the day after the deadline: can the union survive brexit and other deep questions

They can't be separated, especially as things are very likely get worse after Brexit.

This issue is about deportations of people that have resided here for decades. DAG's tweets are cynically linking Home Office behaviour post-hostile environments - policies put in place before the Brexit ref - to the separation of the UK from the European union. Remainer lot mostly don't care about the specifics of the issue that blew up yesterday.

Putting it another way - if we stopped Brexit tomorrow only the immediate threats toward European migrants would stop. Charging people to use the NHS who can't show they have papers to be here would go on.

The separation of the UK from the European Union is also based (in part) on policies put in place before the Brexit ref - the same policies.

Putting it another way - if we stopped Brexit tomorrow only the immediate threats toward European migrants would stop. Charging people to use the NHS who can't show they have papers to be here would go on.

Yes, I agree completely. And?

Remainer lot mostly don't care about the specifics of the issue that blew up yesterday.

Yer man Greene is posting a lot about it for someone who doesn't care - and which tweet was it that's cynically linking the two, just for clarity?

Wait no I found it!

Many will say (and have no doubt already replied to this thread saying) that a sensible and rational UK government, acting in public interest, would not do Brexit.

But the issue is not the ultimate principle, but basic competence.

This is not how Brexit should be done.

/ends

— David Allen Green (@davidallengreen) April 17, 2018

Ah no hang on

These policies were put in place before Brexit but the referendum result was taken by the government as carte blanche to continue and expand them. Ever more draconian measures on migration (and perhaps repatriation in some cases) are one of the main reasons the authoritarian right wanted Brexit so much in the first place.

Agreed that stopping Brexit in and of itself wouldn't make any difference to these cases. However, it does suggest that May and her government have STILL not learned the lessons about why they lost their majority last year.

I am happy to find some common ground, such as the immediate immolation of those responsible for this shit:

“Sometimes the Passport Office would call up, and people would say: ‘I’ll look in the basement,’” the ex-employee said.

After the destruction of the archive, when an individual requested confirmation of an arrival date, staff had to reply stating there was no record of it.

From around 2013 onwards, he said, the number of requests from people from the Caribbean began to increase.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/17/home-office-destroyed-windrush-landing-cards-says-ex-staffer

Those DAG tweets...christ really how can you talk about competence ffs? The Home Office are being thoroughly competent in carrying out Tory policy.

The "But." really sticks in - they are being competent. People are being deported, or denied treatment. Whatever. Its competence.

And dealing with long-term issues is a nonsense. People aren't going to wait. The politics and people behind this have to be fought against and marginalised.

Putting aside, @davidallengreen, the kind of distasteful naked opportunism to use this story to fixate once more on Brexit, I’m not sure you realise that what is happening is a direct result of govt trying to “fix” the Home Office with speedy deportations.

— Congolesa “Fire @Jack” Rice (@judeinlondon2) April 17, 2018

fuuuck

t may home secretary when windrush landing cards destroyed

This ought to be big and mean she is really in the shit now, but that just isn't the way shit goes down these days, she almost seems indestructible at times.

... but but, Corbyn, anti-Semitic mural etc.

MPs have voted 317-256 in favour of a Labour motion to consider Parliament's rights to approve military action by British forces overseas

Source? Reading the government won the vote on the guardian.

sky news

No, that's wrong and you should delete this tweet. MPs voted 317-256 to state that Parliament had fully considered their rights to approve military action. Labour whipped their MPs AGAINST this (effectively to say that it hadn't considered those rights fully), but lost 317-256.

— Oliver Cooper (@OliverCooper) April 17, 2018

ah

You can see the division list here: https://commonsvotes.digiminster.com/Divisions/Download?divisionId=404

Corbyn's motion is "That this House has considered Parliament’s rights in relation to the approval of military action by British Forces overseas." - I'm guessing that it was raised to be voted against?

Yeah the motion is weirdly worded (doubt they expected to win that vote) but it basically means that parliament should get a vote on any military intervention, and that the motion is questioning if this will be required for future action. Labour voting no means they don’t think that due parliamentary scrutiny is being applied. Sorry if unclear, very tired. I don’t see any labour MPs who voted with the government but there are a number of abstentions.

t may home secretary when windrush landing cards destroyed

this makes me sad not just for the obvious current reasons but also with my libraries/archives/museums hat on, destroying records of a significant historical event

(wonder what GDPR means for records like this and all the other official records that family history buffs get v into chasing down. I suppose a govt can get exemptions for most data but church registers etc? this is all hugely off-topic and not something I've thought about for more than 2 seconds btw)

Those DAG tweets...christ really how can you talk about competence ffs? The Home Office are being thoroughly competent in carrying out Tory policy

not to be all Cap'n Save-a-DAG but he did tweet earlier 'The "Windrush affair" is not what happens when a policy works badly, but when a bad policy works' so... yes?

this isn't as bad as saying that Beethoven's 7th is bad music. Might just get away with it!

― calzino, Tuesday, 17 April 2018 13:50 (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lol. Now look I never said this. Quite the opposite in fact. Anyway, back to your reg scheduled

sorry for misrepresenting your post!

https://theukbulletin.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2018-04-17-at-17.56.35.png

angry lol

One year ago today. pic.twitter.com/US3V8hOmHw

— Jim Waterson (@jimwaterson) April 18, 2018

oh it was a stunning move alright

gosh who could have foreseen this

One long-term former employee, who worked for the Home Office for many years in Liverpool, told the Guardian there had been a stark change among immigration staff‘s behaviour following Theresa May’s announcement of “hostile environment” immigration regulations when she was home secretary.

“The introduction of the hostile environment policy meant the mentality was: ‘I’m going to say no, unless you can prove me wrong.’ Whereas before we’d been a lot more lenient towards the Commonwealth immigrants. We had no problem about going after everyone else, but the Commonwealth immigrants had always been a different kettle of fish,” said the official, who asked not to be named.

“That changed about five or six years ago with the hostile environment. Some of the immigration people welcomed it. There was a ’gotcha attitude’ – some people enjoyed it; I didn’t like that.”

“There were some people who enjoyed saying: I’ve caught you, you are illegal. But they weren’t illegal at all. I’ve got no issue with people getting rid of illegal immigrants but the Jamaican and Trinidadians – these are Commonwealth people, who were British subjects or citizens of the UK and colonies before their countries became independent.”

I've even seen people who are casually Islamophobic getting angry about this, May is taking hits.

Pretty sad to see her still holding on a year after the aforementioned debacle tbh

Mark S last december:

three things in may's medium-term survival's favour:

1: the structure the EU has kindly provided (stage 1: talks abt talks, stage 2: details) does allow her to kick the can a little down the road re the stuff foster (and others) want to lose their shit abt -- she can say "plz to not lose yr shit until we reach the stage where it's relevant" by which time enough other things may be in place to mollify key pressure groups (e.g. not sure they have an actual pressure point to lose their right-now shit at: parliament doesn't have to vote for us to go through to stage 2, and the vetoes all happen at the end) (a threatened veto can distort a negotiation but actually it needn't in the diplomats on point keep their heads)
2: no one faction or party can bring her down and the anti-may coalition is surprisingly hard to configure
3: LITERALLY NO ONE ELSE WANTS THIS CHALICE IT IS VERY VERY POISONED

caveat: "politics, dead boy, politics" (in which a week is a long time iirc)

two and three still pretty strong, I reckon.

lol again at the dead boy typo

https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/asc-triple-brexitcoup.jpg

l-r

some of the Mark S ilx posts have been more incisive and prescient on May than most of these fools who have been paid to write.

There’s a double whammy effect - some immigration officers definitely have that attitude but the cuts have also played a huge part. Case officers are so overloaded they can’t keep up with paperwork and can’t provide much assistance to anyone with issues. There’s a target-led culture, too. You often need to deal with X number of cases per day, etc.

The combined effect, against a backdrop of laws and procedures that have been deliberately over-complicated to catch people out, means that valid cases get rejected on minor technicalities like missing data or incorrectly filled forms - often because it’s quicker to say no than to work through problems. There is also a strong suspicion that a lot of officials are too busy to read casework properly / at all, before taking decisions.xps

Said dead boy is possibly the thing that's changed as regards mark's point 2, if only because he's risen out of the pack for next tory leader.

https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2018/04/rees-mogg-tops-our-next-tory-leader-survey-for-the-third-month-running.html

pictured: jacob rees-mogg attempting to pick his way through the brexit maze towards leadership, yesterday

http://pop-verse.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/STK635316.jpg

My experience going through the system with my wife was that you very rarely deal with the actual home office staff, VFS Global dealt with the whole process in their usual opaque, unaccountable way. Probably different for the Windrush people as they are in the UK already mostly, but worth noting at least that the face of the arbitrary cutting is mostly done by an outsourced company.

some of the Mark S ilx posts have been more incisive and prescient on May than most of these fools who have been paid to write.
Otm!

Coming late to pmqs, but see Corbyn’s first question is about Albert Thompson, whose case he raised last month and who May said she didn’t know about. Lots of heckling already. Looks incredibly tense. Bercow having to quiet the chamber (with his robe hanging half off his shoulder).

not to be all Cap'n Save-a-DAG but he did tweet earlier 'The "Windrush affair" is not what happens when a policy works badly, but when a bad policy works' so... yes?

― a passing spacecadet, Tuesday, 17 April 2018 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ok, don't follow DAG - someone I follow faved those tweets.

glad pmqs is back to focusing on the real issues

Iain Duncan Smith, a Conservative, asks May if she agrees that all parties should kick out antisemites and apologists for antisemites.

May says she agrees. It is very important for parties show a clear signal that antisemitism will not be tolerated.

She pays tribute to the Labour MPs who spoke out in last night’s debate about the antisemitic abuse they had suffered. That was a fine example of what parliament is for, she says.

Bitter lol at May having scored this bullseye:

If Corbyn wants to question what is being done about illegal immigration, he should question Yvette Cooper, the former shadow home secretary, who said in 2013 tougher action was needed to deal with illegal immigration.

Imagine if she was leader now.

She’d be PM according to some people. Being slightly to the left of the Tories working so well in 2015 and all...

i could look at this all day

a more innocent time

https://secure.i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03390/labour-leadership-_3390756b.jpg

I wouldn't even bother voting again if Yvette "ATOS" Cooper was LoTO.

Whatever happened to the landing card archive in 2010 was down to the government at the time - tons of Labour initiatives bit the dust the second the Coalition took over, such as EMA.

You may be able to claim Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) if you’re studying in Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales. EMA is now closed in England.

the not so UK

This DISunited kingdom

Those percentages aren't the actual results are they? Sure Corbyn got more than 50% on first preferences