So I’m quoting myself from last week.
Yep I was wrong
I’ve no issue with people on the left expressing disappointment in Starmer’s caution, but the immigration issue seems an odd one to go for him on.
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This was the week when Rwanda got to lecture us about the importance of international law.
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Or how to bluff someone out of at least £240m
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Honestly, I don’t think your current government needs much instruction in that.
True but I suspect there’s an MP or two along with the PM that thinks they’re getting a good deal from Rwanda.
Dr.Death aka Fishy Rishi in the witness box now at the Covid Inquiry. (The Guardian has it live.)
I really hope we end up with MPs having greater accountability for what they say and do. I understand that they are required to make difficult and life changing decisions but what we’ve seen in the last 13 years, probably more thinking about it has taken that to the extreme.
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All this whilst ChUNT puts the final nail into the UK! 
Fixed
Interesting theory given that they’re willing to die on a hill to defend the policy.
It’s gone beyond absurd now.
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My theory is that they know full well that not a single person is being deported to Rwanda.
This isn’t about migration. It’s to create the illusion of toughness. When then this is inevitable falls, they will blame it on the Labour Party, liberal judges, the Human Right Act, international Law, Europe and whoever else. And that will form their offer to the electorate - we’ve tried to sort this. We’ve been blocked by lefty liberals. Vote for us and we’ll deal with them.
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We create a problem. We fail to solve the problem. We blame everyone else.
We win the election.
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What can you say? It’s effective.
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Genius even, when it works.
Rightly or wrongly, immigration is a hot topic.
Some take it to extremes, and an excuse to protest/riot/loot etc.
Others take the view that it’s ok to take people in, but while we have hungry kids, homeless people and research for serious conditions/illnesses needing charitable donations not being addressed, why are we spending public funds on economic migrants.
Are we though - the majority of those who claim asylum are identified as genuinely in need of it. With an ageing population, I think we need economic migrants as well anyway to generate the taxes, and deliver the services to feed, house and care for people- but again we see the government and other organisations deliberately mislead the public on the issue.
One of the problems with the Rwanda proposals is that the government is spending money delivering a policy that is not aimed at resolving the actual issues, instead of spending it on things that will.
It’s also become an issue in the first place because the government cut spending from this area a few years ago which allowed the backlog to happen. This happened across other areas including those you mention, which has led to them becoming an issue (or more of one) too.
It really isn’t a case we have diverted money from those to pay for what you refer to as economic migrants (much of the spending over the last few years in this area has been taken from our overseas aid budgets anyway I think).
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I’m always going to come down on the side that the country needs significant immigration to provide the bedrock of economic activity we need to be a prosperous nation. I think I mentioned up the thread at some point that the welfare bill is something like £260bn a year - and by far the biggest chunk of that is pensions. In fact one of the biggest challenges we face as a country is the balance between those not in work (which generally means the older) and those who are more economically active. You need enough people paying taxes and keeping the money circulating. As a country our scales are tipping evermore towards there being more non working older people being supported by ever fewer working younger people. It’s one of the great ironies that the people who tend to be hostile towards immigration are the very people who need immigrants to keep them in the lifestyle they expect.
But that aside, even if you are against immigration, the Rwanda plan should still be horrifying. Just economically. The idea of giving Rwanda £400m (latest figures from Cleverly) to take around 200 migrants, with us taking an unspecified number of Rwandans in return (and you can bet it won’t be their Doctors and Nurses) is spectacularly poor value. Criminally so.
We can’t state cliches like we have to look after our own first, while allowing the Government to flush £400m down the toilet in this fashion.
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