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UK Politics - Put your mask in the bin and hug your granny


john

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6 hours ago, Rippounet said:

A year or two ago, I'd mentioned here the EU rules that allow member states to control immigration, and to what extent.
I think I was talking about DIRECTIVE 2004/38/EC to be specific. Its chapter 6 its entitled "Restrictions on the right of entry and the right of residence on grounds of public policy, public security or public health" and guarantees that "Member States may restrict the freedom of movement and residence of Union citizens and their family members, irrespective of nationality, on grounds of public policy, public security or public health."

The UK never made use of these rules. The UK never even bothered to count and track migrants.

 

Hmm, I'm calling bullshit on this actually, what does it actually mean, and how can it actually be used.

The very next paragraph:

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Expulsion of Union citizens and their family members on grounds of public policy or public security is a measure that can seriously harm persons who, having availed themselves of the rights and freedoms conferred on them by the Treaty, have become genuinely integrated into the host Member State. The scope for such measures should therefore be limited in accordance with the principle of proportionality to take account of the degree of integration of the persons concerned, the length of their residence in the host Member State, their age, state of health, family and economic situation and the links with their country of origin.

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Accordingly, the greater the degree of integration of Union citizens and their family members in the host Member State, the greater the degree of protection against expulsion should be. Only in exceptional circumstances, where there are imperative grounds of public security, should an expulsion measure be taken against Union citizens who have resided for many years in the territory of the host Member State, in particular when they were born and have resided there throughout their life. In addition, such exceptional circumstances should also apply to an expulsion measure taken against minors, in order to protect their links with their family, in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, of 20 November 1989.

This very much does not sound like a country can simply put in place a policy of 'no more immigrants please'. Rather that there is legal procedure for removing residents once they have arrived. It also seems like doing so should be under exceptional circumstances and will likely result in a lengthy and unpleasant court case. Which country wants to go through 300k+ of those a year. Either way, none of this has never been tried and it's theoretical, and is more about trying to find loopholes and wiggle room from a policy which is explicity about the right of EU citizens to live and work wherever they want.


A number of things come up every time someone wants to say that the UK could have controlled it's own immigration. Firstly, they correctly mentioned that Labour jumped too soon in not bothering with the transition period when the eastern european states joined. That was a mistake and probably was the straw that broke the camels back for a lot of people. But I think it's recognised now.

Secondly its that the UK can make people leave if they don't have jobs and aren't self sufficent, but that was never an issue since most EU nationals were coming over to work in either pre arranged jobs or found work incredibly easily, being cheaper and more flexible than UK workers. 

 

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7 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

There are areas in rural Scotland in need of some fresh blood.

Why would immigrants want to go live in rural scotland!? Where are the jobs? Isn't that the point, they go where the jobs are, and they tend to centre on locations where other immigrant communities are. They aren't being shunted anywhere. It's why London has a huge number of immigrants and some field in the backend of Scotland doesn't.

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Boris Johnson: West can be ‘proud’ of Afghanistan legacy

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“If anyone is tempted to say that we have achieved nothing in that country in 20 years, tell them that our armed forces and those of our allies enabled 3.6 million girls to go to school,” the prime minister said. “Tell them that this country, and the Western world, were protected from Al Qaeda in Afghanistan throughout that period. And tell them that we have just mounted the biggest humanitarian airlift in recent history.”

He added: “We can be proud of our armed forces and everything that they have achieved and for the legacy they leave behind.”

Interesting choice of language and messaging.

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9 hours ago, Heartofice said:

No. The purpose was control of immigration. 
 

Since we now have the ability to control our own immigration we could make it easier for HGV drivers to work here. That we aren’t is bad management and a lack of foresight ( even if many of the other factors mentioned have made that lack of foresight a bit more understandable)
 

That is part of the sovereignty and autonomy i mentioned earlier.

I don't think you are being honest about this or understand really how immigration works.

On the first point, if you ask the average Brexit voter, read any of the pro-Brexit campaign literature, read interviews, or are awake, you would be very clear that 'control' immigration was interpreted by all involved as 'reduce'. And indeed, you have accepted that in the past. It very much seems like splitting hairs.

Which brings us to the second point: the government could create an exception for HGV drivers, of course. But so far they haven't. Why is that? Because politically it would be difficult, because their voters feel they were promised reduced immigration.

33 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Why would immigrants want to go live in rural scotland!? Where are the jobs?

Fruit picking, tourism, and other seasonal work. If you've been to rural Scotland in the last twenty years, you'll have encountered quite a lot of East Europeans at certain times of year.

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Just now, mormont said:

I don't think you are being honest about this or understand really how immigration works.

On the first point, if you ask the average Brexit voter, read any of the pro-Brexit campaign literature, read interviews, or are awake, you would be very clear that 'control' immigration was interpreted by all involved as 'reduce'. And indeed, you have accepted that in the past. It very much seems like splitting hairs.

Which brings us to the second point: the government could create an exception for HGV drivers, of course. But so far they haven't. Why is that? Because politically it would be difficult, because their voters feel they were promised reduced immigration.

Fruit picking, tourism, and other seasonal work. If you've been to rural Scotland in the last twenty years, you'll have encountered quite a lot of East Europeans at certain times of year.

It’s you who are being dishonest with your previous comment. Alongside immigration, sovereignty has consistently been the top reason why people voted for Brexit. I don’t think this is new information for you as we’ve been over this a number of times. 
 

The immigration issue was the catalyst that highlighted the lack of control the UK had over its own immigration policy. So while there are people who want to reduce immigration ( which is a perfectly reasonable position), being told repeatedly that it wasn’t possible illustrated the lack of national sovereignty.

And yes, maybe the government should make an exception for HGV drivers now, I agree, the point is now I can blame them for the fuck up and petition them to change the law if I wanted to.

Yeah I think comparing rural Scotland and London’s Eastern European population is bordering on ludicrous, but whatever.

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45 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

It’s you who are being dishonest with your previous comment. Alongside immigration, sovereignty has consistently been the top reason why people voted for Brexit. I don’t think this is new information for you as we’ve been over this a number of times. 
 

The immigration issue was the catalyst that highlighted the lack of control the UK had over its own immigration policy. So while there are people who want to reduce immigration ( which is a perfectly reasonable position), being told repeatedly that it wasn’t possible illustrated the lack of national sovereignty.

 

Sovereignty is merely the cover that most brexit voters use when they don't want to sound racist. 

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1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

It’s you who are being dishonest with your previous comment. Alongside immigration, sovereignty has consistently been the top reason why people voted for Brexit. I don’t think this is new information for you as we’ve been over this a number of times. 

It wasn't new information for me, no, and it's baffling to me why you think it was. My previous comment certainly doesn't suggest that I'm unaware of that, nor is it in any way dishonest. It's a reasonable point about how 'sovereignty', as distinct from autonomy, is almost impossible to measure and so not much use as a way of judging the success of Brexit. 

Is this just an attempt to deflect? Because it does kind of look like it.

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

The immigration issue was the catalyst that highlighted the lack of control the UK had over its own immigration policy. So while there are people who want to reduce immigration ( which is a perfectly reasonable position), being told repeatedly that it wasn’t possible illustrated the lack of national sovereignty.

Here, you're using 'sovereignty' to mean 'autonomy', which is fine, but maybe try to be consistent about whether they're the same thing or not. 

In any case, previously you wanted to say that Brexit was about controlling immigration rather than reducing immigration, but again, here you seem to be more or less admitting that they were the same thing, on which we agree. 

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

And yes, maybe the government should make an exception for HGV drivers now, I agree, the point is now I can blame them for the fuck up and petition them to change the law if I wanted to.

Again, there's no 'fuck up' here. EU national HGV drivers weren't excluded by mistake or anything. It was a policy goal.

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Yeah I think comparing rural Scotland and London’s Eastern European population is bordering on ludicrous, but whatever.

Nobody did that? Unless I missed something. The point was made that parts of Scotland very much need increased immigration to maintain their economy, which is true. But that is realistically very difficult to achieve while reducing immigration in the UK overall.

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2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

And yes, maybe the government should make an exception for HGV drivers now, I agree, the point is now I can blame them for the fuck up and petition them to change the law if I wanted to.

 

Jesus H Corbett. Listen to yourself. This is not a fuck up. This is Brexit, a thing that you wanted, working as designed.

 

 

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9 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I just saw that the UK reported 41,000 new Covid cases today. What’s happening?

We've decided that the pandemic is over as we've a reasonably good vaccination rate; so everything is open and virtually no restrictions in place.

Consequently, our case rate is back where it was in January (and rising); our hospitalisation rate is about where it was in October (and rising), and our death rate is uncomfortably high, but not alarmingly so.
Schools go back yesterday...

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Can anyone more versed in the subject explain to me if there is a legitimate reason why the government would raise NI contributions and not income tax? At the moment all I can see is an assault on the working class.

Also I didn’t know that NI contributions fall off a cliff on earnings over £50,000. Jeeesus.

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8 minutes ago, Stannis Eats No Peaches said:

Can anyone more versed in the subject explain to me if there is a legitimate reason why the government would raise NI contributions and not income tax? At the moment all I can see is an assault on the working class.

Also I didn’t know that NI contributions fall off a cliff on earnings over £50,000. Jeeesus.

Media/Populace doesn't care as much about NI rises, it's just "less important" than VAT or Income tax, because... reasons

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1 minute ago, BigFatCoward said:

Was it not covered above? Old rich tory voters don't pay NI. 

Yep.

The last time the government proposed making old rich tories pay for their care, they lost their majority had to get into bed with the DUP 

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11 minutes ago, Stannis Eats No Peaches said:

That’s the cynical reason for doing it, sure, but is there actually a justification? It’s so incredibly blatant I’m having a hard time believing what I’m reading.

No, that's it. They don't care about anyone but their base. And they don't even really care about them, as demonstrated by the lies and criminality involved in killing tens of thousands of them by deliberately releasing Covid into the care home network.

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A (cynical) theory.

This is all the brainchild of Sunak, who is all about maintaining the privileges of the wealthy. The plan is

Step one: introduce this regressive tax hike on NI, pushing it through on the grounds that it is for the NHS and for care so no one can object to it.

Step two: remove the triple lock of the state pension. Another regressive change that disproportionally impacts poorer pensioners. There is a genuine case for doing so now given the financial swings during the pandemic, and there will be the additional argument that the NI increase did not impact pensioners, so it is only fair that they do some of the lifting.

Step three: use the money to prop up the NHS sufficiently to ensure that it is not an election losing issue in three years time.

Step four: after winning the next election, and with Covid hopefully in the rearview mirror, return to slowly starving the NHS of money to ensure its eventual failure. Use the money to subsidise end of life care but only in ways that benefit the better off and making sure that cronies get a good chunk of it. Also start gradually reducing the state pension in real terms.

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