My thoughts exactly. The response on Twitter to the intervention of the "EU" despite "brexit" shows the utter confusion amongst many of what the ECHR is. It feeds directly into the divisions that won him the last election. I think Johnson is an absolute fool but he knows how to tap into the psyche of those he needs to get him elected.
So, the flagship Brexit policy of the Nasty Party (TM) has been stopped in its tracks! For two reasons. Firstly, you cannot just ride roughshod over internationally agreed human rights and secondly, it is still not deterring those who want to seek asylum here. Johnson's brazen attempt to claw himself a bit of popularity in the face of internal Tory unrest about his leadership has failed miserably, yet again. I've no doubt they'll keep trying because it is what this shameless, spiteful government do, but yet another bloody nose to Johnson and Patel. Long may that continue!
I think we have to stop finding some sort of evil genius in this Government’s actions. Like much of what it does, this is the crudest type of strategy because they cannot possibly predict where it will end.
I fear you're falling for the misdirection - it's irrelevant whether a single person actually ends up in Rwanda. That's not the measure of success the government's using. I get what you're saying, and agree there's plenty of evidence they're just bumbling around, but then dear leader has that act down to a tee too and the government is in his image. Regardless of how it came about I'm certain when their strategists were coming up with this ridiculous policy 'frustrated by loony left lawyers/protesters' was one of the acceptable outcomes. It's red meat for their base and they know it resonates with a lot of floating voters who don't strongly align with a specific political party too.
De Pfeffel needs an enemy to fight against (note not beat). You know what a dog whistle the ECHR and the ECtHR are to the UKIP faction of our country's political base (and that base has great difficulty in distinguishing between the EU, ECHR and the ECtHR). As @UEA_Hornet has very eloquently put it it doesn't matter whether a single refugee ends ever up in Rwanda nor how much it costs.
...and it's becoming a self-licking lollipop opening up all those Brexit rifts of yesteryear (that were healing as the ominshambles was being exposed): https://twitter.com/mrjamesob/status/1536824271682555905 Also it's with some amusement that Australia's being held up as some sort of trailblazer in the refugee deportation issue - that the same Australia that was the home of the "Australian style points system" that was much touted as the panacea to managing/controlling immigration.
From a twitter wag: Wait until the Home Office learns that under current EU rules that haven’t been repealed yet, each person on that flight is entitled to £520 compensation for a cancelled flight.
I do wish I could find Spitting Image's response to this BBC ad - all I can remember from it was Laurence Oliver's "Little and Large?" contribution:
Is that claim about the GFA true? As this puts a whole new spin on things: https://twitter.com/cirian75/status/1536974052262289410
I wouldn't quite go as far as 'it requires our membership of it'. What it does say though is: It also says ECHR + 'any Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland' together act as a safeguard for the rights of people there. So if the UK were to leave the ECHR as a whole, the British government would be breaching the GFA unless it figures out a way to keep the Human Rights Act 1998 applying in Northern Ireland. Which I suspect would be impossible.
I think a rebranding is all that is required. If the ECHR simply calls itself the British Court of Human Rights (BCHR), then most objections would fall away. Egos could be massaged by claiming that the BCHR is so good and so British we’ve let all the Europeans use it too.
Dear Boris, When I held you on my lap, an ungainly baby boy, the notion that you would become Prime Minister one day would have made me laugh out loud. You were called Alexander then. Charlotte, your mum, was my first cousin. Our families were not close and I moved to America. But when on a visit to my sister in London some 35 years later, she told me that the bombastic fellow appearing on Have I Got News For You was Charlotte’s son, I still had to laugh. Now any news of you makes me feel like crying. My side of the family found your work as a journalist and general buffoonery embarrassing and watched your rise as Mayor of London and as a Conservative MP with wariness and disbelief. How could people take you seriously? But even then none of us would have predicted that you would get behind the Brexit campaign. When the EU Referendum was announced, your lies were fact-checked many times to your face – but you blithely continued telling them, just as you have done on so many other issues since. I want you to know that, in the weeks after the Brexit vote, my sisters’ mixed-race grandchildren, who were born and brought up in east London, had their first ever experiences of being told to “go back to your own country”. Now I am not blaming you for that, Boris – I recognise that, like your soul brother Donald Trump, you did not cause the racism, although you purposely took advantage of it. But that is not why I am writing to you. Your response to the recent vote of no confidence – as it has been every time people object to your personal behaviour, policies and administration – is ‘let’s move on’. Really? Move on and ignore your law-breaking? Move on to how much more abuse and corruption? Your Government is making it clear that you want to repeal parts of the Human Rights Act. It claims that it prevents the UK from deporting refugees and protecting soldiers from prosecution. When your mother died last September, I wondered what she thought of your intention to destroy one of her father’s lifetime achievements. I’ll never know the answer to that question. But I know your grandfather would be appalled. He was the barrister, Sir James Fawcett, who dedicated his life to human rights – as a member of the European Commission for Human Rights for 20 years and its president for half that time. From that body, which became the European Convention on Human Rights, the British Parliament adopted the Human Rights Act in 1998. In the US, I watched with dismay as international treaties resulting from endless, painstaking diplomatic work were undone by our former President’s stroke of the pen: the Iran nuclear deal, the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Paris Climate accords, withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council. It’s with the same alarm that I witnessed your cavalier approach to the Good Friday Agreement, as you navigated the country towards leaving the EU. I knew my Uncle James as a mild-mannered, gracious and erudite man. After a wartime stint in the Royal British Navy, he became a member of the UK’s delegation to the United Nations where he assisted in the writing of its Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In his work for the European Commission of Human Rights, he appeared at the European Court of Justice at The Hague for the UK several times. I was not surprised when the Queen awarded him a knighthood for his work. As a child, I was fully aware of the seriousness with which my parents – and your grandparents’ – generation approached the need for inter-country agreements and cooperation, to work towards their hope that ‘never again’ became a reality. Having just lived through war and the rise of fascism, the horrors of genocide and the Blitz, the disruption of lives and economies, their hearts and hopes were rooted in the necessity of this work of national and international cooperation. Yes, we have had a lot of ‘again’ – smaller wars and genocides – a fact that has engendered cynicism towards the project of creating universal agreements and treaties, rather than the recognition that this work must be continually improved upon and strengthened. It is a cynicism you have done much to encourage. The large bureaucracies required to advance and carry out such agreements make an easy target for hostility and nationalist rabble-rousing. Like Trump, you have indulged your instinct for whipping up resentment and fear to further your own political goals. Uncle James’ work and his sense of purpose was far too great to allow for cynicism. Our families shared common values and concerns and I appreciated his kindness. When he hosted my wedding reception, he drove across London in rush-hour traffic with champagne and apologised profusely when he arrived late. I also admired your mother Charlotte’s artistry, charm and bravery and I am sorry for your loss. I feel so sad watching you dismantling what your grandfather spent a life trying to build. At the Conservative Party Conference, you described human rights lawyers doing their job trying to prevent illegal deportations as “lefty activists” – denigrating the very people who labour to protect our rights. Would you have called your grandfather a lefty human rights activist to his face? Where did you pick up this kind of contempt? This is what I don’t understand: how can you consider policies that limit human rights abroad and increase hardship for immigrants given your own diverse family heritage? One of your great-grandfathers was the controversial Turk, Ali Kemal; and the other – my own grandfather – was a Russian Jew who found a welcome in England and taught classics at Oxford. You seem to enjoy attacking time-honoured government norms; like a child swearing to shock people. You don’t even pretend to be honest, don’t even try to hide the corruption. You seem to harbour a careless, nihilistic pleasure in blowing up the hard-won gains of the past, with the intention of making the rich richer by whittling away everyone else’s rights. In an open letter last October, more than 800 top-level lawyers and judges called on you to cease your attacks on the justice system and the rule of law. Your response has been to egg on your Government to find more ways to weaken the justice system’s ability to monitor the executive. I understand that your fantasy of a simpler, more sovereign, future for Britain may be appealing against the reality of our ever more complex, interrelated world. But retreating into our national silos, as if the planet and its ecosystems are not one living organism we share, will not keep us safer. Better trade deals based only on economic profit will not mitigate the threats of climate change, nuclear proliferation, authoritarianism, pandemics and many millions of refugees. What do you care about? Your breaking of your own Coronavirus rules shows that, not only do you believe that the rules don’t apply to you, but that you and your cronies feel yourselves above them. But disregarding the rules around human rights will have far more damaging and far-reaching consequences for people all over the world. The hard work of creating international agreements around rights and responsibilities desperately needs care, cooperation, patience and tenacity – all qualities you seem neither to possess yourself nor to value in others. The dedication to a sense of common purpose and the law exemplified in the life of your grandfather is more needed than ever – and it is far too easy to destroy in moments what it takes years to build. Sincerely yours, Anneke Campbell
Where did you pick up this kind of contempt? Answer that and it will tell you everything you need to know about the state of the nation today.
Maybe now they'll do what they should have done in the first place. Spend some money (if they don't have to charter planes there should be some free) on sorting out the asylum system so bonafide claimants can be swifty and easilly identified in ther first safe country of arrival and assisted to arrive here legally. When you put too many hurdles in the way, desperate people will risk their lives via unsafe routes. Streamlining and improving the system should also be able to identify those that do not qualify and then can be then informed that they will be immediately returned if they do try and make entry, although it is time to review our entry requirements to ensure labour and skills shortages can be filled. The issue isn't how to return people that arrive through illegal or unsafe channels it's stopping them attempting it, without disuading those that quite rightly deserve to be here. Typical short sighted cheap arse policy atacking the syptoms and not the cause. Pritti needs to go over this but then again she needed to go over the bullying issue as well.
But surely the Rwanda thing is a case of the Government attempting to do exactly what you are saying. The Rwanda threat is not designed to discourage anyone's lawful attempt to get here, it has been stated that it is intended to discourage those who are coming as economic migrants, particularly via improper routes. That is not to say that the system cannot be streamlined, but the hostile environment, introduced by Labour, is a valid ploy to disuade those whose reasons for coming are not based on the urgency of their situation, but on their fickle desire to move to somewhere they will have an easier ride (than France or the EU presumably. The hostile environment was intended to be the fix you seek, I suspect, and the Rwandan threat a way deal with the fact NOT that it isn't working, but because ECHR, International Law, etc. have hobbled every country's ability to do anything but accept everyone who comes over the border, by whatever method. As many have said on here, everyone who comes may claim asylum, and the investigations involved in checking that out are time consuming. Sending those who are suspected of being economic migrants, and who have travelled illegally to get here, to a country where they will be safe IS a method of streamlining the system (for us at least), even if it is as imperfect as every other one available. Take away the idealism driven faux outrage of those who believe every imigrant should be given a home and citizenship, and, all of a sudden, the measures that we are taking, and those being taken by so many other countries, would seem like a reasonable reaction to rampant and uncontrolled migration. The ECHR blocking the deportatons is interesting. They didn't, as far as I can tell, intervene back in 2020 when the EU redirected refugees from Syria into Rwanda, for which they paid the African country many millions of Euros, as we intended to do. Perhaps that was because they didn't set foot on European soil before the redirection occurred. But still, some irony there I think.
This is funny. The ECHR did not stop the EU from moving Syrian refugees to Rwanda a few years ago. I'm going to spread your post on my roses.
Not really, the intention is to process asylum claims in Rwanda iirc. I'm advocating improving the system to ensure the claims are validated before getting here to reduce the numbers attempting illegal entry first. Once that system is fit for purpose then those entering illegally are immediately barred from entry and returned. The priority is to sort the system and entry requirements first.
One of the most odious parts of this policy is that they may be having their asylum claims assessed in Rwanda but, if successful, it only means they get to stay in Rwanda. There is no return to the UK option. Either they will be deported from Rwanda to their country of origin or granted leave to stay in Rwanda. Basically we are paying a poorer nation to deal with our international obligations to refugees. It's disgusting on so many levels. I agree that the system is the problem. There should be a legal way for refugees to apply overseas rather than require them to present themselves to "UK authorities" upon arrival in the UK. France has already offered to provide the facilities to do this in Calais but we could also open up embassies to receive such claims. And assessments should be made a lot quicker with applicants being allowed to work, while the assessments are made, for those that are claiming asylum in the UK.
No. That is what I thought at first, but the intention is actually to place them in a safe environment where the requirements of asylum are met: they do not end up in the UK, they receive asylum. Rwanda will process them more quickly, because the country is actively seeking immigration, and it has a programme for providing training for migrants in areas of industry where it has shortages, particularly IT. From the description, it appears to have a very non-hostile environment. There would be nothing to stop someone who had gone through the process applying to come to the UK after they had established themselves in Rwanda, but it is not part of the process that begins with their deportation.
Only they are not refugees, but must be treated as such until proven otherwise, and the scheme is specifically for people who are arriving in an illegal manner from safe countries and who are obstructive to their processing, in a way that strongly suggests they are economic migrants, because those are the people we wish to discourage. If you can get past that reality, rather than make out Rwanda is the gold standard for all immigration into the UK, you might allow yourself a better view of the truth here. If you don't like the hostile environment, go back to your Labour MP and ask them why they thought it was a good idea. You may find it more acceptible hearing the words from someone whose opinion you are willing to listen to. There is a legal way for people to apply from overseas. There always has been. And if you are in a safe country, like France, there is nothing to stop you applying for it. Why are people suggesting this doesn't exist? The problem for your argument is that you are no longer seeking asylum, nor are you attempting to escape from an unsafe country (like France ). The idea in the above post is incredibly naive, and wholly detached from reality. But is is one that many people hold great store in.
Yup, being able to claim asylum from abroad would be a good step to take. Despite claims to the contrary this is not currently possible to do - the Government themselves confirm this on their website on page 8 of this document: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9000/CBP-9000.pdf
Truly shaming the nation. https://metro.co.uk/2022/06/16/asyl...s-hit-kicked-and-pushed-by-security-16836822/
Yep. You can only claim asylum in a place where asylum can be given, otherwise you are not claiming asylum but seeking permission to travel to another country. What people have to be able to do here is separate their misconceptions of what a refugee is, a person seeking fleeing a country that is hostile to them (whom all the refugee laws apply to), and an illegal migrant who has sought to access a country that is preferable to them for economic reasons. The problem on this forum, for anyone who is trying to deal with the situation, has been that people are refusing to recognise that there is a discernible difference between the two things, and are upset with the Government because it wishes to separate the two, and deal with them in a manner that reflects the sincerity of those who come here. People seem to be saying that migrants fleeing France, due to EU tyranny presumably, should be treated the same as Ukrainian war refugees. Again, it seems like a detachment from reality to achieve an ideological goal. Genuine asylum seekers will receive asylum. Economic chancers should not be lumped in with people in genuine need, and if there is a strong suspicion or proof that they are such, then I do not see any problem with them being sent to a safe country that would welcome them.
Makes yer prahd to be Ingerlish, dunnit? https://www.newyorker.com/news/dail...=owned&utm_source=twitter&mbid=social_twitter
