More immigration raids? Really?

More immigration raids? Really?

So Labour’s 2nd immigration policy is, it seems to increase raids; not to establish safe routes for asylum seekers, not to recruit more staff to process the asylum claims backlog, not to repeal the litany of the Tories’ appalling laws, not to vacate the Bibby Stockholm & not to abolish the hostile environment.  😭 How does this help “smash the gangs”? One other thing to note, is that people don’t like immigration raids, it’s been very difficult to do them in Glasgow and South London.

Labour’s rhetoric has been and now its policy is about triangulating with and encouraging the racists in Reform and the Tory Party. We shouldn’t be doing this, it’s morally wrong and there are more important jobs to do within the Home Office.  …

Afghanistan, and now?

Afghanistan, and now?

Afghanistan is now dominated and controlled by the Taliban. This has happened a week after the US withdrawal. Joe Biden announces that the mission was never about “state building’;  let’s hope the people of the NATO nations learn that NATO can never act as such a force, and that ‘liberal interventionism’ is recognised as the oxymoron it truly is.

The pictures of those seeking to leave Kabul are heart rending and I for one feel impotent and partly guilty at the same time.

We owe a duty to the people of Afghanistan that want a better life and the first thing to do is consider our national refugee policy and how we welcome them. First we need to let them in, and second to stop sending them back.

We need to welcome them, and ensure that they can live, love and learn. This will involve changing our approach to a number of immigration policy issues.

Priti Patel’s Borders Bill, which arguably breaks international law on the rights of refugees, must be suspended, and the Immigration Act 2014 needs, at the least, major revision. This isn’t a debate on quotas or points and the hostile environment makes it impossible for immigrants to live; we should be proud that refugees want to come here. I’d add that some of my immigrant members are shocked at the injustice they face at work and the lack of remedy. Britain was meant to be famous for fair play.

I’ll leave the foreign policy lessons for another time. …