Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Apparently about half the recent asylum seekers are from Albania. I'm finding this very mysterious. We now have about 140,000 Albanians living in the UK; which may not sound much but is about 5% of Albania's population. Many are coming over via the dangerous boating route but...most strange...they have visa-free entry into the EU 

Albania is considered to be a safe country, but even so about 50% of initial applications are granted. The other big group on the boats are from Afghanistan.

The BBC has an explainer https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-63473022

The tories are making out that they are all gangsters, but it is invariably Albanian women and children that are granted asylum, so the gangster argument can only be applied to a minority.

I do wish some enterprising journalist would go and ask them why they want to come here 

Also the numbers have really increased. Obviously they're not all gangsters but I wonder if Albanian organised crime has moved into that route. European police forces managed to shut down an Iraqi Kurdish gang operating people smuggling networks in Germany, France, Benelux and the UK was making €3.5 million profit a year on it.

But also as it says Albanians are the most common group reported for trafficking support, and I think in recent years over 25% reported victims of modern slavery have been Albanian - largely women being sexually exploited but also forced labour by men in pot farms as the article mentions. I wonder if that might also be why about 50% are being granted asylum even if Albania itself is "safe"?

[Zanza]

Merkel and generally her Conservatives are completely passive. They neither believe in new tech, nor in energy savings. They just pretend we can continue our old ways forever, i.e. burn fossil fuels. Without regard to either energy security or climate change.

I was thinking specifically of Merkel's shift after Fukushima.

But that was no tech-as-magic moment. She saw a chance to take a popular topic from the opposition and did it. There was not even any suggestion by her then that there was a magic tech out there to solve our energy issues. Actually in 2011 her government not just decided on phase out of nuclear, it also changed subsidies and regulations for both wind and solar which also cratered those industries. A bit the opposite of trusting into new tech.

[Iormlund]

But that was no tech-as-magic moment. She saw a chance to take a popular topic from the opposition and did it. There was not even any suggestion by her then that there was a magic tech out there to solve our energy issues. Actually in 2011 her government not just decided on phase out of nuclear, it also changed subsidies and regulations for both wind and solar which also cratered those industries. A bit the opposite of trusting into new tech.

Which is why I as pointing out to Larchie that when it comes to politicians I tend to go for cynicism rather than the magic thinking prevalent among Greenish folk.

[Tamas]

Who is Phyllis Bennis and why is he given a platform on the Guardian to call for the US to reach a diplomatic solution in Ukraine to save Ukraine's democracy?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/05/ukraine-democracy-russia-zelenskiy-us-washington

Edit: seriously, Orban's media could have written this article, what the fuck.

[PJL]

 I could see

Who is Phyllis Bennis and why is he given a platform on the Guardian to call for the US to reach a diplomatic solution in Ukraine to save Ukraine's democracy?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/05/ukraine-democracy-russia-zelenskiy-us-washington

Edit: seriously, Orban's media could have written this article, what the fuck.

I'm increasingly of the opinion that the left/right axis is less important than the idealogical/pragmatic axis. Extremists of all hues tend to have more in common with each other than moderates of any persuation.

As for Ukraine, the only way the US could reach a diplomatic solution to the situation would be through nuclear brinkmanship a la Cuban Missile Crisis. Given that Ukraine are making progess against the Russians on their own steam with aid from the West, this is not really needed right now. I think the Ukrainians are fine to go as they are with the help being given with the West and until at least the middle of next year. If things bog down into a stalemate by then, well the first sentence of this paragraph could be an option.

[Sheilbh]

Apparently a left-wing American activist and Director of the New Internationalism Project. Seems to do a lot on the alternative progressive media circuit (though only became a Ukraine expert in February 2022 from what I can see):
https://ips-dc.org/new-internationalism/

The Guardian's the paper of the liberal left and sadly she's not the only useful idiot (at best) around on Ukraine - and she's done lots with some of these groups so I wouldn't be too surprised if she was speaking at this too



The audience for this is also a part of the Guardian readership - and, arguably, part of the editorial views too. Seumas Milne, who was Corbyn's closest aide as director of comms, was a former Comment Editor at the Guardian and still worked there when moderated an event with Putin in Sochi six months after the invasion of Crimea (and six months before he joined the Labour leadership).

It isn't the Guardian line on Ukraine editorially and I don't think it'd be welcomed by their journalists reporting in Kyiv. But it's a strand that is part of their audience and comment pages and always has been.

[PJL]

The irony being that it may well be escalation that leads to negotiation. By ruling out the the former they will probably rule out the latter as well. IMO brinkmanship is a necessary evil.

[Sheilbh]

The irony being that it may well be escalation that leads to negotiation. By ruling out the the former they will probably rule out the latter as well. IMO brinkmanship is a necessary evil.

Although by escalation they just mean sending arms to Ukraine - which, for me, is the minimum of what we should be doing.

Also just the extraordinary gall of people who would all say they were anti-imperialist demanding negotiations by power blocks to settle a dispute, over the will of a country fighting for its independence

[PJL]

The irony being that it may well be escalation that leads to negotiation. By ruling out the the former they will probably rule out the latter as well. IMO brinkmanship is a necessary evil.

Although by escalation they just mean sending arms to Ukraine - which, for me, is the minimum of what we should be doing.

Also just the extraordinary gall of people who would all say they were anti-imperialist demanding negotiations by power blocks to settle a dispute, over the will of a country fighting for its independence

Well, those types of people aren't realy anti-imperialist, just anti-West. They have been around for at least a century, for as long as the USSR came into being.

[Josquius]

Key thing to remember with the guardian and something which is very good about them is they do publish articles from a variety of viewpoints that differ from their core readership: both nutty tankies like this and unashamed liberals.

Of course I do suspect its these articles that idiots pick up on when they want to have a go at the paper.

They could maybe too with clearer labelling on these articles to say they're showing an alternative view.

[Zanza]

As the NHS is discussed here occasionally:

[Sheilbh]

I know I have the same analysis and cause for everything in Britain - but:



Penny wise, pound foolish. And the huge issue of social care:


When I was in hospital for a week a couple of year's ago this was a really big problem. There were elderly who'd been in the ward for months because there weren't the spaces or they were refusing to move into social care.

We could also look at structural reforms in the NHS but that will always be fraught because it is the national fetish. It's the "envy of the world" and the alternative is America etc.

I think I've mentioned before but lots of Poles go back to Poland for medical treatment because they prefer their system. Which is rather bracing for the right who worry about immigrants coming to get access to our welfare state and for the left who are convinced that the NHS is the envy of the world. Not that anyone notices or that it causes any consideration.

[Josquius]

I think I've mentioned before but lots of Poles go back to Poland for medical treatment because they prefer their system. Which is rather bracing for the right who worry about immigrants coming to get access to our welfare state and for the left who are convinced that the NHS is the envy of the world. Not that anyone notices or that it causes any consideration.

I don't think too much could be read into this.
If I was sick I would value even more being in an environment where everyone spoke my language providing it wasn't clearly massively worse.

Anyhoo. The NHS is being clearly driven to the brink to create a two tier system. Much more politically expedient then outright privatisation.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah - that's Christopher Hope the Telegraph's Politics Editor who has singlehandedly written over 200 stories on a new royal yacht. Basically every time you see that story pop up it'll be from a story originally by him - I imagine he has them already pre-written by now "hopes rise"-"Government plans"-"hopes dashed"

Plus ca change:

Christopher Hope
@christopherhope
NEW

Plans for £250m Royal Yacht Britannia replacement championed by Boris Johnson are sunk by Rishi Sunak
Bidders told today. Ministry of Defence statement due soon.

Separately on vibes politics it's really fascinating seeing the coverage of Johnson and Sunak at COP27. Johnson was genuinely and personally committed on envirornmental issues, energy transition and net zero, but he is the darling of the right; while Sunak had to be literally shamed into attending, but he is coded as more liberal/centrist.

[Syt]

Watching the 2018 documentary "WW1 - The Final Hours" about the run up to the 1918 armistice, with historians from UK, France, Germany and US. One of the historians? Kwasi Kwarteng.