Tag Archives: boat

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

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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Rishi Sunak hasn’t only failed to beat inflation – his other pledges are broken as well

Rishi Sunak and his priorities: he hasn’t achieved a single one.

Yesterday (Wednesday, June 21, 2023) was not a good day to be Rishi Sunak.

Neither was Monday – but that’s another story.

We knew he failed on inflation because it’s the big headline.

But what about his other targets?

The UK’s debt pile, meanwhile, reached more than 100 per cent of economic output for the first time since 1961 as government borrowing more than doubled in May, according to official figures.

So it did:

It shows up the lie in George Osborne’s evidence to the Covid Inquiry this week, too: Osborne claimed he had needed to repair the “seriously impaired public finances”.

He said: “If we had not had a clear plan to put the public finances on a sustainable path then Britain might have experienced a fiscal crisis, we would not have had the fiscal space to deal with the coronavirus pandemic when it hit,” he said.

But when he became Chancellor in May 2010, the UK’s national debt stood at £1.03 trillion. He promised to eliminate it altogether (which is kindergarten economics; the debt is merely a yardstick of private investment in the UK’s economy) – and today’s figures show the extent of his massive failure.

Okay, how about the small boat Channel crossings?

On Sunday, it was revealed that more than 1,100 people had arrived on small boats in the past three days.

The cumulative number of arrivals in 2023 now stands at a provisional total of 10,472, according to the latest data from the Home Office.

We already know NHS waiting lists are not falling (because health service funding is being siphoned off by private health firms as profit?) and intelligent commentators say the Bank of England’s expected response to the inflation figures will stifle economic growth by sucking all the spare money out of the system.

This is what happens when you let Conservatives get their hands on the workings of government: they clown around like the idiots they are until everything breaks down.

Source: Sunak’s five pledges lie in tatters ahead of next election


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There are better targets for Tories to attack than refugees. Why don’t they?

Channel migrants: Tories like to persecute them because they have no power or influence – unlike tax cheats or the Partygate inquiry.

Here’s today’s top news in a nutshell:

The UK’s Tory government is intensifying its war on innocent refugees with legislation that means anyone arriving here in a small boat will be removed from the UK, banned from future re-entry and unable to apply for British citizenship.

The new law would circumvent refugees’ rights to protection under the UN’s Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights, by applying a “rights brake” – basically, ignoring those internationally-recognised rights.

So the new legislation will turn the UK into a rogue state that denies international law. Here’s a level head to explain it to you:

Leading on from this, there are practical implications:

Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who will introduce the new laws, told the Sun on Sunday “the only route to the UK will be a safe and legal route”.

BBC Breakfast’s Sally Nugent tested that by asking Science, Innovation and Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan what legal routes were available – and the answer was revealing:

So there are no safe routes into the UK for refugees. The claim that they exist is a big lie – otherwise Tory bigwigs like Donelan would be able to reel them off. If they appear on the morning media round, having information like that is their job.

And does anybody believe they are going to open up safe routes?

And of course they won’t admit that – as Nick Reeves tweeted at the top of this article – the primary cause of the skyrocketing small boat crossings is Boris Johnson’s Brexit:

As Peter Stefanovic highlights, the Tories’ failure to address the issue before Brexit is compounded by their reluctance to correct it, fearing it will make them look daft. But all they’re doing is making themselves look dafter – and vindictive with it.

And there are far more pressing concerns that the Tories are ignoring to concentrate on this. Mr Stefanovic mentioned the cost of living crisis, but how about a few others?

Here’s one:

Oh, that’s right. Tax cheats have powerful friends in the media – and are some of them media magnates themselves? So attacking them might have the consequence of bad publicity. Refugees are much easier to attack because they don’t have that kind of whack.

Here’s another – Partygate. Oh, but Tories don’t like that because it attacks their once-golden boy Boris Johnson, doesn’t it?

Consider the way former 10 Downing Street speechwriter Clare Foges tries to brush it under the carpet:

So Tories raving it up together after banning the rest of us from being with our loved ones when they were dying with Covid-19 is not a big deal any more because the one responsible isn’t in that job any more?

It’s arrogant nonsense to expect anybody to believe that. If the Partygate inquiry finds against him, Johnson should be handed proper punishment and it should be harsh.

Refugees who are crossing the Channel to escape persecution certainly don’t deserve punishment for it – but they are exactly the kind of people the Tories like to hurt.

The reason should be clear: Tories are cowards. They only attack people who don’t have the ability to hurt them back.


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Victim of its own success: Banksy-funded migrant rescue boat is itself rescued

A ship funded by Bristol street artist Banksy to rescue migrants in the Mediterranean was so successful that it had to call for help itself after it became too loaded with migrants to move.

The ship, the Louise Michel, ended up with more than 200 traumatised migrants on its deck, meaning it was unsafe to move, while it was in the see near Malta.

The Italian coastguard responded to calls for help and took 49 people, and another rescue ship, Seawatch4, arrived to help as well.

But the ship’s 10-strong crew poured scorn on the lukewarm attitude of most European countries who, they said, had been “ignoring our emergency calls for immediate assistance”.

The Italian coastguard finally responded after the crew warned Maltese and Italian authorities: “Don’t let it become a body count. Do your job. Rescue them.”

It seems the UK’s is not the only European government for whom humanitarian aid is a foreign concept.

Source: Banksy-funded refugee rescue boat in distress helped by Italian coast guard

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