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plenty of work on farms, cash-in-hand, for example.
That would play right into hands of gangmasters.
Fleecing the markets by speculation for one’s personal gain doesn’t really qualify.
Much as I dislike sunak and have nothing other than contempt for him, there is no evidence to support that assertion.
there must be literally a few hundred people each year who end up fraudulently claiming asylum.
It's not necessarily fraudulent, but there are about 3000 people a year whose asylum claims are denied by the UK. Of course, 90% of those people are not deported.
And at the same time, there is a long, dangerous and exploitative supply chain operating to transfer people to the UK (and other countries, obviously) that doesn't care what your reason for moving is, so long as you have the money. One way or another, thay also should not be allowed to continue.
Meanwhile, Australia's fantastically expensive and dubious turnback 'n' process offshore solution reduced small boat arrivals from 25,000ish pa to more or less zero.
It's all very difficult and morally ambiguous...
Stopping the Boats’ It just seems like so much effort to achieve almost nothing. I mean there must be literally a few hundred people each year who end up fraudulently claiming asylum. There are more important things for me as a voter to be concerned about.
Get with the programme and start being concerned about those small boats like a good British citizen!
That would play right into hands of gangmasters.
To be fair I interpreted our friend's "cash in hand" comment to mean "casual labour, paid by the day" rather than untaxed/illegal work.
And we do have a Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority that's supposed to regulate the market (which I assume is wildly underfunded).
I just can't get over how myopic "stopping the boats" is, its become an obsessive compulsive disorder for the government.
There are so, so many things that need the governments attention. You name it, it's broken. Broken yet totally ignored, not even on the radar.
I really wish the government put this amount of time, money and genuine compulsion into regenerating the NHS, social care and all the other institutions that are on their arse.
But nope. Stop the f****** boats whilst Rome burns.
https://twitter.com/Conservatives/status/17327817534487269
The governments official twitter feed....
That’s not going to help them, frankly
I just take 'Stop The Boats' as now meaning' I'm a racist moron and proud!', it makes dealing with it a whole lot more logical. Still find it strange that the two main proponents of the scheme are themselves from families that aren't from the UK but then nothing is really surprising after the last few years really.
I never expected them to get an 80 seat majority in 2019, but here we are.
No one should be complacent about these slippery bastards, our politically uneducated electorate and the FOTP system
Same here. They have loaded the system over the last 10 years to favour them massively, as they always do whenever they are in power. Even if the predictions of annihilation at the ballot box next time are even half correct they could still stay in, it's all about where those votes are. There's analysis that suggests that the recent boundary changes have managed to change a decent amount of seats from marginally Blue to most likely Blue by cutting out areas that vote Labour/other and including Tory voters. We're talking on a level of particular estates or streets in some places.
There is no way I'm taking anything for granted until Sunak (or whoever is his replacement at the time) walks out of No10 for the last time and the new resident is moved in.
But nope. Stop the f****** boats whilst Rome burns.
The problem is all those other issues they use to have the excuse of the nasty EU and now that is wearing thin.
For asylum seekers they can still blame the nasty EU (well ECHR but lets not let details get in the way) and other international responsibilities.
Far easier than doing their jobs properly.
ash258369
Free Member> https://twitter.com/Conservatives/status/17327817534487269 < The governments official twitter feed….
K-rist. Even a lot of Tory MP's must wonder what the hell they have done to deserve to be in the Tory party these days.
They've taken that tweet down.
They are in a total panic aren't they?
Edit: It reapeared again, then went again! I can almost imagine a drunken punch up going on at a pc keyboard at Tory hq.🙃😁
It's back!
Deleted tweet for me...what did it say?
Stop the f****** boats whilst Rome burns.
In principle, we welcome much-needed foreign firefighting workforce...but they'd better not bring their bastard families with them, and they should only be paid salaries that no employer is willing to pay them. And if they can't do that, then I think we'd rather burn, thankyouverymuch
The governments official twitter feed….
That's not the government's official twitter feed.
so about those Rwanda costs...
https://twitter.com/JasonGroves1/status/1732879076338131099?t=mool8cajL0N3qMw5KGUAgw&s=19
There are so, so many things that need the governments attention. You name it, it’s broken. Broken yet totally ignored, not even on the radar.
Well that is obviously the intention. The only thing people are talking about, politics wise, including on this thread, is ****ing Rwanda. Stuff like this gets largely ignored:
So the strategy is clearly working extremely well. Furthermore any failures by this Tory government over the issue will not be their fault - it will be squarely blamed on leftie lawyers, "foreign" courts, and the Labour Party.
The Tories just need to conjure up an image of Thatcherite determination, the sort that the current leader of the Labour Party admires so much.
And some people actually believe that the Tories are stupid.
Well that is obviously the intention. The only thing people are talking about, politics wise, including on this thread, is **** Rwanda. Stuff like this gets largely ignored:
Nah you are giving them way to much credit.
It does seem to have started that way (if you believe the lying arse cummings) but it has evolved a life of its own where the nutters in the party have latched onto what should have been a distraction tactic.
what should have been a distraction tactic.
And you don't think that it is? Why are we talking about Rwanda instead of the cost of living crisis?
The Tory Party is deeply divided. Partly because faced with economic failure they have become ideologically rudderless, and partly because facing electoral disaster they desperately need to find a rabbit to pull out of the hat.
Rwanda is not the cause of their divisions, but it is a useful distraction. If Tory ministers are getting sacked or resigning it is because the ship is sinking.
Without Rwanda the focus would be on much more dangerous stuff. Things that actually concern voters in a meaningful way.
Sunak could easily have dropped Rwanda when the supreme court threw it out.
I don’t think he can drop it… he’s bet everything on “stop the boats” (yes, promising to fix a self created ‘problem’) energising the voters that “get Brexit done” got out for Johnson, and keeping the ERG MPs and New Conservatives MPs of 2019 on side long enough to stay PM to get as far as an election. He has nothing new to offer but reheated “control our borders”, to either the voters or MPs. It’s not going to work for him. Now, he could have transformed the Rwanda policy, which for some bonkers reason he has allowed to remain key to his anti-asylum seeker approach, into something more workable, while still sounding “tough”… but he didn’t have the political creativity to do that… he’s fallen back on “stop the courts” instead. That’s going to get needlessly messy for him. He’s called it wrong.
Sunak could easily have dropped Rwanda when the supreme court threw it out.
No he couldnt since, as we have seen, the nutters (plus possibly some none nutters who see it as the route to power despite the lesson from johnson and brexit) in his party thinks it is a panacea for all ills.
I am not sure which way he would have gone on it but he is unable to drop it easily since a decent part of his party would have included him in their aim as well as the rule of law.
his party thinks it is a panacea for all ills.
Well yeah, I totally agree with that, but precisely because it is a distraction. Not because it will actually solve anything at all, such as the cost of living crises, NHS waiting times, etc. etc.
Bearing in mind that they have nothing much to trumpet about it is not a bad strategy.
The only time he could have dropped it, was when he became PM… but he had one big mistake forced on him at that point (or less charitably he made one huge almighty political cock up)… his choice of Home Secretary, and letting them keep the policy going in the face of legal and practical reality. That was when he could have found a new way to do his anti-asylum tubthumping… he’s let the Rwanda scheme gain a whole new importance now, and can’t be rid of it. As I said, a better political operator would have revised it, but he’s going for the legal battle route… which isn’t going to please anyone… it doesn’t look like it’ll work to many MPs, it’s unconservative to others… and is just messy and unclear to a lot of the public (and still just a cop out of our responsibilities as a country to the rest of us).
He could have dropped the Rwanda policy when the Supreme Court threw it out, by then he had already sacked Braverman and no longer needed to appease her.
He chose not because it serves his purpose. It is the only thing that political pundits are currently talking about. Dropping it would have done him no favours at all.
Unless someone can suggest some?
https://twitter.com/seaninsound/status/1732868493568094695?t=8orCFiNpwMYIax-jqhQmiA&s=19
George Monbiot nails the purpose of the Rwanda policy.
George Monbiot nails the purpose of the Rwanda policy.
Spot on. They can’t offer anything positive. It’s virtueless signalling. It isn’t going to work. I hope.
Dropping it would have done him no favours at all.
He can’t drop it. He’s stood behind lectern after lectern saying “stop the boats” and has allowed the Rwanda nonsense to be the core policy behind that slogan. He’s trapped. He had a golden chance to “improve it”, and this is all he came up with, legal nonsense that just tries to tell the courts, “no, you’re wrong, and we don’t need you anyway”.
I wish I could post on the mail, express etc etc because their tory loving readership dont seem to realize that the Rwanda deal is a two way deal, and however many the UK sends to Rwanda, the same number Rwanda is going to send here. And I'm going to guess its going to be government minsters and their families, associates and business leaders all out for their British passport.
I watched some of QT. In that tweet of George Monbiot above, you can see a few not clapping. Bearing in mind what he is saying and how demonstratably true it is, what utter messes of humanity they must be. Lacking in the most basic of empathy and twisted with prejudice. Beyond redemption and absolutely indicative of anyone that could still bring themselves to vote Tory at this juncture.
George Monbiot nails the purpose of the Rwanda policy.
Absolutely. He very much makes the case that the purpose of the policy is to act as a "distraction", he even uses the word.
It was created as something to focus on, a distraction, it’ll never amount to anything meaningful numbers wise, and is only proposed as a solution to a ‘problem’ of their own making… it’s a waste of money… a symbolic noise about deterrents, borders and foreigners to be heard by those new voters they gained via Brexit… a cruel and yet also unworkable policy… it marks out the vulnerable to be the target of our fears and hate in desperate times… everyone posting here agrees on these things.
Well yeah you can understand why Rishi Sunak supports the policy. He doesn't exactly have many rabbits that he can pull out of the hat before the next general election. Rwanda at least provides a useful distraction, it's what everyone's talking about, even on QT.
Dropping it would leave him up Shit Creek without a paddle. What else would people be talking about?
Edit:
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2023/11/14/30390/2
That ^^ was taken before the Supreme Court ruling so public support has probably dropped slightly since then, but you can see that as a distraction it is unlikely to lose the Tories support. On the other hand focusing on real issues is highly likely to.
Also I suspect that quite a few voters probably fall for the "it's a humane and caring policy to defeat the evil human traffickers" bollocks that some people come out with.
‘Stop the Boats’ is just a dead cat
It’s also a rallying cry. For you know who. Just don’t ask why the boats started.
Kerching!
For the Rwandan government.
Reorted by the torygraph that the UK agreed back in April to pay an additional £100 million to Rwanda but, as that pre-dates both the Supreme Court decision and the treaty announcement, it would appear that it was in support of the previous illegal agreement.
The reporting also refers to a payment of £50 million to be made next year so, doing some maths and using all my fingers and toes, that comes to...£290 million and it won't end there.
Also reported on world service news.
If that's what it costs to get rid of sunak, have a GE and get the tories out it could be argued it's money well spent
the official twitter feed of the governing party then
Should there be a blue tick or whatever it is?
QT was good last night, Dodds put across the Labour view quite well, Monbiot was spot on. Even Hitchens made a good point that our foreign policies and our wars helped drive migration, root cause analysis at last.
Only one self proclaimed Tory voter in the audience said he was in favour of the policy, a couple of Tory voters spoke against it. But a fair few silent Tories didn’t applaud Monbiot, ignore the Shy Tory voters at our peril.
‘Stopping the Boats’ It just seems like so much effort to achieve almost nothing. I mean there must be literally a few hundred people each year who end up fraudulently claiming asylum. There are more important things for me as a voter to be concerned about.
That is because you are not a stupid racist who is a populists dream. If nobody had ever highlighted the boats and massively overplayed the issue then not even those stupid racists would care about it.
Having a campaign based on "Reduce asylum claim processing times" is not going to have the same appeal is it but that is the real problem here.
ignore the Shy Tory voters at our peril.
If you know any, treat them with contempt, maybe try ridiculing them, as facts don't seem to work.
Anyone who feels this is harsh, remember we're spending £290m to send about 200 folk to Rwanda and then get the same number back.
How can ANYONE with a functioning brain be a supporter of this?
How can ANYONE with a functioning brain be a supporter of this?
Because they haven't spent a couple of minutes looking into it, thinking about it etc,. This is where the opposition should be making clear to everyone exactly what it is along the lines of your "we’re spending £290m to send about 200 folk to Rwanda and then get the same number back." and not getting drawn into discussions about human rights laws.
even Tory fanboy & concrete farmer Ferrari is piling in on the floundering government
https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1732686652609319001?t=YoQhlYyddTvH1FZDii03VA&s=19
Concrete guy is Mike Graham.
Concrete guy is Mike Graham.
apologies, they are gentlemen of a similar deportment, but that's no excuse!