Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[garbon]

As usual the radicals on both ends of the spectrum have it wrong and only the awesome centrists have it figured out.

The current asylum system generates both false positives and false negatives.  The left only cares about the false negatives and the right only cares about the false positives.  A truly just system would acknowledge both and work to balance them.

Okay but situation on the ground is UK government wanting to airlift refugees to Rwanda and putting asylum seekers on prison barges. Sanity long left the conversation.

[Josquius]

As usual the radicals on both ends of the spectrum have it wrong and only the awesome centrists have it figured out.

The current asylum system generates both false positives and false negatives.  The left only cares about the false negatives and the right only cares about the false positives.  A truly just system would acknowledge both and work to balance them.

Yes.
Though the existence of these left radicals who want complete open borders is vastly overstated by the right radicals.
The modern situation is largely one of the sane, the primary demand from the left being to actually invest in processing asylum claims in a timely manner for instance, vs. ever increasing loony right insanity and performative cruelty.

[Jacob]

IIRC Admiral Yi approves of performative cruelty as an effective measure to lessen the number of asylum seekers.

[Admiral Yi]

Yes.
Though the existence of these left radicals who want complete open borders is vastly overstated by the right radicals.
The modern situation is largely one of the sane, the primary demand from the left being to actually invest in processing asylum claims in a timely manner for instance, vs. ever increasing loony right insanity and performative cruelty.

Can you tell me what happens to asylum seekers in the UK who's applications get rejected?  Honest question. 

[Sheilbh]

Can you tell me what happens to asylum seekers in the UK who's applications get rejected?  Honest question. 

In principle they are deported - that can be voluntary (UK charters flights etc) or enforced (they're arrested). The rates of deportation for failed asylum seekers have collapsed in the last few years - it basically broke down during covid and hasn't returned to pre-covid norms. So currently I think estimates are that 90% of failed asylum seekers end up staying in the UK.

But Jos is right - I think it's the other side of the not processing asylum claims in a timely manner. It's a collapse in state capacity. As recently as 2014 90% of asylum claims were receiving an initial decision within six months, that's now down to 5%. So there's now over 100,000 people waiting for an initial decision. At the same time (and possibly relatedly) the number of successful applications (including appeals) has gone from about 20% twenty years ago to around 75% now, which I think is at the highest level since 1990.

I think May as Home Secretary basically wanted to outsource enforcement to her hostile environment policies, which is when the number of deportations started to decline. Similarly I think Patel and Braverman have relied on some concept of deterrence (which I don't think really applies in push/pull factors on asylum), rather than actually getting the system to work.

So we have lots of headline grabbing nasty policy announcements (very few of which have actually happened - not a single person has been sent to Rwanda and the barges have been shut down for legionella), but also a system that often takes over a year to reach an initial decision (despite record number of asylum case-workers) and that, despite the nastiness, normally decides people are valid asylum seekers.

It is worth noting that in addition, in the last 15 years has basically seen a shift to very specific schemes (Syria, Afghanistan etc) but all other routes to asylum in the UK closed unless someone can actually get into the UK.

[Admiral Yi]

<snip>

I'm confused.  Are you saying the fact that 90% of failed asylum seekers stay in the UK is the result of a slow process?

[Sheilbh]

I'm confused.  Are you saying the fact that 90% of failed asylum seekers stay in the UK is the result of a slow process?

No - although there may be some elements that are linked. It's easier to keep track of someone if you're able to reach a decision in 6 months rather than 18+.

But I'm saying the system is failing on both sides. They're two sides of the same coin which is that in the last ten years the entire asylum system has broken down. At the same time as that has happened, the performance of toughness (barges, Rwanda, painting over cartoon characters) has increased.

[Josquius]

Also arguable if someone has 18 months to prove their case they're more likely to find the evidence and support  they need to get a positive answer.

Or if you're bullshitting then you won't wait the 18 months to be rejected and will simply dissapear under the radar after a year leaving mostly valid applicants behind to go through the process.

Or of course that there simply are many more valid asylum seekers these days and the delusions of the right that they're all fake have just as much grounding in reality as most of their views.

[Admiral Yi]

Also arguable if someone has 18 months to prove their case they're more likely to find the evidence and support  they need to get a positive answer.

Or if you're bullshitting then you won't wait the 6 months to be rejected and will simply dissapear under the radar after a year leaving mostly valid applicants behind to go through the process.

Or of course that there simply are many more valid asylum seekers these days and the delusions of the right that they're all fake have just as much grounding in reality as most of their views.

Right.  So as long as you are thinking about whether cheaters should prosper or not, I'll leave you in peace, do what you wanna do.

[Sheilbh]

I see that the PM now considers "fixing potholes" as "levelling up". I think most people would see it as the bare minimum and probably not really going to help shift regional inequality.

I never really thought we'd look back on the Cones Hotline as an example of vaunting ambition, but here we are

Edit: Separately, WTF is going on at the New Statesman? They are the house magazine of the left (like the Spectator is for the right) and it's very likely that Labour are going to win the next election so I'd expect a lot of focus on that, but also what a Labour government could do and what ideas are circulating on the left.

Instead they seem to just be pumping out articles about the fringe right. They're not even in-depth long reads that are doing analysis but just almost puff pieces (e.g. one on Jordan Peterson's daughter recently), plus two recent (widely criticised) long pieces on Ukraine which seems like they're from the cranky right (even if one is by a communist academic). There's one on how the realists were right and one on how it is the stimulated, hyper-real nature of the war that makes it so bloody (I'm not an expert on Baudrillard, but I'm not convinced).

It seems like a very weird turn in their pieces recently and also strangely out of time or outdated - and also kind of not what you want them to be doing on the likely cusp of a new Labour government It's very odd - and quite annoying as there was a while a few years ago when they were really good, but it feels a lot less essential now.

[Josquius]

A lot of the 'genuine' levelling up examples out there are projects that were already happening too but they've decided to slap the label on for political gain- the Northumberland (railway) Line for instance.

Interesting you mention Jordan Peterson's daughter. I had no idea he even had kids (I mean I guess he presumed he would have? Some women have no taste) But never thought of them at all. This morning youtube randomly threw something at me about how she and JP himself claim to eat nothing but steak and this is a wonderful diet that keeps them perfectly healthy.
Peterson has been quite invisible in recent years I must say. Maybe post-Trump the far right are dropping the need for big words as a shield for their stupid ideas?

As to should they be reporting on Labour.... I guess in a way its a good thing they're staying quiet? The Tories are doing a wonderful job hanging themselves and we don't want to give them ammo, no matter how tenuous, that the left has some evil plan.

[Sheilbh]

Just to follow up on that ONS revision they've made the point it's not a revision that they make an initial estimate and fill in data later. They've also flagged that the UK change is high at about 2% but that other European statistics bodies have also had large changes of about 1% due to the difficulty of statistically working out what's been going on since the pandemic.

The upshot is that this means that from 2019 the UK economy has grown at a similar pace as France and Italy but more than Germany or the EU as a whole (exc. Ireland, where "GDP" has grown by a third in the last two years...). Obviously without Brexit there would be a bigger gap - and its impact seems to be that we've moved from a country with above average growth for Europe to one with average growth for Europe. But I think it reinforces my view that a lot of the issues domestic and regional, as all of our economies are doing worse than, for example, Japan.

In particular factors which I think are shared across Europe are that we're really exposed to supply chain issues and to energy shocks because we don't have abundant domestic energy supply in Europe (and the cost of energy for a business in Germany, say, is roughly double the cost in the US). I think there's also a worrying possibility that having spent lots more money, attention and care on climate - that actually we're not going to benefit economically from the global energy transition, instead China and the US will. On a purely domestic side I can think of some things that would help a bit, but I worry we're possibly all locked into further decline as a region (and extraordinary fall in the immportance of the Euro from 15 years ago). I've said it before but I think history will have very little positive to say about European policymaking in the 2000s and 2010s

Although worth saying I don't think it matters politically.

[Sheilbh]

Banged on about it a couple of times but just seen the co-leader of the Greens in a local campaign against pylons calling for a more "integrated" approach (which often seems to mean more consultations). Worth noting that one of the reasons building energy infrastructure is so expensive and slow n the UK is resistance to pylons which means it's often underground.

He was also moaning about the National Grid not apparently proposing an "off-shore" grid optino - which I don't really know what that would mean/how that would work.

Again - we have seven years to build as much energy infrastructure as we've built in the last 30 years to meet increased electricity demand and to have a hope of meeting our net zero targets. Which you'd think woud be a priority for the Greens, but here we are

[Richard Hakluyt]

UK green party is really a pressure group rather than a real party. They provide criticisms rather than potential solutions. Which is fair enough, but I will never vote for them for that very reason, despite being at least mid green myself.

[HVC]

Most greens are just modern luddites