Tag Archives: bill

Never mind the Budget: you’ll be paying a lot more in April with less cash

Energy bills could fall below £2,000 – but remember they’ll still be ‘considerably more’ than before

By now we’re all aware that energy bills are likely to fall below £2,000 by July – right?

But households are still likely to struggle with payments because that’s still one-third more than what we were paying before the war between Russia and Ukraine.

The Mirror is reporting information from investment bank Investec, stating that

a typical energy bill will drop to £1,981 in July, then £1,966 in October – this is down from £2,500 paid now under the Energy Price Guarantee.

But the article continued:

Investec analyst Martin Young said anything that lowers bills was welcome but added “it does not disguise that these estimates are still considerably higher than historic levels.”

For context, the Ofgem price cap in August 2021 was £1,277 a year.

These are expensive times.

In most cases, the extra expense has been caused by Tory government policies that either stupiIsdly gave away cheaper ways of obtaining products or imposed more bureaucracy on the ways that exist.

That doesn’t help ordinary people who are hostages to the energy firms and have to find the cash to pay their bills or be cut off.

But here’s a question: if energy bills can come down, then why can’t the price of groceries?

What is it that keeps the price of some goods higher than others? Is it greed?

Source: Energy bills could fall below £2,000 – but households will still pay ‘considerably more’ – Mirror Online

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Illegal Migration Bill returns to Parliament – and Braverman badmouths migrants AGAIN

Suella Braverman: this barrister seems to have a highly tenuous grasp on the difference between what is legal and what isn’t.

Suella Braverman went straight back to her ‘1930s Germany’ rhetoric when she reintroduced her Illegal – and that’s exactly the right word for it! – Migration Bill to Parliament.

She claimed she had been the subject of “grotesque slurs” just for saying “simple truths about the impact of unlimited and illegal migration” – but failed to clarify that the amount of illegal migration into the UK has skyrocketed because Conservative government policy allowed it.

She added that she would not be put off by “out of touch lefties”. Was this a reference to the

activist blob of left wing lawyers, civil servants and the Labour Party

who she (allegedly) claimed had blocked the Tories from stopping illegal migration without changing their laws in an email for which her part chairman, Greg Hands, has been forced to apologise?

Claims that government policies are bigoted are “irresponsible”, she said. In the middle of that comment, she added that these policies are backed by the majority of British people. Are they? Are they really? Do these people know that it is Tory government policies that have created the explosion of illegal migration into the UK? Do they know that the last Labour government was able to send back more illegal migrants in a year than the Tories are complaining about now? Do they know that the reason this can’t happen today is that Boris Johnson deliberately made sure there was no “returns” agreement with the European Union in his Brexit deal?

She returned to her tactic of “othering” the Channel migrants with this sickening slur:

Suella Braverman says police chiefs have told her "that drug supply… is now connected to people who came here on small boats illegally" pic.twitter.com/62XtYBhb70

— Haggis_UK 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 (@Haggis_UK) March 13, 2023

That’s ‘1930s Germany’ rhetoric, right there.

She falsely claimed that Opposition MPs don’t have a plan to stop small boat crossings – and that in practise they favour open borders.

The obvious flaw in that is the fact that the last Labour government sent back more illegal migrants in a single year than the Tories are complaining about receiving now.

Here’s part of what Braverman said:

Labour won't stop the boats.

Tonight, they are trying to block our laws – standing against the will of the British people. pic.twitter.com/V1TS8fOiSV

— Conservatives (@Conservatives) March 13, 2023

Just for information, Labour – at least – does have a plan to end Channel migration. Here it is:

Labour would deal with the Tory-made small boats crisis by:

– Negotiating returns deal with EU
– Cracking down on criminal gangs by boosting police and security forces
– Having well managed safe & legal routes
– Clearing the asylum backlog@UKLabour pic.twitter.com/fgaiKpmwn3

— Stephen Kinnock (@SKinnock) March 7, 2023

Braverman also mentioned her “world-leading” agreement to house a few hundred illegal migrants in Rwanda (out of more than 46,000 this year, so far). Here’s what she said:

Suella Braverman – "We all know what the opposition would do with our world leading agreement with Rwanda, they would scrap it" 👍 pic.twitter.com/f2ywKmZKGQ

— Haggis_UK 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 (@Haggis_UK) March 13, 2023

And they would be quite right to do so. It would not even scratch the surface of the problem.

Indeed, it might even endanger some of the people sent there.

But when the SNP’s Joanna Cherry said gay and trans people were not protected by anti-discrimination laws in Rwanda and asked Braverman if she thought it was a safe country, scuttled to hide behind a court judgment that may not be entirely relevant. Saying the Rwanda deal had been approved by the courts is hardly saying gay and trans people are safe.

Perhaps Braverman has a special hate in her heart for such people?

Some might say, at least she has promised not to detain and remove unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. But the fact is that they would go to local authorities for care, and many of them would subsequently disappear into a life of – well, who knows? Slavery, possibly. So it may be argued that Braverman has a special hate in her heart for them, as well.

Underpinning all of this is the possibility that the Bill is illegal under international human rights law.

Labour’s Clive Lewis tried to torpedo the debate before it started, by pointing this out – along with the possible threat to our own human rights that this Tory law exemplifies:

I interrupted Suella Braverman's Anti-Refugee Bill speech because it is a complete sham.

The first page admits it is likely illegal under human rights law.

This is as much about picking a fight with the courts to undo all of OUR human rights, as it is about attacking refugees. pic.twitter.com/lXaKJipelL

— Clive Lewis MP (@labourlewis) March 13, 2023

Well, Deputy Speaker Nigel Evans might not be able to rule on this but we have other sources on which to draw.

Here’s Peter Stefanovic:

Home Secretary Suella Braverman says the Government’s Illegal Migration Bill does not break the law

Thats absolute boll**** and she knows it
pic.twitter.com/f8uh04XmjN

— Peter Stefanovic (@PeterStefanovi2) March 9, 2023

So the Illegal Migration Bill is itself illegal; it discriminates against anybody coming into the UK by routes that the Tory government has criminalised, and may put unaccompanied children, gay and trans people in immediate danger.

And the Conservatives used their massive Parliamentary majority – given them at the 2019 general election – to defeat an attempt to block the bill.

It will therefore proceed through Parliament as though it has every right to do so – which it hasn’t.

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Labour leader Keir Starmer backpedals over GaryGate (VIDEO ARTICLE)

After days in which Labour politicians have lambasted BBC Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker for publishing entirely reasonable comments about the Tory Illegal Migration Bill on Twitter, party leader Keir Starmer has changed course radically.

Mr Lineker said the rhetoric used by Home Secretary Suella Braverman was similar to that of Germany in the 1930s.

He has since been shown to be right.

There is no stipulation in his BBC contract to suggest that he, as a sports presenter, should not be allowed to discuss politics on his own personal Twitter feed.

But Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper had this to say about it when she was interviewed on LBC, after the row initially broke out…

Contrast her words with Keir Starmer’s comment, after the BBC suspended Mr Lineker from presenting Match of the Day, prompting a huge walkout by his fellow sports presenters that critically hampered the Corporation’s sports coverage and brought its decision-making into question.

This was just bandwagon-jumping by Starmer.

He saw an opportunity to hammer the BBC for pandering to Conservatives and he took it – never mind the fact that he was speaking in opposition to his own shadow ministers.

With acknowledgement of the video work by:

Jonathan Pie – https://youtu.be/jXqVGtxFppQ

Kernow Damo – https://youtu.be/eedogABKFec

Also LBC and the BBC.

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BBC besieged – over support for TORIES

“Blatantly Backing Conservatives”: the malady seems to have spread from BBC news and is now affecting all its departments. But can the Corporation bow to public demand and restore its tattered claim to impartiality?

Who would have thought that one little tweet would rock the world’s biggest public service broadcaster to its foundations?

That’s what Gary Lineker seems to have done with this message:

He was referring, of course, to the language used by Suella Braverman when she introduced her silly Illegal Migration Bill to Parliament last week – and he was right.

Subsequently, we learned that the measures in the Bill, and the language around it, would be more appropriately compared to the UK’s own treatment of Jews fleeing Nazi Germany in the 1930s – politicians of that time sent more than half a million back to Europe where an unknown number ended up being killed in extermination camps as part of the Holocaust.

Everybody should think very hard about that – and about the way politicians in both the Conservative Party and Labour condemned Mr Lineker and denied that the current Bill, or the way it was described, bore any resemblance to what happened in the 1930s.

The BBC reacted to Tory pressure the way it usually does – it caved in.

Mr Lineker was removed from his position as host of Match of the Day – and the Corporation lied about the circumstances. First we were told he was “stepping back” voluntarily until he could reach an agreement with the BBC over how he conducts himself on a social media account that is nothing to do with his employment and over which his employers should have no influence at all. Then we found out that he had been forced out.

And then the effluent hit the air conditioner.

Mr Lineker’s co-presenters on MOTD walked out in solidarity with him and everyone asked to be a possible stand-in host refused on principle.

Now, we are learning that sports coverage at the Beeb is suffering even more:

Presenters, pundits, commentators, players and another BBC football shows pulled….am sure no-one at BBC had any idea the decision to take Lineker off air would escalate as quickly or dramatically like this. And when crises do blow up like this, climb-downs become even harder…. https://t.co/BfyD9wHkwG

— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) March 11, 2023

And the backlash has spread into other parts of the BBC.

Question Time, which actually discussed both the Illegal Migration Bill and Mr Lineker’s tweet about it, has come under fire after host Fiona Bruce played down the significance of Stanley Johnson beating his wife, in a discussion of his son Boris’s nomination of that man for a knighthood.

Here’s what she said (with apologies for the strong language used by the person tweeting it):

Oh my fucking god pic.twitter.com/ZQMUbQVWAS

— 𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗔 (@agirlcalledlina) March 9, 2023

The charity Refuge, which supports women and children who are victims of domestic abuse – and for whom Ms Bruce is an ambassador, made its position abundantly clear:

“Domestic abuse is never a ‘one off’, it is a pattern of behaviour that can manifest in a number of ways, including physical abuse. Domestic abuse is never acceptable.”

In a parallel with the BBC’s treatment of Mr Lineker, the charity said it had also been in talks with Ms Bruce: “She is appalled that any of her words have been understood as her minimising domestic violence. We know she is deeply upset that this has been triggering for survivors.

“Like the host of any BBC programme, when serious on-air allegations are made about someone, Fiona is obliged to put forward a right of reply from that person or their representatives, and that was what happened last night. These are not in any way Fiona’s own views about the situation.

“Fiona is deeply sorry that last night’s programme has distressed survivors of domestic abuse. Refuge stands by her and all survivors today.”

Sadly, the BBC did not see fit to support the charity’s assertion that Ms Bruce was “appalled” and “deeply sorry” for “triggering” and having “distressed” survivors.

Instead, it merely defended what happened on the programme: “When serious allegations are made on air against people or organisations, it is the job of BBC presenters to ensure that the context of those allegations – and any right of reply from the person or organisation – is given to the audience, and this is what Fiona Bruce was doing last night. She was not expressing any personal opinion about the situation.”

Not good enough.

A BBC decision not to broadcast an episode of Sir David Attenborough’s new series Wild Isles for fear that its its themes of the destruction of nature would risk a backlash from Tory politicians and the right wing press has provoked a huge backlash – not just from environmental groups but, again, from within the Corporation itself.

The sixth episode will appear only on BBC iPlayer. All six episodes were narrated by Attenborough, and made by the production company Silverback Films, which was responsible for previous series including Our Planet.

Chris Packham, presenter of Springwatch, told The Guardian: “At this time, in our fight to save the world’s biodiversity, it is irresponsible not to put that at the forefront of wildlife broadcasting.”

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas said: “For the BBC to censor of one of the nation’s most informed and trusted voices on the nature and climate emergencies is nothing short of an unforgivable dereliction of its duty to public service broadcasting. This government has taken a wrecking ball to our environment – putting over 1,700 pieces of environmental legislation at risk, setting an air pollution target which is a decade too late, and neglecting the scandal of our sewage-filled waterways – which cannot go unexamined and unchallenged by the public.”

The Guardian added that “senior sources at the BBC [said] that the decision not to show the sixth episode was made to fend off potential critique from the political right.

Again, the BBC’s response was cowardly. The broadcaster claimed the six-part series was only ever intended to have five episodes: “Wild Isles is – and always was – a five part series and does not shy away from environmental content. We have acquired a separate film for iPlayer from the RSPB and WWF and Silverback Films about people working to preserve and restore the biodiversity of the British Isles.”

If this sixth film is part of a package of such films – a series, if you will – all made by the same organisations and narrated by the same person, and all to be available together on iPlayer, then it seems clear that it is an episode of that series and the BBC is again being economical with the truth.

This behaviour – and the decision over Mr Lineker – drew the following comment from economist Richard Murphy;

So, this afternoon the BBC gives in to fascists over Gary Lineker’s support for asylum seekers and on David Attenborough’s desire to highlight the impact of climate change. Fascism isn’t a threat. It is happening here and now, with the BBC enabling it.

— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) March 10, 2023

He’s right, isn’t he?

Finally (for now), the BBC has faced a backlash against its continued employment of Lord Sugar on The Apprentice, whose own political tweets – particularly attacking former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn – have gone unquestioned by the Corporation.

Here’s an example:

#AlanSugar tweeted THIS & wasn’t stood down from his #BBC role. It clearly referenced the 1930’s & it is clearly political.
There are double standard at play here. 😡 #IStandWithGaryLinekar pic.twitter.com/E4jy8NgG6P

— John Clarke (@JohnClarke1960) March 11, 2023

Mr Corbyn found an unlikely defender – on a BBC news programme – in Alastair Campbell. And the former New Labour press secretary didn’t pull his punches when referring to any of the scandals mentioned above:

Finally some honesty about the disgusting treatment Jeremy Corbyn received from figures at the BBC. And it’s coming from…Alistair Campbell. pic.twitter.com/sBhNOMFrIL

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) March 10, 2023

I’m aware that Campbell himself is a controversial figure but he’s absolutely right here.

The BBC is in serious trouble over these politically-motivated decisions. Its claim of political impartiality lies in tatters.

The only way out is to apologise and reform.

But, as Beth Rigby stated above, when crises blow up like this, climbdowns become very hard to do.

What next?

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Question Time audience member explains Tory immigration policy

Who is this audience member from the BBC’s Question Time on March 9, 2023?

He explained the reasons behind the Conservative government’s Illegal Migration Bill in highly perceptive terms; anybody could see the truth behind his words:

Someone should sign him up for their political party and get him to contest a Parliamentary seat at the next election.

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Immigration/Nazis: read history more carefully, says Cleverly – and so he should

James Cleverly: has he ever read a history book – or, indeed, any book at all?

Look at the state of this:

Nick Ferrari: For those that say the illegal migration bill is cruel, inhumane & has echoes of Nazi Germany of the 30s… how would you respond?

James Cleverly: Some people want attention by using offensive language… they should read their history books more carefully#LBC pic.twitter.com/y85kg8Om6O

— Haggis_UK 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 (@Haggis_UK) March 10, 2023

He’s right and wrong at the same time.

People should indeed read their history books more carefully – he’s right on that! – but if they do, they’ll find that the UK is not – historically – a welcoming country.

See for yourself:

Amidst all the "small boats" chat yesterday I randomly came across this image: British police try to deport Oskar Goldberg, a Jewish refugee from Czechoslovakia, in March 1939.

Goldberg was eventually allowed to stay, but tried in vain to obtain visas for his family. pic.twitter.com/mItXM7tKde

— George Bodie (@george_bodie) March 8, 2023

Louise London has shown that roughly 80,000 Jews were granted refuge in the UK by September 1939. At least half a million, probably significantly more, had sought it unsuccessfully: "escape to Britain was an exception for a lucky few; exclusion was the fate of the majority."

— George Bodie (@george_bodie) March 8, 2023

AFAIK no one has tried to work out how many people who were denied refuge in the UK died in the Holocaust. But the cruelty of the small boats bill is probably best understood as the latest episode in this island's long history of cowardice and callousness toward refugees

— George Bodie (@george_bodie) March 8, 2023

So half a million Jewish people were denied entry into the United Kingdom in the 1930s, despite the obvious cruelty of the Nazi regime in Germany – including Oskar Goldberg’s family who died at Auschwitz as part of the Nazi Holocaust.

And – how convenient! – nobody knows how many of the others, who were turned down or turned away, also died in the Nazi Holocaust.

And now Suella Braverman – with the support of the rest of the Tory government including Cleverly – wants to turn away similar numbers of refugees, behind a smokescreen that she is foiling “criminal gangs”.

How many of them will suffer and die on foreign soil, after being denied safety here? How can anyone with a conscience look at the UK’s own history and support this inhumane and internationally illegal policy?

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Never mind the Nazis – do you know what the BRITISH were saying about immigrants in the 1930s?

Gary Lineker: he opened a debate on Channel migrants by highlighting similarities with Nazi Germany – but our politicians’ speeches have far more in common with BRITISH MPs of the 1930s.

Tory chameleon Grant Shapps (as he styles himself today) has been quick to jump into the controversy around Gary Lineker.

Mr Lineker compared Tory rhetoric about asylum-seekers – who come across the Channel in small boats because the UK’s current government has closed off all their legal routes to seek sanctuary here – with that of the Nazis in 1930s Germany.

Here’s what Shapps had to say about that:

As a Jewish Cabinet minister I need no lessons about 1930s Germany from @GaryLineker. Like Gary, I am hosting refugees in my own home, but unlike Gary, I do not believe it is either right or moral to tolerate criminal gangs trafficking vulnerable people across the channel.

— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) March 8, 2023

Of course the obvious answer to this is to point out that his colleague, Home Secretary Suella ‘De Vil’ Braverman, isn’t targeting the “criminal gangs” at all; she’s persecuting the “vulnerable people” instead. And Shapps is fine with that.

The less obvious answer is to point out that, as a Jewish Cabinet minister, Shapps should be more concerned about the similarity of Braverman’s language to that of UK politicians in the 1930s.

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And feel free to comment!

Here’s Professor Tim Wilson to explain:

When Nazi Germany was persecuting Jews, the UK government “ramped up” laws to prevent adult Jewish people from coming here.

The Kindertransport initiative was laudable, but we should not let it mask the fact that the UK turned its back on those children’s parents and left them to be transported to extermination camps.

The EU and UN conventions on human rights, both of which were created in the 1950s, were set up in acknowledgement of our – and other countries’ – failure to do the right thing.

And now Braverman is turning her back on those conventions because she wants vulnerable people who are fleeing persecution to suffer. It’s the 1930s all over again.

Here’s an example of 1930s rhetoric, pulled at random from Twitter:

What people conveniently forget is that before the war the UK closed it's borders to Jews trying to flee the Nazi terror.
There was the same kind of rhetoric then, from the very same newspapers. pic.twitter.com/50RvVRiDdX

— Malcolm Mair (@Fruich) March 9, 2023

“The way stateless Jews from Germany are pouring in from every port of this country is becoming an outrage. I intend to enforce the law to the fullest.” Was it an “invasion”, of the kind recently described by Braverman?

Sadly the UK’s main opposition party – Labour – is standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Tories on this issue. In an LBC radio interview, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said Gary Lineker was wrong to make his comparison with the 1930s:

Yvette Cooper thinks Gary Lineker was wrong to compare the Government's dehumanising language to that used by Germany in the 30's. Even though a Holocaust survivor confronted Suella Braverman pointed out the same thing.pic.twitter.com/oYW0IiuHHW

— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) March 8, 2023

Perhaps she was covering for her boss, Keir Starmer, whose words in Prime Minister’s Questions harked back to the UK’s political rhetoric of the 1930s:

I’d missed this. I didn’t think so could be shocked by anything @Keir_Starmer said or did, but he said, “They sit in hotels and digs for months on end at taxpayers’ expense.” Think about that, in the context of far-right attacks & racism vs asylum seekers. pic.twitter.com/NyIeuRDuio

— Ben Sellers (@MrBenSellers) March 9, 2023

During the same exchange, Starmer equated Channel migrants with rapists:

Sorry, but what is Keir Starmer doing here other than equating migrants with rapists in the public mind, unintentionally or otherwise? https://t.co/HcifXGe0k5

— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) March 8, 2023

We should be thanking Mr Lineker for raising the issue of inhumane policies directed at people who are too vulnerable to resist.

But it is clear that we didn’t have to look as far as Nazi Germany to find parallels with the 1930s. Both the government and its opposition are parroting British racists of that time.

They shame us all.

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Gary Lineker has no reason to apologise. The Tory Immigration Bill is Nazi-style immoral

Gary Lineker: once again, his compassion for others has set him against Establishment rhetoric.

The demonisation of Gary Lineker – for pointing out something that should be obvious and uncontroversial – is disgraceful and the Tories doing it should be shunned.

The European Convention on Human Rights was set up in the early 1950s, and Suella Braverman’s filthy little Illegal Immigration Bill spits on it.

She admits it:

Be afraid Britain.
This is where we are…#Braverman #Sunak #Refugees pic.twitter.com/7t6LM6wqrx

— Judy Hamilton (@secretspartacus) March 8, 2023

The United Nations has also stated that the Bill undermines the “very purpose” of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which “explicitly recognises that refugees may be compelled to enter a country of asylum irregularly.” The statement added: “International law does not require that refugees claim asylum in the first country they reach.”

That convention was introduced in recognition of the failure of neighbouring countries to help refugees from Nazi Germany when they needed it.

In Parliament, Braverman referred to her Bill removing “foreign national rapists, drug dealers and murderers” – and was reprimanded by Labour’s John McDonnell for “inflammatory language” that was putting asylum-seekers and those who represent them “at risk”.

In response to earlier such shenanigans, former footballer and TV presenter Gary Lineker tweeted that the language in which Braverman’s plan was set out was “not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s”. He has a point, it seems.

This is what ⁦@GaryLineker⁩ tweeted. His controversial comment was about the Govts language – but that’s not how it’s being reported.

I don’t agree with his comparison but I absolutely defend his right to say it. pic.twitter.com/rzgeF6JsKd

— Anna Soubry (@Anna_Soubry) March 8, 2023

But of course he faced a backlash. Braverman herself called his words “unhelpful”:

'It's unhelpful to compare our measures to 1930s Germany'

On #BBCBreakfast Home Secretary Suella Braverman criticised Gary Lineker after he tweeted about the Government's asylum policyhttps://t.co/vUlRBwWLG0 pic.twitter.com/ySUULjAa7w

— BBC Breakfast (@BBCBreakfast) March 8, 2023

But of course Mr Lineker wasn’t trying to help her; he thinks her law is rotten. Notice that she appealed to “the British people”, claiming that her law was in line what the people want. Isn’t that exactly the kind of rhetoric that the Nazis used?

Also:

This is staggering. Let’s not beat around the bush. It is about denying the humanity of asylum seekers, and that is a dangerous, slippery path towards the politics of fascism. Sometimes that word just has to be used. https://t.co/0VxbcYWyqp

— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) March 7, 2023

Dehumanising people was exactly what the Nazis did, of course.

And – of course – Braverman cynically inflated the figures on the number of people allegedly trying to come to the UK:

Is there a problem with people illegally crossing the Channel? Yes
Are 100 million people trying to come here? Of course not. The Home Secretary should be utterly ashamed of herself for resorting to the language of extremists https://t.co/32VSvflUzb

— Gavin Barwell (@GavinBarwell) March 7, 2023

This 100m figure is – I would guess – a ref to the UN’s calculation that 100m are fleeing conflict and disaster. But most do not cross a border. 55 million are “internally displaced” – eg Syrians who fled from Aleppo to Idlib. The idea they are all coming to UK is absurd. https://t.co/RrMG9PwADi

— David Miliband (@DMiliband) March 7, 2023

The media debate is big on emotion and small on detail, with other claims added in to boost the failing Tory rhetoric.

For example, on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Susannah Reid had to torpedo a claim that all asylum claims should be refused (75 per cent are valid) and that civil servants were inclined to grant all asylum claims for an easy life (there’s no evidence to support that at all):

Absolute credit to @susannareid100 for injecting some fact checking into the Tory war on refugees. pic.twitter.com/glt7x0hWTt

— Tory Fibs (@ToryFibs) March 8, 2023

The United Nations has provided valuable insight on the facts here. Its refugee agency, the UNHCR, has stated that Home Office data indicates that the “vast majority” of small-boat migrants would be granted refugee protection if the UK considered their claims.

“Branding refugees as undeserving based on mode of arrival distorts these fundamental facts,” the agency added, calling on the government to consider its own “concrete and actionable proposals” as a way to reduce the demand for small-boat crossings.

Underlying all this is the fact that the so-called “war on immigrants” has been manufactured by the Tories in order to give people a bogeyman to fear and revile.

The reason people are coming across to the UK in small boats is simply that Boris Johnson turned his back on the UK’s former “returns” agreement with the European Union, that allowed a Labour government to return 60,000 people in its last year in office. That’s more than the most recently-recorded number of people coming in. Watch:

Jeez. The Home office video of Suella Braverman saying “Enough is enough. We must stop the boats” is almost at 2 million views. Lets make sure the public know it was her Government which created this situation by sharing this as widely as possible https://t.co/kceiWvtn8o

— Peter Stefanovic (@PeterStefanovi2) March 7, 2023

Labour has, at least, recognised that there is an easy way to solve the issue of people crossing the Channel in small boats:

Labour would deal with the Tory-made small boats crisis by:

– Negotiating returns deal with EU
– Cracking down on criminal gangs by boosting police and security forces
– Having well managed safe & legal routes
– Clearing the asylum backlog@UKLabour pic.twitter.com/fgaiKpmwn3

— Stephen Kinnock (@SKinnock) March 7, 2023

Mr Lineker faces a “frank conversation” with his BBC bosses about his criticism of the government, which the Corporation – under its Tory-supporting, Tory-appointed chairman – is claiming contradicts its impartiality rules.

But of course, he was tweeting in a personal capacity.

I am reminded of Rachel Riley’s vigorous campaigning against Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party in the run-up to the 2019 general election.

Her right to do this was not publicly disputed by her employer, the broadcaster Channel 4.

Isn’t it incongruous that she was allowed to undermine a left-winger’s election campaign but Mr Lineker is being reprimanded for passing a reasonable comment on a right-winger’s attack on refugees?

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Public Order Bill: who are the real criminals here?

Clive Lewis: he wants us to know that the Public Order Bill is targeting the innocent and protecting those who should be criminalised.

Clive Lewis makes an excellent point in this Twitter thread.

He calls attention to the fact that the Public Order Bill, increasing restrictions on protest, is returning to Parliament today (March 7).

And he points out that the Bill targets the wrong people – by criminalising protesters against environmental destruction in order to protect those who are responsible for causing it.

Here he is:

1/3 Tomorrow, the Public Order Bill returns to Parliament.

As the government takes steps to introduce increasingly draconian restrictions on protest, we must ask ourselves:

Who are the real criminals here? pic.twitter.com/W0Lf3SJmn6

— Clive Lewis MP (@labourlewis) March 6, 2023

3/3 That’s why this legislation has to be defeated.

We must fundamentally rethink how we view criminality, because the wrong people are being targeted.

Those destroying the planet are the real criminals, and we should have no shame in saying so.

— Clive Lewis MP (@labourlewis) March 6, 2023

He’s right – right?

Maybe there’s nothing to be done about it right now – but we need to remember for the future.

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