Saluting Gary Lineker: challenge state racism. Don’t conform to it

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/e/saluting-gary-lineker-challenge-state-racism-dont-conform-it

THE BBC has reportedly rebuked Gary Lineker for describing the government’s anti-refugee rhetoric as “language not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the ’30s.”

The famous footballer and presenter’s tweet has enraged Tory MPs, some of whom have called for him to be sacked. But he is not the first to have called out the grim historical precedent.

It was child Holocaust survivor Joan Salter who confronted Home Secretary Suella Braverman earlier this year, pointing to exactly the same parallels between Nazi demonisation of Jews and the language she uses when attacking refugees.

This Tory administration is extremist. Braverman admits she thinks it more likely than not her plans breach the European Convention on Human Rights, which we as a country are obliged to respect: she doesn’t care.

But the countering voice for a more compassionate, principled approach is absent from Westminster. Labour scaremongers over boat crossings as well to claim the Tories have lost control.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/e/saluting-gary-lineker-challenge-state-racism-dont-conform-it

Continue ReadingSaluting Gary Lineker: challenge state racism. Don’t conform to it

Government’s plans to punish refugees branded ‘desperate and cruel’

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/government-plans-to-punish-refugees-branded-desperate-and-cruel

Amnesty International says ‘people fleeing persecution and conflict will be irreparably harmed by these proposals’

Image of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak
Rish! Sunak

NEW government laws to punish refugees who arrive “illegally” in Britain after making perilous journeys across the English Channel in small boats were slammed as “desperate and cruel” today.

The Illegal Migration Bill, outlined by Home Secretary Suella Braverman in Parliament on Tuesday, will see migrants arriving on small boats “swiftly removed.”

Under the plans, people crossing the Channel will not be able to claim asylum in Britain and will face a lifetime ban on returning after they are removed.

They will also never be allowed to settle in the country or gain citizenship.

Ms Braverman admitted that she “can’t say definitively” if the new Bill complies with human rights laws.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/government-plans-to-punish-refugees-branded-desperate-and-cruel

Continue ReadingGovernment’s plans to punish refugees branded ‘desperate and cruel’

Sunak’s ‘inhumane’ anti-refugee plans are a distraction from Tory failures, campaigners warn

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/sunaks-small-boat-plans-are-inhumane-and-distraction-tory-failures

Government to launch bill to stop people arriving on small boats from claiming asylum

CAMPAIGNERS and MPs have hit out at Rishi Sunak’s plans to make asylum claims for those who travel on small boats inadmissible, calling it “inhumane” and a distraction from government failures.

The Prime Minister is expected to set out his government plans tomorrow which will also see migrants removed to a third country such as Rwanda and banned from returning or claiming citizenship.

Mr Sunak previously said that “stopping the boats” is one of his five key priorities.

The government has made its hard-line approach on immigration known, with Home Secretary Suella Braverman last year describing the number of arrivals on the south coast as an “invasion” and that it was her “obsession” to see a deportation flight to Rwanda.

Former home secretary Diane Abbott said that the PM “must know that policy will not work.”

The Labour MP tweeted: “It is simply a disgraceful ‘core vote’ strategy — because he has nothing else to fight the next general election with.”

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/sunaks-small-boat-plans-are-inhumane-and-distraction-tory-failures

Continue ReadingSunak’s ‘inhumane’ anti-refugee plans are a distraction from Tory failures, campaigners warn

Priti Patel news

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UK Murdoch Home Secretary Priti Patel appears in recent news items.

Priti Patel’s new powers to remove citizenship would turn ethnic minority Brits into second-class citizens

Consider the following example, because it’s about to come true. Someone has been a British citizen for decades. They go on holiday. When they try to return, they’re told that the Home Secretary has stripped them of their citizenship. They are not told why. They are not told the charges against them. They have no functioning right of appeal. They have been made stateless, by ministerial fiat.

This would be the consequence of a new provision added to Priti Patel’s Nationality and Borders bill, which goes through the Commons over the next couple of days.

Making someone stateless has long been seen as one of the most egregious actions a government can take. In the words of Hannah Arendt, the great scholar of totalitarianism, it deprives people of “the right to have rights”. It makes you an unperson: without protection, without home, without legal status.

Jailed for 51 weeks for protesting? Britain is becoming a police state by stealth George Monbiot

This is proper police state stuff. The last-minute amendments crowbarred by the government into the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill are a blatant attempt to stifle protest, of the kind you might expect in Russia or Egypt. Priti Patel, the home secretary, shoved 18 extra pages into the bill after it had passed through the Commons, and after the second reading in the House of Lords. It looks like a deliberate ploy to avoid effective parliamentary scrutiny. Yet in most of the media there’s a resounding silence.

Among the new amendments are measures that would ban protesters from attaching themselves to another person, to an object, or to land. Not only would they make locking on – a crucial tool of protest the world over – illegal, but they are so loosely drafted that they could apply to anyone holding on to anything, on pain of up to 51 weeks’ imprisonment.

It would also become a criminal offence to obstruct in any way major transport works from being carried out, again with a maximum sentence of 51 weeks. This looks like an attempt to end meaningful protest against road-building and airport expansion. Other amendments would greatly expand police stop and search powers. The police would be entitled to stop and search people or vehicles if they suspect they might be carrying any article that could be used in the newly prohibited protests, presumably including placards, flyers and banners. Other new powers would grant police the right to stop and search people without suspicion, if they believe that protest will occur “in that area”. Anyone who resists being searched could be imprisoned for – you guessed it – up to 51 weeks.

The truth behind Priti ‘pull the drawbridge up’ Patel

Recently, the Guardian broke the news that the reason we are seeing increasing numbers of asylum seekers on our beaches is because they have cottoned on to the fact that, thanks to Brexit, we are no longer part of the Dublin Agreement. This inconvenient truth seems to have escaped Farage and Johnson and all those who are hell bent on ruining the country’s economy at any cost if we can only get control of our borders.

Since 2016, the Tory party has rapidly morphed into the BNP-NF-Brexit Party-UKIP-Tory party but how far has it gone? 

Put it this way. Now it’s suppressing its own reports on the reasons people make the treacherous journey across the channel. Home Office data show two thirds of those attempting to make the crossing are genuine refugees, many coming from war-torn parts of the world. As one of the world’s largest exporters of arms, the UK has had a great deal to do with creating the hell that they are escaping.

But the Home Office is not publishing this data. Why? Because it doesn’t fit the narrative. These are inconvenient truths that the Tories don’t want people to hear. So best they just make out that the asylum seekers are illegal immigrants coming over here to scrounge benefits and get a nice hotel on the back of the taxpayer.

Continue ReadingPriti Patel news

Sunday evening politics review

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First off, I’ve had a really stinking cold for a week now. I turned to brandy for some respite and all of a sudden it seemed the cold was cured. Drinking more than one bottle of brandy does have it’s disadvantages but at least I appear to turn into a ranting fool rather than a death-threatening ranting fool. One of the dangers of overindulgence is that you think everything you say, think and do is fantastically profound and important. That’s the magick of eau de vie.

On the subject of death-threats, there has been at least one arrest for making death threats to MPs on facebook. I’ve failed to find what was actually said but come on. I’m certain that New Labour ministers and policemen did allsorts of nonsese to me while I was legitimately participating in the democratic process. The problem was that I was good at it ;) These MPs did after all vote to kill people – and it is expected – innocent people too unless these astoundingly super-wonderful weapons of mass destruction ‘Paisley’ missiles have got some truly divine abilities. That’s understandably likely to piss some people off a lot.

More false-flag attacks. C’mon, you’re finding it so easy that you’re not really trying. Don’t forget the issue that the innocent patsies are executed as part of that BS.

Image of Mhairi Black, SNP MP
Mhairi Black, SNP MP

Congratulations to Mhairi Black awarded University of Glasgow’s Young Alumnus of the Year.

Principal and Vice-Chancellor Professor Anton Muscatelli said: “Mhairi has been a true ambassador for the University of Glasgow, demonstrating huge commitment to her final year studies at the same time as canvassing for election.

“Students and staff at the University of Glasgow have shown they can change the world – I am certain that Mhairi will make a difference to the lives of others as she strives to combat poverty in her role as an MP. I am also sure that she will be an inspirational role-model for other young people to engage in the democratic process.”

There are various calls from disgruntled Labour MPs for Corbyn to step-back or disassociate with Stop the War Coalition and the Momentum movement and to refuse to attend the Stop the War fundraiser as guest of honour. Well he has already stepped back from Stop the War but a Corbyn spokesman is entirely correct in saying

“The anti-war movement has been a vital democratic campaign, which organised the biggest demonstrations in British history and has repeatedly called it right over 14 years of disastrous wars in the wider Middle East,” the spokesman said. “Jeremy Corbyn rejects any form of abuse in politics from any quarter. But he will not accept attempts to portray campaigning, lobbying and protest as somehow beyond the pale. In fact it’s at the heart of democracy”.

Is Corbyn responsible for all actions of all Momentum or Stop the War members and activists? What can he realistically do to stop any online abuse? He appears to be held to a far higher standard than others. Does the left call for Blairites to distance themselves from right-wing thinktanks?

Alex Salmond suggests Corbyn does a shadow cabinet reshuffle. Well, what did they expect?

I’m sure that I read a report that Corbyn’s chief whip Rosie Winterton refused to whip the Labour Party saying that she answers to the shadow cabinet. I can’t find any mention of it now but I’d like to know. Perhaps someone could buy me a ticket to the fundraiser and I’ll ask him?

And lastly, Jeremy Corbyn in a santa hat raising money for refugees.

Image of Jeremy Corbyn in a santa hat raising money for Oxfam's refugee appeal.

slightly later edit: I think that I understand Corbyn’s drive for a new politics. It is a different politics inspired by the Stop the War Coalition. In my case I also saw it in the 2005 G8 campaign.

It’s a real desire for consensus rather than confrontational politics. We did this at my own Stop the War group when delegates were representing the views of the group (which strangely enough is not the way unions and political parties do it).

Cameron claimed that he wanted consensus with the Syria vote. He didn’t and instead simply wanted a win to look the big war leader. Clearly there was and there is division rather than consensus.

Continue ReadingSunday evening politics review