I've seen a lot of crap.

[Sharpe's Fox]

Bet Amber Rudd has a couple of hulking black blokes in her loft that were ‘deported’ to spitroast her at weekends. Filthy bitch.

[Sharpe's Fox]

I reckon their names will be Jonathon and Requis.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Strokes said:

Good, they’ll only fill their own pockets if given more.

They have responsibility for social care.

[DJ Barry Hammond]

8 hours ago, MattP said:

How and when did conspiracy theory websites actually become mainstream? 

 

Even when they peddle news with no quotes or sources, really is strange how it has happened - accountability can't come fast enough.

 

I’ve tried reporting a few things like that to Facebook - would you be suprised to learn they took no notice! 

 

I know the press are making the Cambridge Analytica thing the big issue at the moment, but in my mind it’s the spread of disinformation and irresponsible publishing (mainly on that platform) that is of bigger concern because of how quickly it can spread.

 

At least with Twitter, the ‘blue’ tick provides some identification of the legitimacy of a person tweeting something - and contrasting views are normally found underneath, even if it can be an echo chamber.

 

But some of the stuff I see go around and around on Facebook, with huge view figures, from people who clearly just click and share with no thought is scary. 

 

Yet this world and it’s general public has been becoming odder for years anyway - fancy people willing to put something in their house that could listen to everything they say and have TV’s / laptops that can watch everything they do. All we’re waiting for now Big Brother.

[Guest]

It's time to stop believing in these 'magic' Brexit solutions

UK’s unlikely proposals to solve Irish border question leaves Brussels wondering if customs union may be most realistic option

From the minute the UK government first proposed its idea last August of maintaining “invisible borders” after Brexit, the convoluted plan was dismissed as “magical thinking” by EU officials. What has changed this week is that the time for pretending otherwise has run out.

First, Downing Street reassurances were rejected on Wednesday by the House of Lords, where peers voted by a majority of 123 to push Britain toward a customs union – arguing it was the only practical alternative to wrecking the Irish peace process with a hard border.

Now a fresh account of the latest withering exchange with officials in Brussels has made the front page of the Daily Telegraph, making it impossible for Conservative ministers to maintain the illusion any longer that the EU is being steadily persuaded to change its mind.

If the government wants to avoid a more serious rebellion in the House of Commons when the customs union question returns for a vote after local elections in May, it has to convince anxious Tory backbenchers that it is on track to reach agreement at the EU summit in June. Reading in their house newspaper that the UK alternatives were this week subjected to a “systematic and forensic annihilation” and “detailed and forensic rebuttal” creates a cognitive dissonance that no amount of Downing Street spin can hide. “It was made clear that none of the UK’s customs options will work,” an EU source told the Telegraph. “None of them.

It was telling that the British response to the story on Friday – though insisting things weren’t quite that bad – was to acknowledge that the other side was briefing aggressively against them and their scheme, which is never a good sign if you are trying to pretend everything is tickety-boo.

For some, this may still come as a surprise. After all, the EU had shown a willingness to collude in postponing a showdown before the previous summit in March. It is possible that the hardball tactics now are a prelude to another last-minute fudge in time for the next one.

The problem, however, is that the two UK customs proposals in question would require unprecedented levels of trust and cooperation – possibly even more so than the current arrangements between member states.

Unlike, for example, the recent dispute over the post-Brexit financial settlement, there is no point simply negotiating through gritted teeth until both sides wearily agree to put the issue behind them. Without lasting faith across the EU that this will work, it almost certainly won’t.

Both UK proposals require the EU to suspend more than its innate scepticism. They also require Brussels to be willing to ignore a substantial amount of future rule-breaking and potential smuggling in order to get the British government out of a hole.

The first, and less ambitious, of the two proposals outlined in August, is a “streamlined customs arrangement”, whereby the onus is on businesses to police their own trade activity and report imports and exports that should be subject to duty. In Northern Ireland, where the highly integrated farming industry makes even this look too onerous, whole swaths of smaller traders would be exempted entirely from complying with normal customs rules.

If this isn’t enough of an ask to make of the bureaucrats in Brussels, the UK would actually prefer a more ambitious option, a “new customs partnership”, to be implemented. In this scenario, the UK pretends (“mirrors” to use the technical term) that it still is in a customs union with the EU. This means not just collecting duties on overseas imports, as all members do now, but also tracking all goods after they arrive to make sure whether they are destined for UK or EU markets.

As bewildered officials once again pointed out in Brussels this week, this requires a number of heroic assumptions for it to work. Firstly, the EU would need to trust a non-member state to police its most sensitive enforcement mechanisms. Secondly, it would need to impose red tape on businesses the likes of which has never been seen, even in the imagination of the most fervent Eurosceptics. Finally, it is all likely to cost a fortune in new systems, on both sides of the border.

At the best of times, either of these two options would be a stretch: ignore, or recreate a bureaucratic nightmare many times more complex than that which exists today.

But these are not the best of times, to put it mildly. Mistrust already abounds on all sides. The Irish government, in particular, fears the UK is not serious about its proposals but merely using them as a temporary sop to placate those worried about the peace process.

More importantly the EU senses an even more significant victory could be looming. If it can persuade the government’s own MPs that there is no hope of British proposals coming to pass, then remaining in a customs union is now a realistic fall-back solution. Downing Street acceptance of the need for “close regulatory alignment” suggests continued single market membership may not be far behind either.

Both would be an anathema to Brexit true-believers, but a relief to business, Brussels and much of Westminster. By playing hardball now, the worst-case scenario for the EU is that Britain becomes like Norway – a compliant, satellite state. By pinning all its hopes on “magical” proposals, which fail to emerge when the wand is waved, the UK may have left itself with nowhere else to go.

 

[Guest MattP]

Westminster voting intention:

CON: 43% (+3)
LAB: 38% (-2)
LDEM: 8% (-1)

via @YouGov, 16 - 17 Apr
Chgs vs 10 Apr

 

Westminster voting intention:

CON: 42% (-2)
LAB: 41% (-)
LDEM: 7% (-1)
UKIP: 4% (+3)
GRN: 3% (+1)

via @ICMResearch, 06 - 08 Apr

[DJ Barry Hammond]

3 hours ago, MattP said:

Westminster voting intention:

CON: 43% (+3)
LAB: 38% (-2)
LDEM: 8% (-1)

via @YouGov, 16 - 17 Apr
Chgs vs 10 Apr

 

Westminster voting intention:

CON: 42% (-2)
LAB: 41% (-)
LDEM: 7% (-1)
UKIP: 4% (+3)
GRN: 3% (+1)

via @ICMResearch, 06 - 08 Apr

 

Just shows the power of publically deporting black people.

[Rogstanley]

What is the rationale of the 4% voting UKIP do we think?

[Alf Bentley]

3 hours ago, MattP said:

Westminster voting intention:

CON: 43% (+3)
LAB: 38% (-2)
LDEM: 8% (-1)

via @YouGov, 16 - 17 Apr
Chgs vs 10 Apr

 

Westminster voting intention:

CON: 42% (-2)
LAB: 41% (-)
LDEM: 7% (-1)
UKIP: 4% (+3)
GRN: 3% (+1)

via @ICMResearch, 06 - 08 Apr

 

Difficult to know whether to take any notice of polls just now - particularly after the dramatic shift during the last campaign.

Whether the next election happens sooner or later, it's also likely to be preceded by some dramatic events - not least on the Brexit front - whose party political impact is hard to predict.

If the Brexit negotiations collapse, it could give the Tories a patriotic boost, at least until people see the impact of going over the cliff. How will voters react if the Tories compromise over the Irish border and accept some sort of customs union? I've no idea which party would benefit from that.

 

The earlier of those 2 polls would have been done in the wake of the big antisemitism furore. The later one would have been just after the Syrian air strikes (whose outcome left most people relieved) but before the Windrush fiasco dominated the news bulletins. So Labour might be relieved that those polls weren't worse, given the timing. It'll be interesting to see any poll in the coming days, post-Windrush.

 

Polls over many months do suggest that Labour may have hit a ceiling, though. To get into a winning position, they'll probably need either (a) the Tories to have a disaster in the Brexit negotiations and/or the economy or other policies/events; and/or (b) Labour to come up with some policies to appeal to older generations or more centrist voters. They'll struggle to get more votes from young people or populist left policies - probably maxed out there. 

 

 

[Alf Bentley]

10 minutes ago, Rogstanley said:

What is the rationale of the 4% voting UKIP do we think?

 

Impatience with the lack of an immediate Hard Brexit and mistrust of the Tories ever delivering it? Like lemmings with a short attention span, impatient to get jumping off that cliff?

 

Might just be a statistical anomaly, though, given the small numbers involved. Only worth paying attention if UKIP support rises in several polls, I'd say.

[Strokes]

9 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

Impatience with the lack of an immediate Hard Brexit and mistrust of the Tories ever delivering it? Like lemmings with a short attention span, impatient to get jumping off that cliff?

 

Might just be a statistical anomaly, though, given the small numbers involved. Only worth paying attention if UKIP support rises in several polls, I'd say.

I’ll vote UKIP if we end up staying in the customs union.

[Guest]

17 minutes ago, Strokes said:

I’ll vote UKIP if we end up staying in the customs union.

Have you seen their leaders? Even makes the tory party only look slightly racist. You're better than this strokes.

[Strokes]

9 minutes ago, toddybad said:

Have you seen their leaders? Even makes the tory party only look slightly racist. You're better than this strokes.

I’m not.

[Guest MattP]

15 minutes ago, toddybad said:

Have you seen their leaders? Even makes the tory party only look slightly racist. You're better than this strokes.

They have big problems, the public even see Labour as less racist than them even after recent events. 

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-labour-party-racism-anti-semitism-religion-jewish-ukip-israel-palestine-a8305706.html

 

Almost two-thirds of the British public believe Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party has a problem with racism or religious prejudice, a new poll has revealed.

An exclusive survey for The Independent found 61 per cent of people thought Labour had an issue, with Ukip the only other party receiving a comparable score.

Edited 21 April 2018 by MattP

[Guest]

25 minutes ago, MattP said:

They have big problems, the public even see Labour as less racist than them even after recent events. 

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-labour-party-racism-anti-semitism-religion-jewish-ukip-israel-palestine-a8305706.html

 

Almost two-thirds of the British public believe Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party has a problem with racism or religious prejudice, a new poll has revealed.

An exclusive survey for The Independent found 61 per cent of people thought Labour had an issue, with Ukip the only other party receiving a comparable score.

You were slightly slower than I expected.

[Guest MattP]

It's quite baffling how many are still prepared to vote Labour despite also realising the leader isn't a serious choice to lead the country.

 

 

[Facecloth]

2 minutes ago, MattP said:

It's quite baffling how many are still prepared to vote Labour despite also realising the leader isn't a serious choice to lead the country.

 

 

It's quite surprising people are still prepared to put their name next to any party at the minute. If a pollster asked me, I'd have to say I want to vote but they are all so ****ing useless, seemingly determined to **** up the lives of the British public, and appear to be filled with hate and distain for one group or another, that I simply have no idea where to put my cross.

[Guest MattP]

1 minute ago, Facecloth said:

It's quite surprising people are still prepared to put their name next to any party at the minute. If a pollster asked me, I'd have to say I want to vote but they are all so ****ing useless, seemingly determined to **** up the lives of the British public, and appear to be filled with hate and distain for one group or another, that I simply have no idea where to put my cross.

I actually don't disagree with any of that.

 

I'd probably still vote Tory as I find it so important to keep McDonnell and Abbott out of office but I'd have no enthusiasm for it.

 

Depending on candidate as well of course, I'd vote for the SWP over someone like Morgan or Soubry.

[Facecloth]

4 minutes ago, MattP said:

I actually don't disagree with any of that.

 

I'd probably still vote Tory as I find it so important to keep McDonnell and Abbott out of office but I'd have no enthusiasm for it.

 

Depending on candidate as well of course, I'd vote for the SWP over someone like Morgan or Soubry.

And I'd probably edge towards labour to keep Boris, Gove, Rudd, May, Hunt and potentially JRM away from running the country again, but I don't really want to vote for Labour.

 

In fact I think the militant, always vote for the same party types and those who blindly vote the same way everytime hold the power without knowing it. They're probably the least politically informed of all people who vote, but because they never change the rest of us know we have to vote tactically, rather than for a party we'd actually like to vote for, to keep the lesser of two evils (in our opinion) out. I only voted labour last time because nobody else stood a chance of beating the Tories in Loughborough.