Senethro
Overlord
Yeah, can't tell if inno means this is happening as deliberate willed policy by ruling class, or just as emergent effect of classes acting in their own interest.
EnglishEdward
Deity
I can not speak for Inno, but I think that Rishi Sunak has lost the plot,
and this Rwanda scam will blow back badly on him and many others.
I expect Rishi will do a Clegg and be across the pond this time next year.
and this Rwanda scam will blow back badly on him and many others.
I expect Rishi will do a Clegg and be across the pond this time next year.
More Scottish news - Humza Yousaf has ended the power sharing agreement with the Greens, putting them into a position of a minority government in Holyrood.
I think this is a good step from the SNP, as their partners were responsible for many of the challenging policies (eg. Deposit return scheme) and seemed to have outsized influence on the policy agenda.
Edit: looks like he will face a no confidence vote. Not guaranteed he will survive but if he does he’ll likely be stronger for it
I think this is a good step from the SNP, as their partners were responsible for many of the challenging policies (eg. Deposit return scheme) and seemed to have outsized influence on the policy agenda.
Edit: looks like he will face a no confidence vote. Not guaranteed he will survive but if he does he’ll likely be stronger for it
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Innoimatu, I am once again deeply confused by your political positions. Like I don't even entirely disagree with the analysis in that post. Yes, Sunak wants to appeal to racist voters without disrupting the required flow of exploited immigrant labour required to keep the oligarchs making obscene profit by targeting a small subset of immigrants. Yes, this does essentially entrench and underclass in the United Kingdom (and Europe). Yes, Sunak represents the class interests of the bourgeoisie. I am deeply familiar with this, this is exactly how it works in Australia as well.
However the rest of this post is, to put it kindly, complete hogwash.
The idea that the UK, or any globally northern country, has uncontrolled immigration (or even "uncontrolled immigration other than immigrants who we sacrifice as a way to appease racists") is laughable. Immigration to the global north from the global south is usually only granted if the government thinks that said immigrants are going to make them a lot of money or if said immigrants can pay a lot of money to get in. And an (increasingly slim) number of refugees that have gone through the official (often completely inadequate) channels are allowed in to keep liberals happy.
However the rest of this post is, to put it kindly, complete hogwash.
The idea that all or most refugees are economic migrants is just plainly incorrect. But even if it were not, why are you opposed to economic migrants? You say that you are against the establishment of an underclass, yet there are plenty of underclasses all around the world. Presumably, many of these so-called economic migrants wouldn't be in positions of affluence otherwise they wouldn't attempt to move to an environment that is hostile to make more money. Why are you opposed to them moving to the UK to try and pull themselves out of said underclass?
What can I even say to this other than "lol, lmao"?
Uncontrolled immigration is a good thing to support. I don't believe this because of pro-capitalist propaganda but because borders are affront to human dignity and they ought to be abolished, the working class knows no country (this is a standard Leftist position).
The idea that the UK, or any globally northern country, has uncontrolled immigration (or even "uncontrolled immigration other than immigrants who we sacrifice as a way to appease racists") is laughable. Immigration to the global north from the global south is usually only granted if the government thinks that said immigrants are going to make them a lot of money or if said immigrants can pay a lot of money to get in. And an (increasingly slim) number of refugees that have gone through the official (often completely inadequate) channels are allowed in to keep liberals happy.
Yes but that's not exactly the immigrants' fault now is it? They're not the one cutting funding to social services and public housing, are they? The slight increase in population that is eligible to receive social welfare (many migrants are not) is not even a blip in the radar compared to the government burning the entire safety net to the ground in order to cut taxes for the rich. Decreasing the number of immigrants coming into the UK would solve nothing.
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???
Particularly in the UK, where we've (generally always) had controlled immigration. Tightly-controlled immigration, even. The idea that any form of immigration is "uncontrolled" has been UKIP's position for years, and the more (overtly) far-right BNP's position before that. This is separate from the generally-idealist leftist position on borders.
And now both Labour and the Tories are talking about how immigration is too lax
Got to love that Overton window.
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Ah okay that makes sense thank you for clarifying.Particularly in the UK, where we've (generally always) had controlled immigration. Tightly-controlled immigration, even. The idea that any form of immigration is "uncontrolled" has been UKIP's position for years, and the more (overtly) far-right BNP's position before that. This is separate from the generally-idealist leftist position on borders.
And now both Labour and the Tories are talking about how immigration is too lax
Got to love that Overton window.
About the only time that I can think of that we had anywhere close to "uncontrolled" immigration was in 2005 when the EU expanded east and Blair's government chose not impose the temporary immigration limits on new EU citizens, leading to a lot of Poles coming over to stay.
EnglishEdward
Deity
IIRC the Poles came with passports, so the UK government could have kept track of them if it wanted.
I am not aware that anyone or any organisation is controlling those crossing the channel on small
boats from France, so I regard it as appropriate for me to refer to that as "uncontrolled migration".
I am not aware that anyone or any organisation is controlling those crossing the channel on small
boats from France, so I regard it as appropriate for me to refer to that as "uncontrolled migration".
EnglishEdward
Deity
Two words "uncontrolled migration" is not a political position.
Being in favour or against it might be a political position, but plain english is merely plain english.
Being in favour or against it might be a political position, but plain english is merely plain english.
My main objection to immigration is around land use and the (local) environment.
If someone could create a densification strategy to go alongside an immigration one, they’d get my vote.
Small boats crossing are a completely separate issue (they barely feature in terms of total immigration) but much more of a humanitarian / security / foreign policy issue.
If someone could create a densification strategy to go alongside an immigration one, they’d get my vote.
Small boats crossing are a completely separate issue (they barely feature in terms of total immigration) but much more of a humanitarian / security / foreign policy issue.
PhroX
Deity
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Thinking that uncontrolled migration is real is a politcal position.
And you're pretty clearly against it, on top of it being a fictional framing of a handful of people in boats that in no way deserve the budget the Tories or the Labour Right are willing to throw at it.
Lexicus
Deity
Protip for people who think repressing migrants is in their interest as workers or whatever, when you've driven all the migrants out or into hiding, that repressive apparatus is going to be used on someone and it's not gonna be the rich people
Bonyduck Campersang
Deity
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UK approved arms for Israel days after it killed British aid workers
New court documents reveal that ministers David Cameron and Kemi Badenoch authorised UK arms sales to Israel right after an airstrike killed three British charity workers in Gaza.
www.declassifieduk.org
If the UK were a serious country this would have caused a scandal
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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I can understand why "uncontrolled immigration" rubbed some people wrong. Technically it is a wrong expression: immigration is by definition state controlled, because states (any but a failes state) control their own borders. That is part of the bare minimum a state has to be capable of doing. And the UK is very capable of controlling immigration.
But what I was pointing out is that there is a government policy of promoting immigration, while denying that in public, and pretending to want to do the opposite. The common term to describe this promotion of immigration is "uncontrolled immigration", because it is the opposite of controlling (always understood as restricting) it. I use the term according to its common meaning now.
The vast majority of the immigrants into the UK are economic migrants. That is a fact. Look up the data. Immigrants are not arriving in rubber boars in any meaningful number. That is the right-wingers' talk, false talk.
They are coming by plane, either as tourists and then overstaying or claiming refugee status, or as students and then claiming immigration status. It has been state policy in the UK to open these paths, and to keep them open.
Refugees to count as such must be fleeing some country at war or being expelled from somewhere. There are many places at war, and there have been legitimate claims of refugee status by ukranians, people from several middle east countries, etc. How they make it into the UK is relevant because real war refugees (those forced to flee for their lives) hardly can afford long-distance flights. Dig into the data and you'll find that from war-torn countries it's the well-off who are making it into the UK. The ones most in need of actual refugees status are lucky to make it into a neighbouring country. But regardless of all that the refugees are a minority of immigrants in the UK. The underclass being imported doesn't come disguised as refugees, they come as economic migrants and as students.
There is no such thing as a "global north" or a "global south". That is just a political talking point for propaganda purposes. You can't define it, can you?
And the issue of borders has nothing to do with capitalism as an economic system. Capitalism can operate with or withour borders. It is about how political power can be exercised. Borders are essential to any notion of self-ruling community. A community must have borders, requisites of membership, mutual obligations that apply to members and members only. Being a member must require accepting those things. Without these things you don't have a self-ruling community, you have subjects of some power that stands apart from the community. There is no way to organize any system of representation or power sharing in a community without borders because without borders and acceptance of a shared set of rules there can be no political process. Other rule by intimidation, brute force.
The evidence of this has always been plain. What does away with borders? Empires. The only polities that do not like borders, that make no issue of who is or is not a citizen, are empires. Because imperial power doesn't need any kind of self rule, it is imposed. French west africa didn't have political borders and the administrative ones were porous. Why should the imperial power care, it ruled everywhere in that vast region. And that political power was build, expanded, as all empires were: by grabbing more and more land into it, dissolving borders and pre-existing polities into it.
De-colonization was a fight to create borders and national communities, against empires that denied both. How people who think of themselves as leftists or anti-imperialists fell for the "no borders" crap-talk... lack of political education!
You know funding is being cut, and if you but think about the politics of it you know why. It is the simple application of divide-and-rule by the oligarchs. It is power falling out of community-control and going back to imperial mode. Because the political community is being undermined, people turned against each other. Mass immigration is a great tool for all of this.
The immigrants are tools. The fault lies with the ones who allowed the oligarchs to deploy these tools. These leftists-without-education, the post-hippe champagne left, have themselves to blame for letting political power slip from the community into the hands of a few. And even though the mechanisms are plain to see, they keep refusing to admit their mistake. And so the process continues. Ultimately people react, communities defend themselves (@Lexicus , did you read youd Polanyi?), the "old left" displaces the "new left". But I do think that people have a very hard time admitting mistakes and things advance a funeral at a time in politics too, not just in science.
But what I was pointing out is that there is a government policy of promoting immigration, while denying that in public, and pretending to want to do the opposite. The common term to describe this promotion of immigration is "uncontrolled immigration", because it is the opposite of controlling (always understood as restricting) it. I use the term according to its common meaning now.
The vast majority of the immigrants into the UK are economic migrants. That is a fact. Look up the data. Immigrants are not arriving in rubber boars in any meaningful number. That is the right-wingers' talk, false talk.
They are coming by plane, either as tourists and then overstaying or claiming refugee status, or as students and then claiming immigration status. It has been state policy in the UK to open these paths, and to keep them open.
Refugees to count as such must be fleeing some country at war or being expelled from somewhere. There are many places at war, and there have been legitimate claims of refugee status by ukranians, people from several middle east countries, etc. How they make it into the UK is relevant because real war refugees (those forced to flee for their lives) hardly can afford long-distance flights. Dig into the data and you'll find that from war-torn countries it's the well-off who are making it into the UK. The ones most in need of actual refugees status are lucky to make it into a neighbouring country. But regardless of all that the refugees are a minority of immigrants in the UK. The underclass being imported doesn't come disguised as refugees, they come as economic migrants and as students.
There is no such thing as a "global north" or a "global south". That is just a political talking point for propaganda purposes. You can't define it, can you?
And the issue of borders has nothing to do with capitalism as an economic system. Capitalism can operate with or withour borders. It is about how political power can be exercised. Borders are essential to any notion of self-ruling community. A community must have borders, requisites of membership, mutual obligations that apply to members and members only. Being a member must require accepting those things. Without these things you don't have a self-ruling community, you have subjects of some power that stands apart from the community. There is no way to organize any system of representation or power sharing in a community without borders because without borders and acceptance of a shared set of rules there can be no political process. Other rule by intimidation, brute force.
The evidence of this has always been plain. What does away with borders? Empires. The only polities that do not like borders, that make no issue of who is or is not a citizen, are empires. Because imperial power doesn't need any kind of self rule, it is imposed. French west africa didn't have political borders and the administrative ones were porous. Why should the imperial power care, it ruled everywhere in that vast region. And that political power was build, expanded, as all empires were: by grabbing more and more land into it, dissolving borders and pre-existing polities into it.
De-colonization was a fight to create borders and national communities, against empires that denied both. How people who think of themselves as leftists or anti-imperialists fell for the "no borders" crap-talk... lack of political education!
You know funding is being cut, and if you but think about the politics of it you know why. It is the simple application of divide-and-rule by the oligarchs. It is power falling out of community-control and going back to imperial mode. Because the political community is being undermined, people turned against each other. Mass immigration is a great tool for all of this.
The immigrants are tools. The fault lies with the ones who allowed the oligarchs to deploy these tools. These leftists-without-education, the post-hippe champagne left, have themselves to blame for letting political power slip from the community into the hands of a few. And even though the mechanisms are plain to see, they keep refusing to admit their mistake. And so the process continues. Ultimately people react, communities defend themselves (@Lexicus , did you read youd Polanyi?), the "old left" displaces the "new left". But I do think that people have a very hard time admitting mistakes and things advance a funeral at a time in politics too, not just in science.
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EnglishEdward
Deity
@ Innonimatu
Splendid post.
And now back to the northern testing ground:
Splendid post.
And now back to the northern testing ground:
Can Humza Yousaf survive as Scotland’s first minister?
The first minister is fighting for his political career and his best chance may be a figure from his party's past.
www.bbc.co.uk
