Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

I don't often watch BBC news but I did this evening - I was really annoyed at the decision to use a clip of a white tourist to Jamaica talking about the devastation which seems an insane editorial decision given the number people in Britain with Jamaican family and the number of Brits in Jamaica.

But was really struck on the immigration/crime stories. There were three.

One was the Ethiopian sex offender who was accidentally released. He was caught again and deported today. He was then given £500. There is a payment scheme if people convicted of a crime accept their deportation "at the earliest possible opportunity". But this wasn't part of it - apparently it was just purely discretionary (in the power of the immigration officials) as he was threatening to make another asylum claim and to challenge his deportation legally. Obviously that would mean he couldn't use the flight today - they would have needed to detain him, legal costs and costs of another flight etc. So they made the decision that this was the cheaper and quicker option - which I get and makes sense. But it does seem a bit mad, I think especially for ordinary people looking in.

Other two stories were murders.

First was a Somali mirant who'd travelled through four countries and committed low level crimes in all of them. He got to the UK on a small boat and after his asylum claim was rejected he got drunk and phoned a helpline. He told them he was going to kill himself or someone else. Then he went into the local bank and stabbed the man at the back of the queue in the heart - in all it took about 20 seconds. The man who died was a local businessman and friend of the mayor of Derby, both British Asians, and the mayor's done a statement saying that the killer shouldn't have been in the country in the first place, once he got here and was refused the right to stay he should have been removed - and if that had happened his friend would still be alive.

Other one was a really horrendous stabbing in West London, one man was killed while walking his dog. The alleged attacker has also been charged with attempted murder of another man and a 14 year old boy. It sounds like the attacker knew the two people who were attempted to be murdered but not the man who was actually killed. I think footage of this attack has been circulating on social media. Again the attacker was also an asylum seeker this time from Afghanistan who had arrived via small boats.

I get there's not some deep connection here but if you're just normal every day people, not deeply interested or following politics those were the main stories on the ten o'clock news (plus the Chancellor appears to have been renting her family home unlawfully). It's easy to see how people have the sense of the system being broken and why small boats matter. And I don't think ths is the BBC trawling for asylum related crimes (also all picked up by the Guardian - we're not talking about the tabloids here).

[garbon]

I get there's not some deep connection here but if you're just normal every day people, not deeply interested or following politics those were the main stories on the ten o'clock news (plus the Chancellor appears to have been renting her family home unlawfully). It's easy to see how people have the sense of the system being broken and why small boats matter. And I don't think ths is the BBC trawling for asylum related crimes (also all picked up by the Guardian - we're not talking about the tabloids here).

Why don't you think that?

I just had a quick look to see about how many people died in London last week of knife crime. First hit was from yesterday from MyLondon.

https://www.mylondon.news/news/horror-24-hours-london-sees-32771267

Horror 24 hours in London sees fatal triple stabbing, double shooting and woman killed at home

Londoners have been left 'panicked' after a horrifying 24 hours of crime in the capital. There have been two fatalities from a total of five stabbings, including a woman killed in her home and a man knifed-to-death in a triple stabbing in Uxbridge. A double shooting in East London has also left two men in hospital.
...

I believe only one of those made national news, suggesting that editorial discretion was selected in which items went to print.

I'm not saying BBC, Guardian, et al. were wrong to select the stories as they wanted ones that woul get more eyes on, those that would generate more clicks.

I will say they are certainly playing an active role in what 'normal every day people' think about asylum seekers and immigration more broadly.

[garbon]

Another way of looking at this, the government says that last year 108,138. Now only one of your men listed came in 2024  (I think one was 2020 and one 2025) but lets use that as a conservative estimate of the adult male population of asylum seekers over that 5 year stretch.

Quick math suggests those stories above would account for .003% of adult male asylum seekers.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-december-2024/how-many-people-claim-asylum-in-the-uk

[Tamas]

Sometimes the British press is suspect to me. It is crazy to think they coordinate so I am not saying that, but they sure seem to have a routine of joining in the beating of the same drum one of them starts, to make sure there's as much engagement as possible. Like the asylum-seeker crimes. What else are you going to get for clicks? The government is... thinking about doing stuff, maybe, maybe not? YAWN! The weather is... mild? YAWN! The mooning stock market seems to be hiding a global recession creeping in? That's complex. YAWN! The conflict in Sudan has reached the "entire hospitals massacred" level? Can't spot a single Jew in there. YAWN!

But hey, when 20 people protested in front of that hotel a few months ago, that got clicks. Let's milk it hard.

[Josquius]

I would frame it slightly the other way round to be honest. I think this sort of goes to the negative polarisation point I was saying with Tamas - and I think it is a little bit of a flaw on here sometimes (and in left-ier circles generally).

What I mean by it is people forming opinions negatively based on what their opponents are saying. In addition post-modern ideas have dominated politics increasingly - so it all becomes a question of discourse.

I think those two things interact in a really dangerous unhelpful way. Because what it means is if someone on the right or far-right raises something or talks about an issue a lot of the left polarise against that issue - regardless of what's going on/whether there's a factual basis to it. In addition the "correct" thing politically is not even to investigate or think through alternative solutions but instead is to oppose because if you don't you're conceding the ground or fighting on their turf or accepting their "framing" of an issue.

Yes, the far right have long thought this way- if the left like something then it must be bad and is to be opposed.
But for sure you do get a creeping attitude on the left where some think the same.
Though I'm not sure asylum hotels quite fit the bill there. I think on the left there's a pretty good recognition asylum hotels are a shambolic way of handling refugees.

I think that's a lot of what the Democrats did over Biden's health. I think it's why there were pieces about six months ago saying "whisper it, but Labour ministers are saying Dominic Cummings was right and the British state is broken" and just this week there were pieces saying "whisper it, but Labour ministers are saying Rwanda might have been a good idea after all if implemented properly". Those are both things that you and I have been saying in different ways for a while but I think it is why Labour and more left-y bits of politics around the world kind of keep on getting mugged by political reality.

Going the next step is more difficult. There were those pieces about Labour saying Cummings was right on the British state. Starmer gave a speech excoriating the civil service as being comfortable in "the tepid bath of managed decline" and said the British state needed entirely re-wiring. He then appointed a third generation mandarin as the top of the civil service and there seems to be no actual change in policy direction to reflect their shifting opinions/experiences.

There's definitely elements in the civil service who think this way. Maybe the problem is one of taking aim at the civil service as a whole rather than specifying where the problem is?
As I assure you I definitely do want to rip things up and build something actually functional from scratch. My boss is on board with this. Their boss... maybe so too. But somewhere up the web are people who prefer to just plod along.

Though, needs noting, unless we sort brexit out managed decline is very much the name of the game for Britain. The thread title wasn't entirely hyperbole :p

I think part of it is a problem of our politics in particular that the university - lobbies/think tank/parties/unions - MPs - Ministers pipeline means that an awful lot of senior politicians have experience in policy ideas and shaping conversation and campaigning which is helpful. But less experience in other aspects of politics and administration. I also think there is a particular Labour problem - after 14 years in opposition - is that I think they genuinely believed they were good, sensible, non-populist people and the problems of government were because the Tories ere bad, mad, populists. Charlotte Ivers wrote about it at the weekend but just putting the "grown-ups" back in the room to replace the "malign and ill-intentioned Tories" would basically solve a lot of issues. I think that was always deusional and the issues that have been riling British politics for the last 15 years (in my view since the crash) do not reflect that the right has some sort of mental or rhetorical jiu-jitsu but real issues in the real world that need real solutions.

I remember at the start of this government reading a piece by Stephen Bush about Lisa Nandy (I overestimated her) giving evidence to the Culture Select Committee. I can never find the piece and I can't remember exactly what the issue she was discussing was. But basically she was asked about x policy objective (it might have been higher pay or diversity targets) and whether Labour would change the law to require it. And she said we wouldn't need to because it was (1) good for the companies involved and would raise profits, (2) produce better content and (3) be good for society/meet a Labour policy objective. As Bush pointed out - if that's your view the only reason the industry hadn't already made that change was spite. And he argued, if that's Labour's theory of government and change they're in a lot of trouble. I've thought about that piece basically every week since.

This sounds familiar. I think rest is politics was saying something similar recently? Or maybe it was something else

I do think there's something to this idea that just get rid of the tories and put adults in charge and things will be fine. It certainly helps. I've been saying for a long while Labour's key issue isn't whether they're on the left or right of the party but basic competence.
This will be a key line for keeping Reform in their box with how they're absolutely screwing up councils they've seized.

But yes. The time for tepid thinking is done. Just keeping the ship steady as she goes is fine if you have a stable ship and destination but what the Tories left us was an absolute mess. Labour need to pull their finger out and start doing some more radical stuff.


Kind of aside but sort of related into the whole rot at the core of the country thing....I have also been thinking lately about how we can replicate the long term thinking that China enjoys.
We've a huge problem in the UK where governments are around for 5 years and they can and will sabotage things for the next government to inherit. The Tories did this in their last days with tax drops.
I do wonder about the potential for some kind of.... independent decision tracking body or the like. Clearly map out and demonstrate the impact of decisions made some years ago....
I know, that's what plenty do already and it just isn't working. I don't know. Just thinking without any suggested solution. This is a problem.

I don't often watch BBC news but I did this evening - I was really annoyed at the decision to use a clip of a white tourist to Jamaica talking about the devastation which seems an insane editorial decision given the number people in Britain with Jamaican family and the number of Brits in Jamaica.

I didn't see that, though I did catch Newsnight a day or two ago where they spoke to a Jamaican journalist about the oncoming hurricanes.
I don't know on this....
To an extent it smells like they're absorbing the recent Reform moans about too many black faces on TV (which is something I've seen people say for years and I get it on some level. Has big synergies with OTT London-focus).
But on the other it is a bit of a sad fact that people do tend to care more about people who fit into more of their in-groups.  Ukraine>Israel>Sudan and all that.
Regular Jamaican guy? Maybe a few percent of Brits have family and can relate.
Brit on holiday in Jamaica? Even if you're not rich enough for this or don't really have interest in travel so far there's still some level of relatability from everyone.

The conflict in Sudan has reached the "entire hospitals massacred" level? Can't spot a single Jew in there. YAWN!

Don't be a Raz.
But overall on the rest yes.


I was just thinking the other night when I went into the city centre and saw a few gaggles of foreign looking guys milling about amidst the drinkers. Maybe they're not asylum seekers. But they could well be.
I was thinking....what else are they meant to do? They're not allowed to work or do something with their lives.... so they just hang about on the streets together and check out the women and the chaos.
Most of them will be normal decent guys. But its really no surprise that some of them in this situation mess up and do something illegal.
Upset asylum seekers are committing crimes are you? Well then let them work. Let them have a life. Process their claims considerably faster.

[garbon]

Sometimes the British press is suspect to me. It is crazy to think they coordinate so I am not saying that, but they sure seem to have a routine of joining in the beating of the same drum one of them starts, to make sure there's as much engagement as possible. Like the asylum-seeker crimes. What else are you going to get for clicks? The government is... thinking about doing stuff, maybe, maybe not? YAWN! The weather is... mild? YAWN! The mooning stock market seems to be hiding a global recession creeping in? That's complex. YAWN! The conflict in Sudan has reached the "entire hospitals massacred" level? Can't spot a single Jew in there. YAWN!

But hey, when 20 people protested in front of that hotel a few months ago, that got clicks. Let's milk it hard.

Perhaps they just know / quickly adapt to their audience in a feedback loop?

[Tamas]

Maybe.

[garbon]

BTW, I saw likelihood of income tax rises (after promising not to) and Reeves's improper landlording are getting some traction.

[PJL]

Sometimes the British press is suspect to me. It is crazy to think they coordinate so I am not saying that, but they sure seem to have a routine of joining in the beating of the same drum one of them starts, to make sure there's as much engagement as possible. Like the asylum-seeker crimes. What else are you going to get for clicks? The government is... thinking about doing stuff, maybe, maybe not? YAWN! The weather is... mild? YAWN! The mooning stock market seems to be hiding a global recession creeping in? That's complex. YAWN! The conflict in Sudan has reached the "entire hospitals massacred" level? Can't spot a single Jew in there. YAWN!

But hey, when 20 people protested in front of that hotel a few months ago, that got clicks. Let's milk it hard.

Don't blame the media for that, blame the voters. The media want advertising, so will get clickbait stories, so will get stuff that will do that. It's not new, back in the day it would have been called (front page) headline grabbers. People are inherently nasty and if there weren't stories about it, people would only complain that there is a conspiracy of silence on the issue.

[PJL]

BTW, I saw likelihood of income tax rises (after promising not to) and Reeves's improper landlording are getting some traction.

That's now a foregone certainty. Only question now is how it's done.

[Tamas]

BTW, I saw likelihood of income tax rises (after promising not to) and Reeves's improper landlording are getting some traction.

That's now a foregone certainty. Only question now is how it's done.

They should at least add some wealth tax for the top end if nothing else than for optics. Because I am sorry the "they can flee" excuse doesn't apply. OK so they sell their properties to avoid the tax. What a TERRIBLE outcome in this country to increase supply on the market

[Josquius]

I think I'm bringing up the rest is politics again, was listening to a lot of random things yesterday, but I recall them mentioning Italy recently did a flat wealth tax which raised a fair bit. Saying to the rich pay a flat x amount and we will overlook the rest.
 I know Swiss towns have long done this on a case by case basis with rich people.
Seems a real low hanging fruit method to raise a bit- and then consider down the line more of a proper wealth tax.

It won't fix everything but every little helps.
More importantly fixing property tax would be the thing to do but....yeah. That's poison.

[Tamas]

Things are not yet bad enough for people to accept fixes and while they are slowly getting bad enough for that, the far-right gets to control the narrative and when the dam does break it'll be them who will be seen as the solution.


Oh by the way, only loosely on topic but allegedly anti-immigrant sentiment has been on a rise in Russia, with the government planning to further restrict immigrant rights to cater and strengthen these feelings, as pogroming migrants is preferred to pogroming Putin and his circles.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Thing is: in Russia they can pogrom the migrants to the front where apparently they'll assault Ukrainians lines as eagerly as the Russians themselves.

[Jacob]

Thing is: in Russia they can pogrom the migrants to the front where apparently they'll assault Ukrainians lines as eagerly as the Russians themselves.

Read an article recently on how the Russians are torturing and murdering their own troops as means to maintain discipline (as it were). Total abject depraved evil.