YorkRailFan
On Moderation
Labour deselected Corbyn as a candidate for Islington North at the Next General Election.
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Keir Starmer and the Labour Party
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'Better the devil you know' ?
Blindtraveler
Established Member
@Bantamzen and I are on a very very similar level where politics in general and the current incarnation of the Labour party in particular are concerned.
We should put the world to write sometime if I'm ever passing your way
We should put the world to write sometime if I'm ever passing your way
DustyBin
Established Member
Whilst I may be of a different political persuasion (or not?) being a conservative (deliberate use of a small c!), I'm also fed up with the lot of them currently.
I completely understand why some people want the Tories out, but if they think a Labour government is going to herald some kind of new age, or even improve things slightly, I suspect they're going to be very disappointed. I genuinely hope I'm wrong!
I obviously can't comment specifically on your councillors, but it's worth noting just how much funding has been pulled from local councils over the years as central Government have just shifted everything to the council, which is limited by how much it can increase council tax (and if it applies to go over, will be seen as greedy or bad at financial management).
Councils of all colours are struggling, even going or almost going bust, all over.
You do need to stop and look at what caused this. Was it your Labour councillor, or something else - like, I don't know, the main Government?
Bantamzen
Established Member
Trust me I've looked. Yes funding has been pulled, but decisions made at local levels over a very long period of time have helped shape my opinion.
Blindtraveler
Established Member
You are I suspect pretty close to the mark
edwin_m
Veteran Member
The limit of my hopes at the moment is that Labour will put a stop to the Tories causing more damage, and start us on what will be a long road back to where we were in 2010.
The big thing about Labour is that they don't really believe in some of the populist-right stuff that many of the current incarnation of the Tories do. They might not completely turn their backs on it immediately (they have to win this year's election which includes making concessions to the right) but they don't really have any enthusiasm for it.
That alone will IMO make them better. They may not be perfect but their values are more in tune with my own, and they will at least try to improve things, which is something that Truss and Sunak in particular have manifestly failed to do.
That alone will IMO make them better. They may not be perfect but their values are more in tune with my own, and they will at least try to improve things, which is something that Truss and Sunak in particular have manifestly failed to do.
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I don't expect the (hopefully) incoming Labour government to be a panacea for every problem facing the country, I do desire and expect one thing from them: stop the rot.
As an example, I can't see any Labour government spending almost half a billion pounds on something so simultaneously reprehensible, infeasible and ineffective as the Rwanda scheme. Reprehensible because even successful asylum seekers will be in Rwanda despite our determination that they have a valid claim for asylum in the UK (and we have granted Rwandans asylum status since the plan was announced since they wouldn't be safe there!), infeasible because it breaches numerous international and domestic laws (so much so that the government is trying to effectively sidestep the courts) and ineffective since (and this is the good part) we have to accept a Rwandan refugee in return for each person we send (or it might be for each successful asylum claim). And with all that, the "pilot scheme" is only for 300 refugees - so well over a million pounds each.
Labour might not be great, but they'll be better than that.
DustyBin
Established Member
That's fair enough, although we probably disagree on exactly how much damage the Tories are responsible for that wouldn't have occurred otherwise (that's not to defend them per se).
A lot of the "populist-right stuff" reflects the concerns of a significant number of people, that's why Labour won't abandon it. I agree though that the way the party is talking about many of these issues is wrong; it's cheap, nasty, and empty rhetoric designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator, whilst simultaneously failing to actually achieve anything. On that subject....
The Rwanda plan is a perfect example of what I've described above. We should be able to prevent people arriving in the UK illegally, and remove those who shouldn't be here, but as we can't we have the this as a distraction. Even if it's implemented the numbers involved will be tiny, and it will do nothing to solve the problem of illegal immigration.
It will be interesting what Labour try and do to address the issue. It's just one area in which they're going to inherit a complete mess that I think they'll struggle to sort out.
More accurately, because we choose not to. Almost all small-boat crossings and ferry stowaway journeys start in France. Imagine how many of those thousands of attempts (and hundreds of deaths!) could have be averted if we'd spent that half a billion pounds working with the French instead of antagonising them. Not to mention that the Home Office has fewer officers working the backlog now than they did before there was a sizeable backlog (could the two be related?).
DustyBin
Established Member
I think that's a two way street (my bold), but yes I agree with you in general that it requires a collective effort (and not just with France). Whilst the disastrous consequences of Merkel issuing an open invitation were entirely predictable (and probably led to Brexit), we are where we are at this point and can't solve the problem on our own.
Oh, I don't deny that it takes two to tango, but on the specific matter of Channel/Sleeve crossings, I think we're definitely the worse behaved of the two. I forget the details now but didn't we rebuff the French offer to have UK Border Force stationed at a centre on that side of the Channel to process asylum claims there?
Sadly not. Since the media mafia conspired to do him down. Is anyone still suggesting that Corbyn's vision would lead to disaster, compared to the chaos we have suffered in the last 15 years? Or the lukewarm Tory tribute act led by Starmer?So a vote for Labour would be a vote for Corbyn....? Just saying...
Starmer might be Tory-lite, or he might just have recognised that, in order to be able to do anything good, you first have to be electable.
Why, specifically? And what current politician(s) do you trust?
DarloRich
Veteran Member
Indeed - hence why I didn't vote for Corbyn to be leader of the Labour party, resigned my membership of the party while he was leader and spoiled my ballot in the elections when he led the party.
I didn't like doing that but could not support him. Voting for my local candidate was supporting a clown who couldn't manage a party in a a brewery.
You must see that, surely?
Agreed! They should be judged on the performance of the party they represent and the delivery of the manifesto they espouse.
I am sure all councils make bad decisions or at least decisions we don't agree with but they haven't got a pot to piddle in thanks to 15 years of tory cuts. A large Tory shire council near me has essentially gone pop but I am sure Labour are to blame for that somehow even thought it was Tory run. If the Tories wont even back thier own why do you think they would back a northern council?
I have met the devil thanks - lets try the other guy.
Another confused viewpoint. Politicians are not all the same. it is lazy to suggest they are. Keir Starmer = Lee Anderson ? Really?
No one sensible thinks that - I just want sensible mature adults running the show who don't set out to make things worse on a point of principle! We need to try and start restoring the damage the May/Johnson/Truss/ Sunak axis have caused and we need mature adults to do that
Yes - he was a clown unfit to run a bath. He should never have been near the labour leadership. He is, was and always will be a crank.
on what basis? I do. He is a decent chap if a bit dull. I will take that over the clowns like Johnson and Truss!
DustyBin
Established Member
The problem is that the French would happily let them cross as they're then our problem, whilst we want to them to stay in France. Unsurprisingly, this leads to a lot of squabbling. I believe we pay (a lot!) for the French border force to try and prevent illegal crossings, and that there are actually now UK Border Force personnel on the French side working alongside them.
The place for asylum claims to be processed is on the EU's external borders, with some kind of agreement among member states (and probably ourselves in reality) as to where successful applicants then go. It appears however that the kind of mass immigration we've seen over the last few years isn't all that popular among ordinary citizens, so politically it's a non-starter. It's a mess, and unfortunately not one that can be easily resolved in my opinion. The genie is well and truly out of the bottle at this point so to speak.
Truss's brief tenure would have looked like a roaring success in comparison!
Can you point to one phrase in Corbyn's manifesto which suggests this? You may well think (and I don't have the knowledge to agree or disagree) that JC would have been an inept or weak leader, but what is there in his stated policies to imply anything as deranged as Truss?
DustyBin
Established Member
Truss had some fairly radical ideas to reverse what she viewed as a steady, managed decline. They may even have been the right ideas, however she stupidly jumped in with both feet and scared the life out the markets which led to considerable economic damage in a very short space of time. Non of it however was as scary (or deranged!) as Corbyn's socialist vision for the UK.
Falcon1200
Established Member
Has Labour not long been opposed to the sale of council houses, and promise a review if (or rather, when) they win power?
Yes, 100%; He would have been the UK's worst ever PM! What support would his Government have given Ukraine, for example?
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
I would disagree that declining to process asylum claims in France amounts to us being badly behaved. There are many reasons why our doing that would be a very bad idea: It would mean our dealing with something that is arguably France's responsibility: The asylum seekers are after all in France (a safe country) so it's arguably up to France to insist that those people claim asylum there or deport those who decline to do so. I'm sure it would suit France just fine if the UK started dealing with France's problem at our own expense, thereby relieving France of part of its responsibility to police its own borders, but there's absolutely no reason why we should be obligated to do so.
Besides, why do you think it would 'stop the boats'? More likely, anyone whose asylum claim is rejected would simply pay a smuggler to hop on a small boat anyway. Not only that, but if we started processing asylum claims for the UK in France, then as soon as word gets out to people in Africa/the Middle East etc. that all you need to do to claim asylum in the UK is get yourself smuggled to France, you'd certainly get even more people doing exactly that - so the problem you're trying to solve could actually become worse.
All those pledges that Sir Kier made and then has broken?
If they had the intention or desire to claim asylum in France then they would have done so, so it's actually in the interest of the French to make it as easy as possible to cross the Channel. As you said, it's our problem so they'd do well to wash their hands of it! And I'll remind you for the umpteenth time, there is no obligation to on a refugee to make an asylum claim in the first (or any specific) safe country that they pass through.
Because the majority of people spend some days or even weeks in France waiting for the right opportunity to cross - why risk your life on another crossing when you can make the same claim (UK asylum) without leaving where you are. And as for people whose claims are rejected paying a smuggler to get them across on a small boat, that will be difficult to do when they're in custody awaiting repatriation. Additionally, anyone who did make the crossing and was caught/rescued could legitimately be deported immediately since they bypassed the safe route.
The key word there being "claim". It doesn't matter how many people claim asylum if the number of people genuinely deserving of it remains the same.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
We've been through this discussion many times before, so I'm sure you're aware of my view that giving asylum seekers the right to roam the World in search of the country they'd ideally like to settle in, while they repeatedly decline to claim asylum in perfectly safe countries that they pass through, is unworkable and unfair in today's world. To the extent that international law/treaties currently say they have that right, I'd argue those laws/treaties are daft, outdated and badly need reform.
The problem there is that the number of people across the World genuinely deserving of asylum is orders of magnitude greater than the UK's (or even Europe's) capacity to give asylum. It's certainly in the hundreds of millions, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was over a billion people. Add to that a comparable or greater number who would love to move to the UK/the West, who don't genuinely deserve asylum but whom it's almost impossible to distinguish from those who do (because many of those genuinely deserving will have little or no documentation, so very often we have little more than the person's own word that they are at risk of persecution).
So the reality is that we can only give asylum to a tiny minority of those who genuinely deserve it, and as far as I'm aware no-one has yet figured out a fair way to determine who of all those people should be in that lucky group. The de facto way that has evolved is that we keep the number of applications to a manageable level by making it so incredibly difficult and dangerous for someone to get to a position where they can legally claim asylum in the UK that very few people out of those hundreds of millions actually attempt it. Yes it's a horrible, awful, cruel, system, but it seems no-one has yet been able to devise anything that is workable and better. That's the context in which you have to assess whether policies to make it easier to claim asylum will be on balance beneficial. Including proposals such as having people claim from France so they no longer have the barrier of having to cross the English Channel, but only the lower barrier of smuggling themselves to France.
You're entitled to that view, but that is what the law says.
I doubt the number of people who are truly at risk of persecution by their government is anything close to a billion. There's no right to asylum - it's up to the claimant to prove their case, so if they can't prove that they're at risk then their claim can be justifiably denied.
Apparently Jeremy Corbyn is a good local MP. Maybe people should use that as a reason to vote for him as PM. Or they aren’t related.
In 1997 Labour were a vastly different government to what they replaced. In 2010 the difference seemed to be more a pair of fresh faces, but following the first election the Tories won, 2015, it quickly turned bad. We had infighting and lack of accountability, nothing like the Blair-Brown feuds I’ve seen people attempt to equate with the last 9 years. Judging by the past, which is ill advised, there is very good reason to think Labour are different.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
Were they vastly different? In economic terms, Blair and Brown had largely pledge to follow the Tories' existing spending constraints and were also strongly pro-free-market. The differences with the Tories, at least for the first few years after 1997, were largely to do with competence, not having a set of MPs that seemed to be continually at war with themselves, and a relatively lack of corruption scandals. Plus rhetoric that was more green-friendly. As I recall, the only significant policy differences from the Tories were Blair/Brown's commitment to introduce a minimum wage, devolution for Scotland and Wales, a settlement for peace in Northern Ireland, and moving forward on gay rights. In fact, take away those few specific policy differences (which were in any case responses to the situation in 1997 and would not be particularly relevant today) and that all looks remarkably similar to the 'change' Keir Starmer is offering today.