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

Going to school at all is posh imo

iirc you're only posh if you're smart. that also makes you gay.

^ gets it

when i were a lad you left school, went straight down daily telegraph news desk and that was that – and you were lucky to have that!

— joe (@cillanoir) April 21, 2018

This is exceptionally bad and really bleakly is more reactionary than the manifesto at a time when there's an opening. https://t.co/693BF4pnrl

— Tom Gann (@Tom_Gann) April 22, 2018

I didn't watch this painful shit, but it seems like Emily Thornberry thinks Hostile Environment was ok in principle. FFS I thought she was supposed to be one of the good ones.

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/despair.jpg

Ironic that now she needs sacking for shameless pandering to racist white van men

Looked at the transcript and its not as awful. She abstained from the vote on the Immigration act. I think she is useful and can listen so I wouldn't sack just yet, not least because Labour have very little to work with.

Labour and the Tories have gone hand-in-hand with these policies and it will take a long time to de-toxify the politics -- it may not even be possible.

Was she still in the shadow cabinet when this bill went chugging through? There were only 6 Labour MPs who voted against it (but quite a few abstentions).

She abstained from the vote on the Immigration act.

I know.

Was she still in the shadow cabinet when this bill went chugging through?

idk, but given some of her positions it wouldn't surprise if that didn't make much of a difference at that time.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/hidden-manchester-slums-story-squalor-14561374.amp?__twitter_impression=true

this piece in the long tradition of journalists venturing into manchester slums is very grim and gets at part of the reason why the figures for homelessness are such rubbish

When I look at some of those pics it reminds of that twice defeated bill that obligated landlords to make properties fit for human habitation and the massive media outcry when it was defeated.

jesus christ

Sky News has seen a leaked email in which Government whip Mike Freer says the Windrush migrant issue is "absolutely nothing to do" with immigration reforms introduced when Prime Minister Theresa May was Home Secretary

— Sky News Breaking (@SkyNewsBreak) April 22, 2018

lol! this has to be one of the worst "leaked memo" gambits I've ever seen.

"i have a leaked email here that says i am a very special boy"

Also see any use of the word 'admit'

Hudson admitted his save kept his side in the game. His manager admitted that his tactics had proved decisive in progressing to the next round

Guess they are going to use the latest royal baby to sneak out something bad, should keep an eye out but afraid that bbc news will not be bearable for a couple of days.

[redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] soylent green. [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] ISIS [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] communism [redacted] [redacted] execute it!

Oh hold on a moment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCfJ46W6CGg

lol!

straight into ILX's "People of the Year" awards

lmao

I have just received a letter telling me to be “grateful” as a black man for all “we have done for those black people who came to live here” or “go back to where ever you came from”. I was born in the Whittington Hospital the son of Windrush migrants. And I will speak for them. pic.twitter.com/WkCeDpLQPf

— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) April 23, 2018

“Ungrateful” is like two steps away from “uppity”. I really feel for Lammy; he and Abbott get the most disgusting racist messages constantly and nobody gives a shit about it.

weird capitalisation in that letter, almost like they were writing in german

Yeah, who gives a shit right? ohhh. pic.twitter.com/lkMccA1kZP

— Hanna Ines Flint (@HannaFlint) April 23, 2018

(response to Indy's "Woman gives birth to baby boy" headline)

what does that man say on the clip? i can only decipher "black boy"

"the news is .. it's a black boy" Is what I heard.

Lammy wrote to the Prime Minister, of course she's going to write back.

Thinking about this whole scandal, which I don't think it going to disappear any time soon, and the way it feeds back into the Tories' own disastrous election campaign, specifically their treatment of the elderly. 'Work all your life, do everything you're supposed to do, then get fucked by the government when you get old' is just terrible politics because it horrifies people right across the political spectrum.

Apparently there isn't anyone in May's immediate circle of advisors who is able to think like a human being and spot these things in advance b/c they should be really fucking obvious.

I was wondering what arrangements had been made for Windrush deportees before the press scandal began to force some actual measures to rectify this? Like, what happened to state pensions that had been payed into for decades? Were these being forwarded to be payed out in Jamaica? (most of the people I have seen profiled were retirement age or not too far off) Or were you just going to be completely up shit creek: elderly, far from home, and without the entitlements you'd earned....

Also, if UK citizen's right to remain can be so carelessly compromised, what does this say about the UK's trustworthiness regarding pledges it makes to EU nationals living in the UK? What is the effect of displaying this disregard during already crucial and fraught Brexit negotiations? This story has made me feel that living here is far more precarious than I had previously thought. I'm sure this will be good news for the Home Office.

Matt you're right but there's the old school Tory mentality that "we" won't be shocked because "they" aren't "we".

The weight of wicked, ahistorical, ignorant, spiteful bullshit that " we" carries on its back when used to talk about nationality. There's no reaching people like that, like whoever wrote that letter to Lammy. They're already dead. Fuck 'em.

And of course Amber Rudd has now offered them British citizenship *that they already had*, adding insult to injury.

also the "gift" of scrapping citizenship application fees/test for them. WTF!

and the obvious fib that she couldn't find any record of people wrongfully deported yet, did she actually say that?

I saw that and thought I must’ve misread, that there was for some reason an asterisk over their descendents’s citizenship that she was waiving, but nope.

I’m watching BBC Parliament and the reaming of Rudd even by individuals on her own benches is exquisite.

And in answer to your question about pensions, any accrued benefits were forfeited by deportees and some people were even sent bills to repay disability benefits and the like.

Worse for the Tories is that this hasn't gone down well at all with the GBP, even ones who are borderline racist. Some old granny with a Birmingham accent getting deported to Barbados is not a nagl. If it had been immigrants from Pakistan or Bangladesh, it would have been a different matter.

not a nagl? ffs!

Yvette Cooper, the Labour chair of the Commons home affairs committee, says she spoke to someone today turned away by the Home Office because they were from Kenya, not a Windrush migrant.

There is widespread concern that there is cultural disbelief in the Home Office. People there do not accept that there is a link with the net migration target. Will Rudd get rid of that target?

That’s some fine concern from someone who had this to say about the 2014 Act:

Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab): The Home Secretary and the Prime Minister have made a series of claims about immigration and the Bill, many of which do not stack up. They said that there would be action against illegal working, but there is nothing about that in the Bill. The Prime Minister promised action against those who

“deny work opportunities to UK workers.”

Again, there is nothing about that in the Bill. They promised to reduce the “pull factor” for people from the EU. Again, there is nothing in the Bill about that. They promised to

“reclaim our borders and send illegal immigrants home”,

but border control has got worse and fewer people are being returned than ever. They promised—the Prime Minister said “no ifs, no buts”—that net migration would be down to the tens of thousands by the election. It is currently at 176,000 and recent figures show that it has gone up. There has been a lot of rhetoric and a lot of confusion, and people are concerned about immigration.

We know that over many generations, people have come and contributed to this country: they have built our biggest companies, worked in our public services, and become great scientists, Nobel prize winners and even Olympic medal winners. We also know that in a global economy, in which people travel and trade more than ever, pulling up the drawbridge on all migration is not good for Britain.

Stronger controls are needed. Migration needs to be managed and, yes, we should have a proper debate about measures to control immigration, deal with its impact and tackle illegal immigration. Unfortunately, that is not what we have heard from the Home Secretary today.

Also, if UK citizen's right to remain can be so carelessly compromised, what does this say about the UK's trustworthiness regarding pledges it makes to EU nationals living in the UK? What is the effect of displaying this disregard during already crucial and fraught Brexit negotiations? This story has made me feel that living here is far more precarious than I had previously thought. I'm sure this will be good news for the Home Office.

The short message is "no documents - no rights". Realistically, EU nationals will be able to live and work here and the government will, more than likely, keep any promises they make but there'll be layers and layers of additional bureaucracy. Fail to present the right paperwork and expect to be kicked out. It'll be interesting to see if this, in combination with the new voter ID laws being proposed, will mean a return to discussion of national ID cards. It seems slightly incongruous they have been off the table for so long.

they already use lack of passport/driving license ID to disenfranchise poor people from getting benefits, when they pilot Voter ID in the local elections I'm sure they'll declare it a totally successful solution to this non-existent voting fraud problem. Without actually counting how many people have been turned away from polling stations.

You couldn’t make it up! Our esteemed Government chose the week that the ‘hostile environment’ news headlined to start a nurse recruitment drive in the Caribbean to cover the loses of EU nurses deciding to leave the NHS and UK. https://t.co/eoSa9bWMz0

— Declan Hoare (@declan_hoare) April 23, 2018

unfuckingbelievable.

re EU, my wife has a friend from Germany who was married to a British man who died a couple of years ago, she's lived here for over 20 years, is in her 60s and doesn't have any family left in Germany, she is convinced she is going to have to move back to Germany because with her husband dead she has no right to stay here - she has no visa/ILR and won't be able to get one. I'm sure there are many cases like this.

I agree with NV about old school stories, but I suspect Tom D has it right regarding the GBP - I also suspect there’s a glow over the Windrush generation, Desmond and the old characters Lenny Henry played - as well as benefiting from a segment of the GBP who feel ‘okay okay maybe we fucked up, but we did this thing so now it’s okay, right?’

"I also suspect there’s a glow over the Windrush generation"

To many of the GBP they are associated with overproof rum and jolly old good humoured scoundrels that run community barbershops. Not like them Asians who are all evil Muslim extremists of course, so should be fair game for deportation.

Bloody horrible stuff

I noticed May and Rudd seemed to put out some resources like a website etc to help people affected by the Windrush thing. I don't know how useful or helpful those resources really are, and obviously they done that because afraid of looking bad in the media, but, doesn't that really highlight though how the whole immigration business, the whole business of trying to sort out your status or get benefits could be made easy and user-friendly, if they cared.