UK Politics Thread (Part 5)

Away End - General Chat
1915

Just picking up the last point first. To me it feels like, as a country, immigration is all we bloody talk about, even as far bigger problems ravage the nation and the wider world.

But sure, let’s have a proper discourse. But this can’t be it. People (on both sides) just getting cross at each other and lashing out from increasingly entrenched positions. People on the ‘right’ shouting things that aren’t true. People on the ‘left’ upsetting them and getting more and more frustrated.

Any kind of debate or discourse has to have as its platform a shared understanding that the truth is important, and any kind of proper discourse has to at least be honest.

And I think that’s what’s slipping. What The Right (not in inverted commas this time), spearheaded by the likes of Trump and Farage, have brought into lives is the political innovation that the truth doesn’t matter. What matters is flooding the zone with shit. It doesn’t matter what is true. Only what you people can be made to believe is true. Yes, there has always been manipulation and deceit in politics, but not like the last decade. But not like this - not with the barefaced, naked lying with complete abandon we’ve seen in recent years.

So, how are we on ‘the left’ to respond? For example, when someone casually states that the left are facilitating Britain being invaded, when every single policy measure that has created the current situation has been generated from the political right? Or when someone makes another outrageous claim about asylum seekers? Or insists on calling people illegal when they are anything but. How do I respond with kindness to someone displaying pathological cruelty to another human being? How do I respond with tolerance to someone displaying the most heartbreaking intolerance?

What do we do? Because at this point, I’m genuinely fucking lost. And I think that’s a feeling shared by a lot of people on the left.

On to your other point…

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1916

Far bigger problems, spearheaded by the perpetual upward flow of wealth.

The social contract is no longer fit for purpose.

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1917

There’s a lot in here to disect. The last 14 years of conservative government (who conserved the square root of fuck all) are as much to blame as Blair opening the floodgates and the current shower.
The left are absutely facilitating it bacause Labour are a left wing party.
I have no doubt that Farage lies, so did Starmer, so will Burnham as did Johnson (again and again and again, to his various women over the years, to his country, to the Queen).
I’m not saying the right wing of UK politics is good or moral. I’m saying I do not want anyone from these backward countries coming here on small boats. They contribute nothing and they also comit horific crimes.
As for the human right aspect…they have likely crossed at least 3 counties with no wars to get here. They don’t need to leave France and risk their life to be safe. They do it to get the benefits, or else why the hell would they???

Actually, I’ll edit/add to this. I don’t give a fuck if they’re illegal or not. I don’t want them here because we don’t need them, they add nothing to society and they have continally committed sexually disgusting crimes. We have issues with people born here comiting these horrible crimes, but we keep importing more of it.

1918

Well I did get that info from AI, how credible that info is I couldn’t be sure.
I’d bet my house that its probably more credible than a random forum user saying its misinterpreted

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1920

That is an abhorrent case, and what will happen is that the person will go to prison for a long time and then be deported at the end of their sentence.

But I don’t think you can use a single case to pass judgment on the very idea of migration. Should British People be stopped from going out to Phuket because Gary Glitter lives in Thailand? Have Thai people got the right to look at that monster, and deny us ‘savages’ from the UK entry into their country?

Have you heard of a British Airways Pilot called Simon Wood? Alleged to have violently raped 38 Kenyan and Ugandan children while working in Africa. Should these countries block me and you because there is something unpleasant about our culture.

What about all the British Nationals who commit rape while in Spain (seems to be a fairly common occurrence for lads on holiday). Now lots of Brits live in Spain - should the authorities send them all back?

I’m not pointing these out to engage in whatsboutism. I’m pointing out that it’s reductive and it gets us nowhere, and it cuts both ways. We have to stop acting like sexual assault is an imported problem, and accept if we think we’re justified in monstering whole cultures of people based on the actions of a tiny minority, then the rest of the world is justified in making sure nobody from the UK is ever leaving the country again.

If we were serious about tackling sexual violence we wouldn’t accept living in a country where something like 20% of women will be sexually assaulted at some point in their life. The problem here is men, and you don’t have to go much further than that. If you start talking about sub set of men, like Afghan men or Muslim Men, you have missed the point. Across every strata of society, across all professions, and sectors, and cultures, men sexually assault women. Not all men, but enough men that can’t be written off as a few bad apples. At some point we have to wonder if there is something wrong with the tree.

So we aren’t importing rapists. We are importing men. We’re importing me because a) we can’t stop them coming - thanks Brexit and b) to an extent we need them - White British people are an aging demographic, and we have looming economic timebomb that is not going be defused without immigration. Because we are talking about men a small number of them will turn out to be sexually dodgy, because a small number of men are sexually dodgy, (although in the case of immigrants probably a few less than in a population of indigenous Brits)

Lastly, I just wanted to pick up on this man being Afghan. You gave previous talked about small boats, but Afghanistan is one of very places that the Government set up a legal route to enter the UK. The likelihood is that guy applied for asylum through this route. The reason we had to have a safe route for Afghans is that we destabilised their country, persuaded them to support, and in many cases fight for, the Western Backed regime that we installed, then lost control of the country and allowed the Taliban back in - at which point people who had supported the western backed regime we at extreme risk of death if they stayed. How many people are now rocking up on our shores because we’re made a mess of their country? This is are land! Yeah, and that was theirs, but it didn’t stop us bombing the fucking out of it and creating millions of refugees.

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1921

I agree Labour are left wing (I’d say centre left) but please explain how they are facilitating immigration when it’s falling for the first time in a decade, small boat arrivals are down, and we have a functioning asylum processing system again.

Last I saw, statistically they don’t commit any more crime than that background noise across the population as a whole. And study after study has shown that immigration is a net benefit to the UK. You want an NHS? You need immigration.

A lot to unpack here.

First of all, there is nothing in international law that says a person has to claim Asylum in the first safe country they enter. The reason why people are keen to get here is because we are on our own and don’t have returns agreement with the rest of Europe - thanks again Brexit.

Why would they want to come here? Unlikely simply for the benefits, which are at least five years away from the moment you claim Asylum. Other European countries offer far better packages than the UK. The most likely reasons people come here is they speak the language (English is the most international language), there is family or community here already, and because we don’t have a returns agreement with Europe you are less likely be bounced to a different country because of the collective agreement.

To put it bluntly, because of Brexit - which was supposed to be about securing our borders - we are now less in control of immigration and the UK is more attractive precisely because we are now trying to do this outside a collective agreement.

And a further Brexit benefit, if you do want to keep the criminals out, we can no longer access the Europe wide criminal record database and identify people with criminal records. We lost that when we left the EU. The gift that keeps on giving!

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1922

I think this statistic did the rounds last year when Farage claimed that an 40% of rapes in London we’re committed by those born overseas. He appeared to have pulled this number out of his arse.

Sky referred to this in their fact check service, noting

We also found the overall foreign-born population of London was slightly higher than the percentage of non-British people who have been charged with a sexual offence since 2018. That would mean that foreign-born individuals are less likely to be charged with sexual offences than somebody born in the UK.

Full discussion here, including some bits on Afghans for @Road-Runner here

https://news.sky.com/story/fact-checking-farage-are-foreigners-more-likely-than-britons-to-commit-sexual-offences-13407029

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1923

Also, I’m going to take a break from the politics thread for a few days, because I need it, and I think the forum in general needs this thread to calm down a bit. I’ve said everything I want on the immigration debate for a bit. Liverpool could do with signing a fucking player, so we have something to talk about.

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1924

@mascot I’m not talking about white men doing stuff, that’s just a deflection. I’m not talking about people from other countries coming here, getting a job in the NHS and not breaking the law, also a deflection. I’m not saying England for the English.

I am talking about men from backward parts of the world coming here, by whatever means, contributing nothing and comitting serious crime. Are you seriously saying that men from places like Afghanistan are going to be the backbone of the NHS? Are you buying the propaganda that they’re mostlydoctors and engineers.

Why are the government giving out leaflets telling these people that it’s not ok to rape (among other things) if it’s not a massive issue then?
I’ll say it again, these people that you are saying have not changed our country are being given leaflets telling them it’s not ok to rape.

If we need to broadly tell a set of people that it isn’t ok to rape women when they enter the country then would you concede that there’s a big problem?

Your views are absolutely disgusting and whilst I fully reprect the fact that you have the balls to say that these small boats have made no difference to the country at all, that view is disturbing to say the least considering all the crimes, the mostserious of crimes they are comitting.

1925

Actually, I saw it on several news posts on Facebook, and the majority of comments seemed to be from women asking if the leaflet could be distributed to white British men as well.

It seems that women being bothered by sex pests is a real issue.

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1926

If you pull info from AI, you usually get a link through to the source. If that is quoting another source, then you have to follow back to that. Eventually, you have to determine whether the root source is reliable.

Unfortunately, AI is very confident about its results but it doesn’t seem capable of evaluating them.

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1927

by giving out leaflets to asylum seekers that rape or domestic abuse is unacceptable and wont be tolerated in this country,

the government is cutting out the excuse used in courts by some lawyers of asylum seekers on sexual assault/domestic abuse charges that they wern’t aware this is against the law in the hope of getting lesser charges

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1928

Any lawyer arguing the case for a rapist or sex offender on the basis that the offender wasn’t aware it was against the law should be locked up too

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1929

I think you’re reading Mascot’s posts with a pre conceived hatred, and not actually understanding his points. It’s exhausting reading this thread, it must be mentally taxing on Mascot, and I’m surprised it’s allowed.
You’re particularly unpleasant and arrogant, the opposite of everything a Liverpool fan should be.
That’s my take, :slightly_smiling_face:

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1930

It happens though, unfortunately…

1931

So you think the UK is a better place for having hundreds of thousands of small boat migrants then? Yes or no?

What do you mean? You want my views silenced? You want me cancelled, banned? Is that what you mean?

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1932

Showoff See GIF by HULU

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1933

@Achtungbaby Answer the question please or do one. Don’t be such a coward.
Say publically that you think the UK is a better place to live for having hundreds of thousands of small boat migrants if that’s your view.
Grow some balls.

1934

A defence lawyer’s job is to offer the best defence available to their client. This could be as simple as arguing about the age of consent, which varies quite considerably just across Europe. Ignorance is no excuse, but it could be used in mitigation.

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1935

There’s no mitigation for raping a child

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