Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[celedhring]

The by election in Hamilton makes for quite disturbing reading.

Labour - 31.6%
SNP - 29.4%
Reform - 26.1%
Tory - 6%
Green - 2.6%
Lib dem - 2%

 44% turnout.

Bizare to see the fascists doing so well in Scotland.... Km
Though curious labour won considering the by election was just triggered by the perfectly fine SNP MP dying.

Low turnout elections tend to favor extremists, but yeah, not a nice result.

[Admiral Yi]

Is Hamilton a shithole?

[Valmy]

The by election in Hamilton makes for quite disturbing reading.

Labour - 31.6%
SNP - 29.4%
Reform - 26.1%
Tory - 6%
Green - 2.6%
Lib dem - 2%

 44% turnout.

Bizarre to see the fascists doing so well in Scotland....
Though curious labour won considering the by election was just triggered by the perfectly fine SNP MP dying.

Bizarre Labour won a seat considering how unimpressively they seem to be doing in government currently.

But those are just vibes I am getting. It could be that Labour is just having to deal with difficult circumstances and making tough choices that are polarizing, but not necessarily alienating their voters.

[Josquius]

Is Hamilton a shithole

Never been. But I really don't think so. Kind of a normal middling place I think? With some really posh areas.

The by election in Hamilton makes for quite disturbing reading.

Labour - 31.6%
SNP - 29.4%
Reform - 26.1%
Tory - 6%
Green - 2.6%
Lib dem - 2%

 44% turnout.

Bizarre to see the fascists doing so well in Scotland....
Though curious labour won considering the by election was just triggered by the perfectly fine SNP MP dying.

Bizarre Labour won a seat considering how unimpressively they seem to be doing in government currently.

But those are just vibes I am getting. It could be that Labour is just having to deal with difficult circumstances and making tough choices that are polarizing, but not necessarily alienating their voters.

I mistyped. It's a SMP rather than an MP.
The SNP are governing in Scotland and I gather aren't very good. Maybe a chunk of people had the good sense to vote on the relevant local issues.

[Tamas]

So the spending review at first glance looks positive? New nucular power plant! And social housing.

Gonna take some effort from the Guardian to paint this into all doom and gloom.

[Sheilbh]

On the grooming gangs, the quick review ordered by Starmer to avoid a national inquiry is recommending establishing a national inquiry - I believe Starmer's accepted that and will be establishing one. I would say the headline points here were being flagged by Labour MPs in certain areas (particularly the North-West), including people like Jack Straw 25 years ago and it seems like very little was done.

I think that's right. I think there are very serious, very similar failings in locations across the country so a national inquiry is right in this case - I also hope it can give a space to listen to and respect the victims who were failed by social services and the police:

Casey to call for new national inquiry into grooming gangs
Government said to fear civil unrest at review's findings, which are believed to include that victims were 'institutionally ignored for fear of racism'
Aubrey Allegretti, Chief Political Correspondent
Saturday June 14 2025, 8.25am, The Times


Baroness Casey has been reviewing the issue of grooming gangs for several months
REUTERS

Sir Keir Starmer will be told to launch a new national inquiry into grooming gangs in a report set to explicitly link the issue with men of Pakistani origin.

The prime minister is expected to be warned that white British girls who were targeted were "institutionally ignored for fear of racism".

The findings are due to be announced next week after a months-long audit by Baroness Casey.

Starmer's government has previously resisted a new inquiry, instead allowing five councils to set up their own investigations in towns where girls were abused.

The prime minister said earlier this year that another national inquiry would delay justice for victims, by prolonging the wait for recommendations from previous inquiries to be implemented.

However, The Times understands that Casey's report will recommend a new national inquiry, examining the issue of the perpetrators' race and allegations of a cover-up.

Casey's review is said to state that some victims were "institutionally ignored for fear of racism". Other recommendations are believed to have been made regarding the licensing of taxis, given many of those who were later found to have abused girls were taxi drivers.

The government was alerted to Casey's report earlier this week and has conducted a swift process to sign off several legislative changes.

An announcement had been scheduled for next Wednesday after the prime minister returns from meeting G7 leaders in Canada. However, Whitehall insiders said that it could be brought forward after some details of Casey's report were leaked. No 10 also faces the prospect of a parliamentary vote on launching the national inquiry.

The Conservatives have tabled an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill that would require ministers to start "a national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs" within three months.

Downing Street is said to be concerned about the report's publication leading to civil unrest similar to last summer's riots after the Southport murders.

A series of investigations by The Times uncovered the grooming gangs scandal from 2011. However, the issue was reignited at the start of the year after Elon Musk intervened on social media and criticised Starmer and Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister responsible for tackling violence against women and girls.

Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, told a committee of MPs earlier this month that the police have identified 287 closed cases so far to be looked at again by a national task force on child sexual exploitation. In January, she urged chief constables in England and Wales to reopen cold cases.[/b]

Victims of grooming gangs have spoken of their ordeals. Fiona Goddard told the BBC how she was abused by a predominantly British Asian gang in Bradford from the age of 14, shortly after being taken into care. Nine men have been convicted of a total of 22 offences against Goddard and jailed.

Her abusers plied her with drugs and gifts and a court heard that she had been "in effect, used as a prostitute" by one. "The abuse started as being more coercive but then, the more you resisted it ... by the end, it was violent rapes," she said.

Just last week seven men were convicted in one of these crimes in relation to two girls. The details are grim - so you may want to skip the rest of this post.

One girl was thirteen and had been living in foster care and the care system for five years. She was initially befriended by a stallholder at the market with a lingerie stall who gave her free underwear as well as money for alcohol and cigarettes. Evidence shows that staff knew she was frequently meeting older men who spoke "Asian languages" and gave her alcohol and drugs. She was groomed, transported to other towns and raped - "the most in one evening was five" and became pregnant by one of the men convicted. The care system had notes showing that staff spoke to her about the "dangers of meeting strangers" and reported the phone numbers of older men who were calling her to the police. The police didn't investigate. The care home felt "unable to keep her safe". The victim has said that she thinks the social workers and care system viewed her as a "prostitute" from the age of ten.

The other girl was befriended with money for cigarettes and fizzy drinks. Again she was groomed. She was given alcohol and drugs and "passed around". This was filmed as blackmail though, in the end the men ended up publishing the video anyway. She had told children's services that she was "hanging around" with groups of older men. Children's services knew that she was being raped by a larger number of those men but "were of the view that little, if anything could be done to help." She says she was abused by 30 men by the time she was 13 and estimates that in the end she was abused by up to 200 men. There was a separate case relating to her abuse which also resulted in four other convictions.

The ringleader - or at least only defendant who knew (and lured) both victims (who didn't know each other) - has a previous conviction and was jailed for five years previously for grooming an underage girl. Another of the defendants also had a previous six and a half year conviction as one of five men for sexually abusing and exploiting "a profoundly vulnerable" 15 year old girl.

They're really grim cases and this is from the same town - but it is the thing that everything I've read about these cases just hits home. That the victims were just consistently viewed by everyone who should have been trying to care for them (as children!) as disposable. Whether it's social workers, children's services, children's homes, police officers they're just consistently seen as a "type" and one that the state does not care about. It's so enraging - and I think that's why there is a strong case for an inquiry to really actually draw this out as a national problem that, I think, requires really significant reform. Because I just think that the kids who are hanging out at market stalls and taxi ranks in all hours are not the ones you just ignore but exactly the kids who most need help however difficult that may be (and however much they resist).

[Sheilbh]

Bizarre Labour won a seat considering how unimpressively they seem to be doing in government currently.

It was a by-election for the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish government have also not been covering themselves in glory - there's a sense they've steadied the ship after the collapse of Sturgeon's leadership and Yusuf. But current polling has the SNP somewhere between 30-35%, Labour and Reform around 20%, the Tories and Lib Dems around 10% and the Greens just below 10%. So I think there's a slightly different quality to this election: the government you want to punish in a mid-term election is probably more likely to be the SNP than Labour. I think if it was for the Westminster seat covering much of the same area (which is pretty strong Labour seat) then we'd probably see a collapse in the Labour vote and the SNP doing surprisingly well - plus Reform.

Scotland has partial PR (basically like the old German system mix of directly elected constituencies as well as regional PR lists), so Forming a government, I suspect, is going to be a real challenge.

In terms of this by-election. The numbers - and result - are interesting, but I think it's the swing that's really striking. Broadly:

Labour - 32% (swing of -2%)
SNP 29% (-17%)
Reform 26% (new)
Tories 6% (-12%)

The rest got under 1,000 votes so not particularly important. Labour's big institutional strength perhaps even in Scotland is their ground game. They know where their voters are and they can get activists out quickly.

It's not clear quite how much the SNP have steadied the ship - and it looks likely that there will be an "anti-SNP" vote sufficient to win in most constituencies and they may have to rely on the SNP lists - or those votes not being able to consolidate.

Reform's result is impressive given the (obvious) strength of Labour's ground game and particularly given the old narrative that I hope we can now end of "Scottish exceptionalism". They're likely to be one of the biggest parties in the Scottish Parliament at the next election. There's also a chance they might win in the elections to the Senedd in Wales - there Labour have collapsed and Plaid Cymru and Reform are both surging and polling around 30%.

[Josquius]

That would be depressing in Wales. They've been doing some good stuff with the speed limit reductions and South Wales metro. You just know reform would break all that for shits and giggles.

Less practically the Welsh language would really suffer too...

[Tamas]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jun/16/police-ethnicity-nationality-data-grooming-gangs


I wonder if this and things like Starmer talking the anti-multiculti talk are part of a coherent strategy where they bend to the sign of the times even if it's a regression, in order to preserve the reigns of power and preventing a bunch of crazies and conmen riding the reactionary wave to power.

It would be an interesting experiment, seeing how just blindly keeping with the humanist values of the 90s and early 00s keep losing elections for those who try.

[Josquius]

Its a mistake.
He's never going to be racist enough for the racists, and this shit is no good in it's own right-there'll always be the argument if you just be a bit more bigoted then magically everything will be better.
Also labour are facing a huge problem with leaking votes to the left.

He hasn't gone all in yet. But death by a thousand cuts is building. And I'm sure if one of those cuts is a person's individual little pet issue it will make a huge difference.

Labour really need to avoid these nonsense culture war distractions and focus on what they promised of investment in housing, infrastructure, and services to create growth.


Particular on this grooming gangs stuff. It makes sense to collect this data. That the data isn't there is being taken by some as proof it's Islam to blame.
Though the way it's all being framed is very off. Right down to accepting the fact from Manchester Asians are over represented - maybe they are. But is this the causal factor or is it particularly people who work in the night time economy which is over represented by Asians?

[Sheilbh]

I think they're clearly wanting to avoid Reform sweeping their heartlands (as Johnson did in 2019). I think their strategy, to the extent there was one was be "serious" and take "tough decisions" in year one, classic social democrat spending on infrastructure, health and public services in the years that follow to a "we've steadied the ship and things are getting better" by the end of this parliament. I think they fucked up the first year really badly - and I think Reeves' rules and empowering the OBR has created a rod for their own back. On the rest I don't think this was a strategy - in part because it's uncomfortable for Labour (which is broadly why I think it's necessary).

To be honest I think it's generally a Guardian/soft left worldview being mugged by reality on multiple fronts - whether it's issues with judicial review and the civil service, these cases or the way human rights law has been applied in immigration cases. I don't think it was malicious or even conscious but I think for a lot of the last 10 years an awful lot of real problems has been dismissed as just the Tories being bad, populism or just untrue. I think part of what's happening is the disenchantment of Starmer and (some) of his cabinet that actually they really were issues and it wasn't just a case of turning up and not being Tory or doing populism. It wasn't all fiction and dog whistles but I think a lot of people would rather look the other way than at realities that are uncomfortable to confront - and, in my view, if you're not confronting and working on those issues because of discomfort, they don't disappear and you are just leaving them for others to exploit (with less compunction).

This isn't to say the Tories weren't bad and weren't engaging in populism because they were in office for 14 years and a lot of these issues were not addressed - that's why they're now facing Starmer and are really challenging. But Starmer is, I think, responsibly trying to fix them - that's putting Labour into some uncomfortable positions on issues they don't really like to talk about. For example, challenging the civil service on how difficult it is for elected ministers to actually do anything (having spent their first six months giving away powers to 17 newly established or reformed quangos).

Or in this case they reluctantly set up a review which found that there was a "disproportionate number of men of Asian ethnic backgrounds" involved and that government, police and local authorities avoided the issue of ethnicity "for fear of appearing racist, raising community tensions or causing community problems." I don't think Labour wants to be dealing with that - or the national inquiry they've now had to order, changing the law so if individuals are convicted of sexual abuse they can't claim for asylum, or for that matter having to get the National Crime Inquiry to investigate old cases because the local police can't be trusted. In terms of scale Yvette Cooper has said there are currently 800 cases for the NCA to investigate and the expectation is that it will increase to over a 1,000. I also think the questions around children's services and local police forces will be very uncomfortable.

I've said before and Casey calls it out, but I think a lot is about class and who we view as "disposable". In this case young teenage girls, particularly in local authority care, were basically treated as "adults" even though they were children. Police and prosecutorial discretion to avoid prosecuting teenage couples was applied to men in their 40s and 50s accused of grooming and sexually abusing 13 year olds.

And I see the quote in Casey's report that "blindness, ignorance, prejudice, defensiveness and even good, but misdirected intentions, all played a part in this collective failure" and think it describes basically everyone of the many, many scandals of the British state in recent years. Sadly so is her comment that there is rarely accountability.

I think on all sorts of issues I think Starmer spent his first 6 months going very much down a route that he now regrets and is trying to unwind. I think the consistent story is that I think he overestimated the capacity and effectiveness or the British state and underestimated the extent to which many of these issues were real and structural - even if Tory attempts to "fix" them were mainly about performance rather than actually fixing them, which Starmer is, to his credit, trying to do. Having said all of that you only form a first impression once and I do worry that first 6-12 months of may have been pretty fatal.

Edit: And incidentally on the seriousness of its report - it's not one of the core recommendations but under the recommendation for a national inquiry (and I am broadly dubious on our inquiry state), Casey basically calls for legal holds to require local authorities, police forces and other agencies to not destroy any relevant records.

[Sheilbh]

I was also going to add as another example Yvette Cooper talking about changing the way the ECHR is being interpreted by UK courts (from areas I know more about, I think there is an issue here - I've posted about it but it's hugely restricted press freedoms in a very unhelpful way). The change she's proposing is a little technical and basically telling the courts to give greater account of the wider "public interest" in balancing the rights of individuals as is normally the approach in the ECHR (not always).

Again that is a populist right wing talking point - but also today you have ITV doing an undercover investigation and finding a Brazilian man wanted for murder in Brazil and subject to an Interpol red notice, he moved to the UK shortly after that murder. The UK has an extradition treaty (for serious crimes) with Brazil but his extradition was blocked under Article 3 (prohibiting torture, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment) because of Brazilian prisons. He now has pre-settled status and can work in any job.

There was another case of a Brazilian man, Brazil was seeking his extradition for child sexual abuse. Again this was blocked on Article 3 grounds. He was subsequently arrested and convicted for possessing and distributing thousands of images of child sexual abuse.

They had some quotes from Brazilian prosecutors who sound a bit incredulous about it all.

On the grooming cases there's apparently a fairly big argument with the Pakistani government and the Foreign Secretary because Pakistan is refusing to accept the deportation of non-British, Pakistani citizens after those convictions (and time served). On the ITV cases I kind of feel like you either accept you can't extradite anyone to Brazil and you have really stringent checks to prevent alleged child abusers and murderers moving to the country, or you say conditions might not be at the same standard as Europe but we have an extradition treaty and will extradite serious criminals. While on Pakistan I kind of feel we should be talking about stopping new visas if they're not willing to accept the deportation of Pakistani citizens who've committed a serious crime and no longer have the right to live in the UK.

So again I don't think that's the system working as intended - and as I see it you either try to fix it, which will involve talking about it and possibly boost Reform/hurt Labour with the left, or you try to ignore it (I'm excluding the Tory solution of talking loudly about it while proposing the solution of building a portakabin penal colony on St Helena).

Edit: And again I don't think Starmer or Cooper went into this planning to have to change how courts read the ECHR - I think they've come to the realisation that it is actually a problem.

[Josquius]

Do other European countries have this problem with deportation?
I know nothing but am dubious.


So, overall a few years of Starmer to steady the ship, start the recovery, and draw fire, then Burnham swoops in for the next election?

[Sheilbh]

Do other European countries have this problem with deportation?
I know nothing but am dubious.

It depends what we mean. In relation to foreign citizens after an offence or an extradition - I'm not sure. Although I would note the alleged murderer from Brazil has pre-settled status, so he has European citizenship of some kind but settled in the UK - I believe other European countries have extradition treaties with Brazil, I'm not sure if those countries also refuse to actually extradite people.

I'd add in that case it's interesting that part of his human rights claim was that he's gay which would be unsafe in Brazil - that wasn't relevant to the decision. From conversations with the undercover reporter and his social media presence he appears to have a wife and kids. I think that's interesting because I understand from the Economist that there are TikToks for people on how to make human rights claims in the UK which covers how to make that claim (As well as other useful how tos)

On deportations more generally - I'm not sure the issues with Reform are unique to the UK (I think there's basically nothing exceptional going on in Britain right now - we're a very European country). So for example the EU stats basically say there's about a million third country nationals in the EU illegally, about half that number (so 450,000) have been ordered to leave the EU and about 110,000 have been returned (there's voluntary, facilitated and enforced returns).

The last UK stats - though Labour is increasing this - has about 14,000 (10,000 voluntary or faciliated, 4,000 enforced). That's basically the same as France so it sounds similar - and again not without political consequences or attempts by Macron to fix. Worth noting that as with a basically everything else, the immigration system basically stopped functioning in the covid years - and I think that's true in the UK and across Europe - so there's a degree of recovery and catch-up.

Although I think austerity and state capacity (and outsourcing) is a big part of it too. But from 2006-2018 the UK was averaging somewhere between 30-45k returns per year (as now about two thirds independent and facilitated, one third enforced). Since 2018, it's been somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000.

It's particularly striking with asylum because basically from New Labour into the Coalition around 60+% of people refused an asylum claim were returned (again mix of voluntary and enforced). Since 2015 it's never got higher than a third and is largely floating around 10-20% right now. I'd add to that the time taken to make a decision has also increased from generally under 6 months to over 18 months, similarly the acceptance rate (especially on appeal) has significantly increased. Similarly there is a significantly increase reliance on hotels (which is more expensive). All of this to me suggests a system that isn't really working any more (in particular I think the huge delays on processing applications have a knock on on outcomes, returns and needing to house people in hotels).

Again I back a liberal immigration system but I think it needs to function and I think across Europe we've inadvertently created the most offensive combination possible (in every way). So we have relatively narrow paths to entry (particularly in relation to asylum where there's really limited willingness to take UNHCR refugees, for example), we pay authoritarian regimes and warlords in the wider neighbourhood to stop people from getting to Europe, we then have fortress Europe with the Med and the Channel and walls/fences (more external frontier barriers were built along EU borders than America's in Trump's first term) - but if you get through that lethal obstacle course, then it is pretty unlikely you'll be removed. I've said before but I think this creates perverse incentives at every step of the way, but also favours people fit and healthy enough to even try to make the journey. But also the different bits of that system manage to be offensive to basically everyone on the political spectrum for different reasons - on the lawful way in its narrow and difficult pushing people to unlawful routes which we spend lots of money making more and more dangerous, but then within Europe it's relatively lax. I'm not sure it's sustainable.