So it came to pass that Suella Braverman, who ceased to be Home Secretary last year after breaking the Ministerial Code, but was reinstated to the post a week later by Rishi Sunak, brought forth her Illegal Migration Bill, accompanied by yet another of those Three Word Slogans, this one being Stop The Boats. It is not an original slogan, but an Australian import.
Those arriving on small boats, crossing the Channel from France, would be arrested. They would be returned, or sent somewhere like Rwanda. But Ms Braverman has had to make an addendum to the opening page of her bill, on the European Convention of Human Rights. And it doesn’t look good.
“Secretary Suella Braverman has made the following statement under Section 19(1)(b) of the Human Rights Act 1998: I am unable to make a statement that, in my view, the provisions of the Illegal Migration Bill are compatible with the Convention rights, but the Government nonetheless wishes to proceed with the Bill”. But Rishi Sunak says the UK will not be ditching the European Convention on Human Rights.
Which, combined with the lack of potential Parliamentary time available, given the challenges the bill is likely to face in both Houses of Parliament, means that this is not a serious legislative exercise. It is, to quote some Tories’ immediate analysis, merely “Performative”. “Small boats bill aimed at galvanising political support at home” was the BBC’s understated headline.
The Tories are predicted to lose so badly come the next General Election that they will be down to fewer than 100 seats - maybe far fewer. Altrincham and Sale West, for example, where Graham Brady, head of the Tory 1922 Committee, has decided he will not seek re-election next time, is predicted to go Labour with a majority in excess of 10,000. Red Wall? Forget it.
Especially when the inflammatory language from Ms Braverman verges on the desperate: there were 100 million displaced people around the world “who could qualify for protection under our current laws ... they are coming here”. This is Vote Leave writ large: then, it was “75 million Muslim Turks” who were “coming here”. It wasn’t. Now it’s “100 million”. And it still isn’t.
The Home Secretary was challenged by host Susanna Reid on ITV’s Good Morning Britain on those numbers, it being pointed out that only 26 million of the notional 100 million had actually left their own country. And Ms Braverman fell back on the dog-whistles: all those in hotels, and WE’RE PAYING FOR THEM. They’re in hotels because the Tories ran down the system.
We are also given the “jumping the queue” chestnut. But there is no “queue”. Enough. We know that, to use that word again, this is merely Performative. It is another way of distracting from failure elsewhere. That much was confirmed when Match Of The Day lead presenter Gary Lineker passed adverse comment on the bill and those out there on the right demanded he be silenced, or even sacked. The bill is a sham? Look over there again!
Our country is broken, but those who broke it want to blame those so desperate to flee war and persecution that they are willing to sail across the Channel in little inflatable boats to get here. The Tories have their own desperation: they have nothing else to offer the electorate.
The difference from 2019 is that, this time, it won’t work. The Tories are done.
https://www.patreon.com/Timfenton
6 comments:
The tories aren't done, Tim.
The red version will replace the blue version, that's all. For a time the relief will be as palbable as it was in 1997. A few crumbs will be thrown to the quarter of our population in poverty.
This will be labelled "radical" and "leftist" and will actually be nothing more than a public relations panacea, a sticking plaster over a nation slowly bleeding to death. The rate of bleeding might even increase through yet another mass murder "look over there" war. Then it will be back to the same far right evil, greed, hypocrisy and political gangsterism.
You'll see.
As ever, it would be good to report that an incumbent Labour government was going to repeal or roll back any of the illiberal and morally obscene policies the current incarnation of UKIP have enacting of late but we of course know this is not going to be the case, see recent uttering by Cooper and Kinnock Jr who simply want to make these immoral and nauseating policies “work”. Back to the “Controls on Immigration” mugs that were so successful in 2015 I see lads.
I mean, of course the UKIP/Tories want everyone to look over there at ‘THEM’ stealing out hotel rooms etc, they have no other options left to avoid annihilation at the ballot box, but please god, the Labour party do not have to dance to the same stomach churning tune…again.
Unless, you know, they’re not really that different.
Watched a re-run of PMQs, what a disgusting shameful spectacle of shouty mediocrities on all sides.
Plenty of talk bout hotels and costs
No one ever mentions the financial beneficiaries - Tory donor hotel owners - kerching !
Labour hasn't had a competent leader since Ed Milliband.
Corbyn aided the tax dodgers and Tory billionaires by enabling Brexit, resulting in sewage pouring onto our beaches and lakes, the likely removal of employment rights, and a bonanza for tax dodgers.
The cautious, timid Starmer is afraid of the Murdoch and Rothermere axis, so will never challenge their narrative, meaning he'll never bring about meaningful change.
Braverman only just stopped short of labelling Lineker anti-Semitic and a Holocaust denier. That's how evil she is.
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