General British politics discussion thread

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122077745#Comment_122077745

We have a Labour party being run by adults and I'm not going to apologise for being grateful for that. The clownshow it was before Starmer took over has thankfully been vanquished. If they were dead, I'd say that that point would have been when they suffered their worst defeat since 1935.

PommieBast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122076178#Comment_122076178

What they need is a leader who doesn't add to the problems. Signs were the Greens going to walk away anyway, but now it is the SNP who are seen as the ones acting in bad faith. A blunder the SNP can ill-afford.

ancapailldorcha

I think the SNP are done, honestly. Don't get me wrong, they'll still be a force in Scottish politics but in UK terms, they're done.

I think they seriously lucked out with Labour being toxified by the 2008 financial crash and the Conservatives by austerity. If it weren't for Cameron's insistence that the world would naturally bend itself to his advantage, the IndyRef wouldn't have happened at all.

Recently, they've been embroiled in scandal and now they're probably the most toxic party in the country after the Tories and the DUP. None of this is going to lead upwards. Austerity gave them some momentum for making a case for independence but they squandered that. There won't be another referendum in the next decade. Wouldn't surprise me if 2014 was a once in a lifetime thing, honestly.

Tom Mann Centuria

The SNP have been the only opposition in recent months with Labour going into pre election full on risk aversion mode. It will be very interesting to see if Labour make the inroads in Scotland that the ever narrowing polls might suggest next election. I think a new leader will give the SNP a bounce anyway.

Charles Babbage

British politics is badly served by British journalism. In relation to the immigrants, the likes of Sky News refers to Brexit when this has precisely nothing to do with Brexit. No measure for goods controls proposed by the most extreme Brexiteer would have had any effect on the movement of people. Sky even had some Irish stooge on their report who gave a false account knowing rightly that it was false.

CelticRambler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122079533#Comment_122079533

Ehhh, not precisely nothing. Brexit took the UK out of the Dublin Agreement on asylum claims, which would have allowed them to send the "small boat" people back to France without further ado. Now they're a third country, it makes no difference whether these boats arrive from France or Angola - the British have to deal with all arrivals themselves; i.e. more staff needed to process more claims and more unprocessed migrants needing more housing and benefits. In practice, the impact may have been small, but not "precisely nothing".

Furthermore, the obstacles to free movement for EU migrant workers imposed by Brexit created (and continues to create) significant difficulties for several sectors that previously attracted the kind of economic migrant that came, worked for a while, then went back to his/her family elsewhere in the EU. Now they don't come at all, and their place is taken by the kind of migrant that wants to get a foot in the GB door so they can bring their whole economically unproductive family over to Britain as soon as possible.

Remember that the EU made it a condition of Brexit that the "four freedoms" were an all-or-nothing deal, so in fact yes the Brexit restrictions on goods also had a direct effect on the movement of people.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122079533#Comment_122079533

It's losing the use of Dublin III that relates to Brexit and non return of asylum claims. It has nothing to do with border controls.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122079533#Comment_122079533

Brexit has everything to do with this and we were told time and again that people knew what they were voting for.

The media here exists to serve conservative politics, not the public. If it did, we wouldn't have Brexit.

Peregrinus

You can overstate the significance of the Dublin Regulation here.

It never meant that the UK could send anyone arriving from France and seeking asylum in the UK straight back to France. What the Regulation says is that the member state in which a person first applies for asylum is responsible for dealing with that application. If the same person later applies for asylum in another member state, that second member state can call on the first member state to deal with the application.

Exactly when or where someone first applies for asylum can be a bit unclear. A country like Greece or Italy, faced with a huge number of arrivals, might see merit in not encouraging or requiring them to apply for asylum. If they want to pass through the country and apply elsewhere, there are obvious reasons for facilitating that. A position has been established that the country in which a person’s presence is registered, and their fingerprints are recorded, is taken to be a country in which they have applied for asylum.

So, if the UK wants to return an asylum seeker to France, it was never enough to show that they arrived from France. They’d have to show that the person was registered or fingerprinted in France. An asylum seeker who wants, for whatever reason, to settle in the UK, would not be minded to co-operate with the UK authorities to establish this. Thus, they might try to transition through France without attracting the notice of the French authorities, and without being fingerprinted. Or, if they are in a situation in which they need to register in France or identify themselves to the French authorities, they might offer a false identity in France, and then use their real identity to seek asylum in the UK.

Even when the UK was participating in the system, they didn’t manage to use it to great effect. In 2019, for example, UK requested to send about 3,250 asylum seekers to other member states, and actually succeeded in sending 263. For comparison, Germany made 48,800 requests and sent 8,423 people to other member states; France made 48,300 requests and dispatched 5,312 people.

There are a number of factors at work in this disparity. First, contrary to what the UK press would have you believe, the UK receives many fewer asylum requests than Germany or France. Secondly, contrary again to what the press would suggest, most asylum seekers in the UK do not cross by boat from France. But undoubtedly one of the factors at work is that many of those who did arrive by boat from France could not be shown to have first applied in France (either because they hadn't applied in France, or because they had but the UK couldn't show that).

Brexit obviously made the matter worse, by closing off the possibility of using the Dublin Regulation at all. If you apply the “logic” underpinning the Rwanda scheme (even a tiny chance of being sent to Rwanda will deter many, many people from coming to the UK) then even a tiny chance of being returned under Dublin III would have deterred many people from coming to the UK. It would follow that the UK, in taking itself out of Dublin III, made itself more attractive as a destination to asylum seekers already in other EU member states, who would have responded by coming in greater numbers. But, honestly, I don’t find that logic persuasive either in relation to Rwanda or in relation to the Dublin Regulation.

The UK:IRL situation is not quite the same a the UK:FRA situation. There is no subsisting UK:FRA arrangement for returning asylum seekers, but as I understand it there is a subsisting UK:IRL arrangement; it’s an aspect of the CTA. Granted, the CTA is not legally binding and either side is free to withdraw from it in whole or in part at any time. But it would nevertheless be a big deal for the UK to do this. And in any event they cannot, with any credibility, adopt the position that other countries ought to accept returns from the UK, even if there is no arrangement for them to do so, but that the UK should not itself accept returns, even where there is an arrangement.

Sunak is reported this morning as saying that the UK will not accept returns “from the EU via Ireland when the EU doesn’t accept returns back to France”. (The question he was answering was whether he would agree a returns scheme with Ireland; both the questioner and Sunak appeared to be unaware that there is already a reciprocal arrangement in place. But let that pass for the moment.)

What that suggests is that he is adopting a distinctly un-Brexity position, rejecting the idea of bilateral deals with individual member states, and instead looking for a comprehensive deal with the EU on behalf of all its member states. In truth, as far as the EU is concerned, that’s not a hopeless starting point. The EU has always recognised that migration of asylum seekers, on the scale that we now have it, is not something that individual countries can develop an effective response to; it requires a multilateral response. So the EU’s preference has always been not simply for EU-wide arrangements, but for arrangements that embrace the EU and its neighbours. The UK may now be coming around to that view.

Of course, Sunak immediately rowed back a bit by saying that he had no interest right now in negotiating a returns agreement with the EU; he is instead “determined to get our Rwanda scheme up and running because I want a deterrent.” But when the Rwanda scheme fails to prove an effective deterrent, as it unquestionably will, then Sunak or, more likely, his successor is going to have to come up with something else. And that something may well be a multilateral approach involving both the EU and the UK (and probably other European states).

What the UK will want is a simple returns arrangement. But, of course, there’s nothing in that for most of the other states that would be involved in this agreement, and therefore it won’t be just a simple returns arrangement; it will be something a good deal more comprehensive around the co-operative management of asylum seekers and the sharing of the burdens involved.

Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122079746#Comment_122079746

Reports do not say that though. Sky said something like Ireland wanted an open border and now has to deal with the consequence it and that is not an honest account of the situation.

It appears that the Irish government believe that the 2020 Common Travel area agreement replaced Dublin III with a similar provision between Ireland and the UK. Of course, London seems to have forgotten this although they probably wanted that clause so that they could send people to Ireland.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122080290#Comment_122080290

The media is not always accurate.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122080290#Comment_122080290

Reports from the same media that pushed Brexit? Why would they say that? It'd be taking responsibility.

Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122080296#Comment_122080296

Which was my point, a bad media does not serve a political system.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122076800#Comment_122076800

I haven't posted in that thread in months.

It has become a bizarre fixation for the snp and Scottish Greens, the Greens have largely dumped their environmental politics behind it.

Things like the hate speech bill, the conversion bill x their attacks on fishing communities. Their less than helpful attitude to North sea oil, the complete disinterest in education, housing and health. The complete disinterest in advancing the cause of Scottish independence.

The SNP has been taken over by a clique whose mission now is to keep profiting from control of the party and keep Nicola and themselves out of the Court dock.

If it was in the 6 counties you'd say that Nicola and friends were compromised and acting on their handlers orders.

Quin_Dub

##Mod Note##

Multiple below standard posts and replies deleted.

Let's avoid the use of silly nicknames and pejoratives please.

Thank you.

Sam Russell

I may be wrong, but I thought the Common Travel Area only applied to Irish and British citizens travelling and living in the two jurisdictions. If I fly into a UK airport, my passport or other travel document is not checked. However, flying into Dublin and my passport is checked. So it is not quite reciprocal.

Usually, any country that does not require a visa to enter the UK, also does not require a visa to enter Ireland and visa versa. There are, however, exceptions to this. Now generally, a person crossing the border without the required visa will pass unnoticed, but if they are caught for any reason, then - who knows?

Now, if a person crosses the border with the intention of claiming IP without a visa to enter Ireland, but that person has already applied for IP in the UK or another country, they are basically an illegal immigrant without a required visa, so they could be returned.

Obviously, it is not that simple, but legal clarity would help.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122081977#Comment_122081977

My understanding is that it's like a customs area in its own right where Ireland and the UK enforce each other's immigration policy, ie when someone is in they can move around as they see fit.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122082005#Comment_122082005

Well, yes - for the most part. However, it is not quite true 100%. Even in the EU single market there is not free movement of alcoholic drinks.

However, with IP applicants, they must be illegal immigrants to the UK because there is no legal way an IP applicant can gain entry to the UK. This is deliberate. Even with Ukraine, they will issue visas to whole families but not the youngest child. Now who is going to leave their youngest in a war zone?

Now given the Home Office operates a 'hostile environment', there is no incentive for IP candidates to apply safely, so they tend to disappear into the underworld for fear of the treatment the might get. This works for many of them.

Now, add Ruanda into the mix, a loopy PM who believes it is a zero sum game, and the corrupt Tory Gov, and you get chaos.

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122082054#Comment_122082054

Chaos there and chaos here. Ultimately nobody wants these refugees.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122082302#Comment_122082302

Well, that would appear to be true.

The definition of the rules for seeking IP were set in the immediate post WW II time, when the world was a very different place. That needs to be revisited.

Now, those seeking relief from war and persecution are mixed with those seeking a better way of life in a richer part of the world. Various estimates of the latter group go from 50% to 80% of those seeking IP status. Now the truth could be any number from 0% to 100%.

Most refugees from war and persecution actually live in refugee camps not far from the war they are escaping from, so maybe we should start by facilitating some of them to get IP protection here. We have approved some Syrians to come here in the past.

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122082349#Comment_122082349

No appetite from the public to accept even more refugees.

It's been known for years that most asylum seekers are economic migrants. It's what Britain has been saying for years and years. It's only new to Ireland.

It was easy for Irish people to label Brits as racist. A simplistic and lazy analysis that has completely backfired as we're having even worse problems with refugees. Suddenly, it's not so racist anymore to not want refugees.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122082005#Comment_122082005

Only Irish and British citizens can move freely around the CTA. How much this is enforced in practice is a different topic.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122082404#Comment_122082404

I got this from a book I read years ago, Tony Connelly's Brexit & Ireland. I may be wrong but that's how I remember it.

Larbre34

The Common Travel Area only applies to *citizens* of the Republic of Ireland or United Kingdom.

Citizens of other territories, even those with a long term right to reside in Ireland or Britain, may NOT "exercise CTA rights", and must therefore comply with all customs and immigration in either territory, if they travel from the other, as if they were travelling from their country of citizenship.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122082422#Comment_122082422

Well there is an element of truth to it in terms of enforcing each other's immigration policy but it is more to stop the internal movement of people. If Irish/UK immigration authorities think someone who is perfectly entitled to come into their country but is doing so for the purpose of entering the other jurisdiction then they are supposed to deny them entry.

yagan

There's actually no treaty governing how the CTA is enforced, which explains why there's checks into Irish airports but not in the opposite direction.

I think the only cooperation on non Irish/British was the transit visa that the UK would recognise for Indian citizens travelling to Ireland via a UK airport.

The right to reside of Irish in Britain and British in Ireland are two separate pieces of domestic legislation, the 1949 Republic of Ireland Act in Westminster, and the earlier 1935 Free State Act.

The right to optional nationality for NI denizens exists recently under the Belfast Agreement.

London actually withdrew the CTA to the Irish Sea during WWII and the decade after, so even inter UK travel between NI and Britain required travel documents.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122082403#Comment_122082403

Mod: given that I was clear when I said that this thread was not for discussing immigration into Ireland and you've clearly ignored me, do not post in this thread again.

breezy1985

Sunak will be delighted the Irish government has given the media something to be distracted about rather than talk about the local elections on Thursday.

ancapailldorcha

I'd honestly forgotten about the elections. There was a Susan Hall truck driving by Wembley Park station when I got out today blaring out her nonsense. I'll be voting for Sadiq Khan.

blackwhite

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122082005#Comment_122082005

CTA applies to citizens only. Used to work with a Chinese girl who was working in Ireland on a sponsored visa.

She needed a UK visa to even travel to Belfast