Category Archives: Immigration

Is this how Keir Starmer wants to stop you getting the wages you deserve?

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Keir Starmer: he likes to give speeches in industrial settings, claiming to be on the side of workers. But is he actually betraying them by giving employers a way of keep wages low?

The Tories have found a new angle from which to attack Keir Starmer today, claiming he will allow around 100,000 migrants into the UK in return for restoration of a “returns” scheme that would send back those arriving in the UK by non-approved routes.

Here’s Greg Hands:

And here’s Robert Jenrick:

Presumably they’re all at it but I’ve only seen these.

The claim that Starmer is somehow betraying the UK by seeking to negotiate a solution to the channel boat question is undoubtedly good for the Tories. But it is completely daft.

The UK used to have a “returns” policy along the lines suggested by the stories in the Torygraph and Hate Mail but the Tories under Boris Johnson ditched it as part of their childish Brexit. It had worked very well in keeping down the number of people seeking asylum in the UK from abroad.

Not only that, but it has to be remembered that there would not be as many people coming here if the UK had not engaged in numerous adventures in foreign countries that displaced these people in the first place. Whether because of that or domestic issues, they come because they no longer feel safe in their home countries. The solution to that is negotiation with the governments of those countries to restore them to stability.

And it would put a stop to the “criminal gangs” who exploit the people trying to cross the channel into the UK, more effectively than anything the Tories are doing.

So Starmer’s ideas are not beyond reason, as these Tories are painting them.

They are unacceptable to UK employees, though – and here’s the reason.

The country’s labour market is currently stretched to its limit; there simply aren’t enough jobseekers to fill the vacancies available to them. This is partly due to Brexit and the departure of many foreign-born workers back to the European Union.

In such a situation, employees have a stronger hand when negotiating pay deals. If evidence that average pay has increased by 8.5 per cent in the year to summer 2023 is accurate, then someone has been taking advantage of this.

Employers don’t like it. It cuts into their profits (which have been enormous in some cases but they still want it all for themselves).

The Tories have suggested that they would push sick and disabled people to seek jobs, by making the Work Capability Assessment they must take to receive benefits more difficult. The aim is to force a million people onto the jobs market, even though they are actually too infirm to work.

Starmer’s suggested deal with the EU would bring in at least 100,000 people – initially. And they all have to make a living for themselves.

It seems to This Writer that Starmer wants to undercut UK workers’ wage demands by ensuring employers have access to cheap labour from abroad. This is how he is betraying the UK today.

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Tories ‘normalising fascism’ by threatening life imprisonment for ‘coaching’ migrants

Robert Jenrick: he has strange priorities with regard to punishing wrongdoing. Is that because he has done so much wrong himself?

Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick has been roundly condemned over a plan to send lawyers to prison for life if they are deemed to have been “coaching” migrants on how to “abuse the immigration system”.

In a statement to the House of Commons, he said lawyers charged with “assisting unlawful immigration to the UK” could face sentences on a par with or even longer than those convicted for fraud, causing death by dangerous driving or sexually assaulting a child under 13.

The announcement follows a Daily Mail investigation in August that claimed solicitors had agreed to help an undercover journalist posing as an economic migrant submit a false application in exchange for thousands of pounds.

In August, the Ministry of Justice and Home Office jointly introduced the Professional Enablers Taskforce to crackdown on “crooked” immigration lawyers who “coach illegal migrants to lie”.

His statement has led to harsh criticism for Jenrick. Here’s a video clip of him making it, and a comment by Unite’s Howard Beckett that he is “normalising fascism”:

“Not content enough with banning Mickey Mouse paintings from children’s asylum centres, Jenrick now proposes life in prison for lawyers defending human rights,” posted Rosena Allin-Khan – who now has plenty of time for this sort of thing, after Keir Starmer did away with her shadow mental health portfolio.

“This should terrify all of us,” added Peter Stefanovic of the CWU. “When this rotten to the core bunch of truth twisters are not robbing millions of workers of their democratic right to strike & stripping back our right to protest they are preparing to imprison human rights lawyers for life.”

Jolyon Maugham of the Good Law Project injected the prospect of sanity: “More likely that no lawyer will ever be convicted than that a lawyer will be imprisoned for life. Even so. This splenetic fury, these wild threats, speak of what the Tories have become.”

It’s just another day in the office for Jenrick, of course.

His last appearance of any note in the news was in April, when he was banned from driving for six months and fined more than £1,600 after he was caught breaking the speed limit on the M1, following an appearance on the BBC’s Any Questions.

The Tory MP for Newark was recorded driving his Land Rover at 68mph in a temporary 40mph zone on the M1 southbound in Northamptonshire on August 5 last year, after appearing on the radio show at Wakefield Cathedral in West Yorkshire.

He was fined £1,107 and ordered to pay a £442 victim surcharge and £90 in costs, the Courts and Tribunals Service centre said. You can form your own value judgement about the difference between this and the fine penalty he’s slapping on lawyers.

And he’s habitual: In March last year Jenrick was fined £307 and handed three penalty points for breaking a 40mph speed limit on the A40 in west London in August 2021.

Jenrick is best-known for fiddling an inner-London development in order to deprive the local council of a huge fee.

Not only did he override both the local planning authority and the Independent Planning Inspectorate to grant planning permission for Richard Desmond’s controversial Westferry development, despite it having been found not to meet acceptable planning standards…

… but he did it to allow the developer to avoid paying a £45 million levy to Tower Hamlets Council that he had decided should not apply – and then used that as his reason for granting the application.

Text messages between Desmond and Jenrick show the former Express newspaper owner and pornographer pressured the minister to grant planning permission, saying: “We don’t want to give Marxists loads of doe [sic] for nothing!”

Jenrick also broke Covid-19 lockdown rules to travel between his three homes – and then insisted that young people should adhere to restrictions, even though there was no evidence to suggest they did not.

And he corruptly induced a fellow MP to approve a grant for his constituency totalling £237 per person recently – but negotiated Covid-19 support for the people of Manchester down to £7.95 per person.

So it seems, in a comparison between Jenrick and any lawyer he wants to convict, it is the government minister who would appear to be the most crooked.

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Suella Braverman has deliberately endangered a lawyer acting for asylum-seekers

Face of evil? Suella Braverman’s dossier attacking immigration lawyer Jacqueline McKenzie seems to be not only dishonest and illegal, but also racist.

Let’s see if I’ve got this right: the Home Secretary of the United Kingdom has deliberately released a dossier filled with lies in order to get the media to harass an immigration lawyer, thereby putting her in danger. Is that correct?

I refer to a four-page document created by Suella Braverman (or ordered by her), and sent to right wing papers the Telegraph, Mail, Sun and Express.

It contained a series of falsehoods about Jacqueline McKenzie, head of immigration and asylum at the law firm Leigh Day, which she herself described as follows, in an article for The Guardian:

Someone had drawn a diagram linking Keir Starmer to anyone who challenged the Conservatives’ Rwanda plan. There was mention of a case in which I represented a Jamaican man who had lived in the UK from the age of nine and was facing deportation. It said that I was a hired adviser on race to Starmer, when in fact I am an unpaid volunteer on a working group set up by Labour to look at race disparities across a number of indicators, just as the Conservatives did with the Sewell report.

It also “outed” me as a trustee of Detention Action, a well-respected NGO supporting people in immigration detention centres, presumably because the organisation challenged the Rwanda scheme in the courts. The dossier did not mention that I had become a trustee after that challenge. I did represent a man who was one of seven shackled on the tarmac waiting to be flown to Rwanda before the flight was grounded by the courts. I feel no shame: a doctor in the immigration detention centre confirmed that my client displayed signs of being a victim of torture.

A statement in support of Ms McKenzie by her colleagues at Leigh Day points out:

Omitted from the briefing was Jacqueline’s involvement on another group chaired by Priti Patel MP on the Windrush Scandal and the 90% of her work which is focused on legal support for victims of the Windrush Scandal.

Another Guardian report quoted the actual Tory document:

The party’s document, which had the heading, “Revealed: senior Labour advisor is lefty lawyer blocking Rwanda deportations”, sought to highlight McKenzie’s links to the party and her work on immigration cases, she said.

The Tory dossier said: “Just last year, she [McKenzie] helped a Jamaican criminal lodge last-minute appeal to deportation because of his high blood pressure. The foreign-born crook had just served an eight-year prison sentence for kidnapping.

“[Labour leader Keir] Starmer has been keen to distance himself from previous remarks and convince voters that he can be trusted on immigration.

“But his decision to hire lefty lawyer Jacqueline McKenzie is further proof that ‘Sir Softie’ can’t be trusted.”

A spokesperson for the Conservative Party intensified the attack in a comment for the same article, stating:

“It’s no secret that an activist blob of leftwing lawyers, dubious campaign groups and the Labour party are trying to frustrate our efforts to stop the boats and deport more foreign criminals.”

Ms McKenzie has made her opinion on the reasons for the Tory attack on her abundantly clear:

There is no doubt this story was timed to accompany the moving of asylum seekers, many traumatised, on to the Bibby Stockholm. The government attacks vulnerable people and those like myself, who represent them in order to distract from issues that the electorate prioritise: the cost-of-living crisis, the environment and the NHS.

This flagrant attack on me and my work, built on misinformation and mischaracterisation and underpinned by racism and misogyny, is a dark day for our political sphere. It represents a serious slur on the integrity and independence of thousands of hardworking and upstanding lawyers.

I’ve saved the worst for last: The attack on Ms McKenzie has put her in danger, along with those around her:

The hit job on me was vile and self-serving, and put me and those close to me at considerable risk of physical harm. I’m having to take security advice and precautions, such is the seriousness I place on ominous emails I have received.

The Tory dossier was not only full of lies; it deliberately and falsely alleged that Ms McKenzie was politically biased – a claim that has outraged members of the legal profession, not just at Leigh Day but across the UK.

According to the Leigh Day statement,

Lawyers should not be criticised for doing their jobs. People are entitled to have legal representation when faced with removal from the country, or indeed being moved to accommodation which may be unsuitable. Many of the clients represented by Jacqueline’s team have been through trauma, torture or incredible hardship. In a civilised society they should be treated with compassion and understanding as well as having the law applied accurately and fairly to the individual circumstances of their case.

While the work we do as a firm is not always popular we strive to provide access to justice to all whether that is bereaved families who need help finding answers through the inquest process, those who have been seriously injured on our roads, employees who have been discriminated against by their employers and international communities who bear the brunt of multinational corporations wreaking havoc on their local environments. This commitment to access to justice for all extends to those seeking asylum in this country or who need support with their immigration status.

We are proud of the work we do and will not be cowed by a government whose strategy appears to be to attack and demonise lawyers, and the judiciary, merely for working to ensure the laws of this country are upheld.

It is a position that the Law Society, which represents and supports solicitors across England and Wales, and the Bar Council, its counterpart organisation for barristers, fully supports:

Their full statement runs as follows:

“Everyone is entitled to legal representation, and it is a United Nations basic principle that lawyers should not be identified with the causes of their clients as a result of representing them.

“The legal community is gravely concerned by the experience of immigration solicitor Jacqueline McKenzie.

“That is why – as we have said repeatedly – it is wrong to describe lawyers as ‘lefty’ or ‘activist’ simply on the basis of the causes they advocate on behalf of their clients.

“Lawyers who represent their clients are not only doing nothing wrong, they are doing exactly what they are supposed to do in playing their part in ensuring that the rule of law is upheld. Ms McKenzie has been doing exactly what she is supposed to do as an immigration solicitor, acting in the best interests of her clients within the constraints of the law.

“Political leaders know that lawyers represent their clients within the legal framework that parliament creates and CCHQ should seriously reflect on what has happened in this case.

“Language and actions that unfairly undermine confidence in the independence of the legal professions, and potentially risk the safety of lawyers, will ultimately undermine confidence in our entire justice system and the rule of law.”

It seems clear to This Writer that the dossier of lies about Ms McKenzie is part of the “crackdown” on “rogue lawyers” that the Tory government announced earlier this month.

At the time, Justice Secretary Alex Chalk claimed that the aim was to stop a minority of lawyers who were making false claims in order to allow people who should be deported to stay in the UK.

He seemed to be having trouble getting his words out and, if the attack on Ms McKenzie is representative of the Tory plan, this should be unsurprising. It can be hard to present a pack of lies as factual information.

Even then, the Law Society was pointing out the errors in the Tory claims:

So:

The Tories’ claim to be cracking down on a small number of lawyers who are dishonestly and illegally playing the system on behalf of foreigners who should not be in the UK seems to be a cover for an attack on entirely respectable lawyers that is itself dishonest and illegal.

But then, what can we expect from a Home Secretary whose own word cannot be trusted?

One final point that I haven’t mentioned before: Ms McKenzie is black. This Tory “crackdown” on asylum-seekers and those who represent them is not only dishonest and illegal; it is also racist.

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Deporting people from foreign countries is not new – but it shows we are regressing

The Empire Windrush: the people brought to the UK on this ship in 1948, the Chinese deported back to that country two years before, and Afghan asylum-seekers who face death trying to cross the English Channel are all victims of the same primitive racism.

It’s always sad to see proof that a country is evolving backwards – especially when that country is your own.

That’s exactly what This Writer saw, watching an old BBC documentary series called Mixed Britannia.

It showed me that the current fervour for shipping people of foreign extraction who have been re-defined (take careful note of that: re-defined) as “undesirables” out of the UK (destination: anywhere) is a regression to the attitudes of more primitive times.

In the series, the late George Alagiah relates what he describes as the “shameful” episode in which people who were originally from China but had settled in Liverpool, some having married local women, were separated from their families in a night-time raid, thrown onto a ship and sent directly back to their country of origin.

Their labour had previously been welcomed but then it was considered no longer to be needed and racist law-makers dispensed with their services, with extreme prejudice.

Their wives and children were not told the truth about what had happened; they were left to believe they had been deserted by their husbands.

This happened under the otherwise-progressive Labour government of Clement Attlee; it should perhaps serve as a warning to us all that we should be careful not to view history through rose-tinted glasses, or any other distorting prism.

Mr Alagiah went on to show how attitudes had improved over the decades leading to 2011, when Mixed Britannia was made.

Hindsight renders it ironic that he referred to the arrival of the Empire Windrush, packed with passengers from the West Indies who had been promised UK citizenship in return for their help in rebuilding our then-war-torn nation, as a great step forward that happened only a few years later.

Today, the Windrush Scandal is one of the deepest scars on the face of the Conservative administration of 2010 onwards; documentation proving the right of the Windrush generation to live in the UK was deliberately destroyed and people who’d had every right to believe they were UK citizens were forced through a deportation process that was entirely unwarranted, unfair, and illegal. The Tories have yet to make full restitution to those they wronged.

Today we live overlooking the river of blood (to adopt a phrase) that used to be the English Channel – where refugees and asylum-seekers place their lives in the hands of criminal gangs because they have no safe, legal route to claim asylum in the UK; the Tories have closed them all off and say anybody trying to make the crossing is coming here illegally.

Does that include people from Afghanistan who worked as employees of the UK government and its forces there for 20 years after the post- 911 invasion, as implied by this social media post about the people who died or were rescued in the tragedy that happened on August 12:

“Their labour had previously been welcomed but then it was considered no longer to be needed and racist law-makers dispensed with their services, with extreme prejudice.”

It fits, doesn’t it?

Remember: The current Conservative government has deliberately dismantled the UK’s immigration and asylum system in order to make it impossible to properly process people coming to these shores to claim asylum.

They have done this in order to fool you into thinking that our borders are being overrun by foreigners who have no reason to come here.

They believe they need to put a fake enemy in front of you because otherwise you will realise that the only real enemy you have is the current Conservative government.

At the time of writing, Mixed Britannia may be viewed via the BBC iPlayer here.

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Starmer party is too ‘timid’ to challenge far-right claims or offer alternatives. Why?

Starmer and Sunak: perhaps the reason there’s little difference between them and their parties is that they are chasing sponsorship from big business for their own personal gain, rather than doing what the public pays them to do – which is find solutions to the problems being created by the firms they are courting.

Economist Richard Murphy has published a column highlighting concerns that Keir Starmer’s STP (Substitute Tory Party – formerly Labour) is too “timid” to challenge right-wing claims about immigration, climate change or anything else, or to articulate an alternative vision.

He suggests three reasons for this:

Is it that they spent too much time watching Top Gear over the years and now live in fear of that culture?

Could it be that they have a deep-seated insecurity when it comes to standing up to the interests of big business when the latter so clearly want what the country does not?

Or is that they simply do not do ideology-based politics and so go where the money is, with money filling the vacuum where their convictions should be?

It comes down to the same thing. Starmer has decided to do what the Tories always do: chase the cash that comes from big corporate sponsorship for his own personal gain.

The national interest can go hang, as far as he is concerned.

I’m willing to bet we’ll find evidence of this if we have a look around. Or have you found some already?

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Politics: the latest lies from Westminister (the news in tweets, Wednesday, July 26, 2023)

Rishi Sunak: another UK prime minister has been caught lying to the public.

Outrage as Sunak’s claims about the Labour Party and lawyers ‘undermine the rule of law’

Rishi Sunak has disgraced himself and his government again, with a false claim that the Labour Party and “a subset of lawyers” are supporting alleged criminal gangs who are said to be bringing people into the UK from abroad for illegal purposes.

Here’s his claim:

It isn’t true and it has provoked a storm of outrage – particularly as previous falsehoods by Sunak have led to an attempt on one solicitor’s life.

Pamela Fitzpatrick, who is director of Harrow Law Centre, tweeted: “This is completely irresponsible of Sunak. Solicitors are officers of the Court subject to a professional code of conduct. This type of misinformation by Sunak has already led to a far right extremist trying to kill a Harrow immigration Solicitor. It must stop.”

This appears to be a reference to alleged far-right extremist Cavan Medlock, who was accused of trying to murder Harrow immigration solicitor Toufique Hossain because “he objected to the solicitor Hossain’s involvement in preventing the Government from deporting immigrants”.

The alleged attack took place on September 7, 2020. It seems likely to have been provoked by claims such as this, from Sunak’s Tory colleague, then-Home Secretary Priti Patel:

The trial was last reported to be taking place on June 26 this year – but This Writer can find no report of it. News blackout?

Going back to Sunak’s allegation, there is no evidence that the Labour Party – even in its current incarnation as a Substitute Tory Party (STP) – has ever supported people-trafficking by criminal gangs.

And shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock has called for the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority to launch an inquiry into any attempt to help people get into the UK under false pretences, according to the Mirror.

Fellow Labour MP Chris Bryant also condemned Sunak’s claim: “In his desperation he has plumbed a new depth… He debases his office and forgets act as PM of the United Kingdom not seek to sow division.”

And shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry tweeted: “Usually, I try and maintain some sense of respect for the office of the Prime Minister, but it’s just impossible when the man doing the job is willing to demean it like this. What a desperate attempt to deflect from his own dismal failures. Utterly pathetic.”

The Bar Council – the organisation representing all barristers in England and Wales – stated: “The comments by the Prime Minister… are clearly an attempt to play politics with the legal profession. This damaging rhetoric undermines the rule of law, trust in lawyers and confidence in the UK legal system and is to be deplored.”

For the sake of accuracy, the organisation had to also state: “Lawyers are not beyond reproach, and all professions have individuals who commit misconduct and are dishonest. Regulators are there to discipline them.” Sunak is likely to point to this as evidence to support his wafer-thin claim.

It’s not likely to sway thinking members of the public. For example:

“Sunak did not get into politics to make a better world for the people of Britain – only to make more money for himself and his rich friends – and now his grubby inhumanity is exposed for all to see. Better he had never been PM and that his inadequacy had remained his secret,” tweeted science journalist Marcus Chown.

Finally, there is a question over whether Sunak’s government colluded with the Daily Mail on the article, in order to have some kind of “fig leaf” with which to cover its draconian and internationally-illegal new measures against people fleeing persecution in foreign countries.

Here’s another member of the law-practising community that Sunak has attacked:

Zionist origins of BBC reporter who challenged politician on anti-Semitism raise serious question about BBC impartiality

Strange. When This Writer was trained as a journalist, I was taught to be fair and impartial – that is, not to colour my reporting of events with falsehoods.

Now it seems the BBC – the biggest news organisation in the world, if I recall correctly – is employing people with an ideological bias towards the exact opposite.

Samantha Simmonds, the interviewer who reeled off false claims of anti-Semitism against the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, was a member of a Zionist group and may have had an interest in discrediting the former leader and his supporters.

If she allowed her own personal politics to slant her on-air reporting, the BBC should be considering this to be a very serious matter indeed.

Watch her interview again and see how she presented falsehoods as facts and, when countered by former Uxbridge and South Ruislip Labour chair David Williams with the truth, cut him off:

The BBC relies heavily on its reputation as a factual news reporter – and its dominance of the news media means a majority of the public relies on it too.

When one of its representatives is found to be regurgitating untrue propaganda for political ends (Jeremy Corbyn sought a peaceful solution for the Israel/Palestine question, including freedom for Palestine and Zionism demands that all Palestinian territory must become part of Israel, with its inhabitants thrown out), it brings the integrity of the BBC as a whole into question.

Knowing what has happened here, will you be ready to believe BBC reporting on the next big controversy?

If you want to complain, the BBC has a web page telling you how to do so. Feel free to use it.

Keir Starmer claims he’ll give every child ‘the best opportunities’ – after condemning hundreds of thousands to poverty

The propaganda piece accompanying Starmer’s tweet seems to have been created to head off criticism of his decision to keep a quarter of a million children in poverty – and a further 850,000 in deep poverty – by extending the Tory child benefit cap into any Parliament run by a party led by him.

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Why pay more to send migrants to Rwanda if that deterrent goes unreported?

Deterred? If these Channel-crossing migrants don’t know what’s likely to happen to them when they get to the UK, why would they turn back?

The government has admitted it costs more to send migrants who come into the UK by small boats to Rwanda than to keep them here – but wants to maintain the policy as a deterrent.

There’s just one problem:

Do the people coming across the channel in small boats even know that they face that fate?

Nobody seems to ask that question.

These are people who spend weeks or months travelling across the continent – or several. Did they stop to watch TV, listen to the radio, or read the newspapers before deciding to go?

And would those media – in their home countries – even have carried the relevant announcements?

It may well be arrogance to believe that.

But read this:

An economic impact assessment of the Illegal Migration Bill, which is going through Parliament, found a gross cost of £169,000 to relocate an individual.

But the estimated £106,000 spent on housing support if they remained in the UK would be avoided.

The Home Office assessment said no cost would be incurred if an individual was deterred from entering the UK illegally.

However, it said it was “uncertain” what level of deterrence impact the policy would have because the bill was “novel and untested”.

The report estimates the policy would need to deter 37% of people from entering the UK illegally for there to be no cost to the taxpayer.

And, so far, more people have been detected crossing the Channel in boats this year than in any other recent year.

It seems this Tory plan is built on hot air and fantasy.

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Politicians want people with Long Covid to work. Is it another cull of the sick?

Long Covid: to sufferers, it is a huge burden they have to carry every day. Now politicians on both sides of the political fence want to force them to suffer that burden AND go to work as well, so they don’t have to take migrant workers from abroad. It will be a death sentence.

Politicians in both main political parties want to push sick people back into work – but isn’t that an indictment of the UK’s political response to Long Covid?

Let me explain, with the help of Samuel Miller:

You have to look behind the headlines, behind what the mouthpieces are uttering, in order to understand what they really mean.

Here’s an example:

How about this now-deleted tweet from broadcaster Jeremy Vine?

It attracted a strong response:

The document contains details of people who have died or committed suicide as a result of government mistreatment of their sickness benefit claims in attempts to force them back into work.

Looking at the evidence, and based on my own experience of government policy over the last 20 years (Tory and Labour), This Writer is moved to ask:

Are we looking at the beginnings of another politically-motivated cull of the sick?

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Braverman ‘going to ground’ as record migration figures revealed

Suella Braverman: don’t you think she looks worried?

Migration from foreign countries to the UK has soared, with new figures showing 1.2 million people coming to live in the country during the last year.

Net migration – the number of immigrants minus the number of emigrants (either UK citizens or non-citizens) stands at 606,000, according to the statistics released today (May 25, 2023).

It’s a 24 per cent increase on the previous high of 488,000. Embarrassingly for Brexiters Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman, the rise was fuelled by people from outside the EU entering the UK to study, work or escape conflict or oppression.

At the time of writing, Braverman has not commented on the figures – instead, she ran like a rabbit from an urgent question in the House of Commons, leading Shadow Home Secretary to accuse her of going to ground. “What is the point of her?” she asked

Some might say that this was better than the comedy response from Rishi Sunak who, while agreeing the numbers were too high, actually said, “I’m bringing them down.”

Clearly he isn’t!

His government has announced a few new measures, like making it harder for international students to come to the UK by banning them from bringing “dependents”.

This seems to have confused some MPs, who mentioned students’ parents and grandparents in Commons debate. In fact, it means students will be banned from bringing their partners (spouse, husband, wife, civil partner, relationship partner) and children.

Amazingly, this has been welcomed by the Labour Party:

The result will be that foreign students will be discouraged from coming to the UK.

Readers of This Site will be aware that Yr Obdt Servt (that’s me) has been re-watching the old BBC sitcom Yes, Minister lately, and one episode refers to attempts to stop foreign students attending UK universities.

In it, the university authorities squealed like pigs in the mating season, because foreign students paid eight times as much as UK citizens and a ban would create financial difficulties for them.

Is the situation the same today?

If so, what advantage do Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman hope to create for the UK by closing our universities?

Source: ‘What’s the point of her?’: Braverman accused of ‘going to ground’ as record migration figures revealed

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Dehumanising language helped make the Holocaust happen. Why is Suella Braverman using it?

I was going to do an article on this myself, but Maximilien Robespierre got here first:

Elevating this above the normal Tory cock-up is the fact that the Home Office demanded that Freedom from Torture take the video clip down from the social media, saying it was heavily edited and didn’t reflect the full exchange.

Here’s the response:

Do you think the extra material excised from the original video changed what Braverman said, in any way? I don’t!

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/

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