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Comment by smcl | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps the fringe far-right parties have all but disintegrated, but the Tories have certainly drifted rightward and they're essentially untouchable in England in spite of ... well, everything

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That's my point.

UKIP and BXP disintegrated because their more competent members colonized the Conservative Party, which is now much more radical and far-right than it was under Cameron.

The only surviving cabinet minister from Cameron's era (2010-2016) is Michael Gove. The rest are all new faces with far right credentials and a commitment to the hardest of hard Brexits.

so they haven't drifted away from the right. the centre has moved right

> new faces with far right credentials

I'm not sure what your definition of far right is but that statement is quite far from the truth.

That statement is very much the truth. I don't know whether you follow politics outside the UK, or whether you remember the UK from 10 years ago? In both cases the policies of the current government -- from hard Brexit to unilaterally renouncing the GFA to interning asylum seekers in Rwanda to deporting pension-aged Windrush people to the Caribbean to the "hostile environment" for legal immigrants and foreign students etc etc -- are far more to the right than the derided far-right parties espouse in France or Germany, and far more to the right than the UKIP or BNP ever asked for...

To be fair, I've only lived in the UK for just over a decade. That being said, I do remember BNP and the EDL. Whilst there's an intersection between EDL/BNP and present-day Brexit (i.e. Conservative party) supporters, I wouldn't say the government represents the views held by the former. In fact, groups like the BNP advocated for compulsory deportation of non-whites (during Tyndall) and later pivoted to a modern version of politely asking us to leave[1]. Whilst Windrush was comparable, I don't think it is to the scale of what a BNP majority would've ever looked like. Regarding the GFA, I'm obviously lacking context and perspective, but I see it more as an oversight and bad leadership than an intentional break away from it, but with the current government I never know what to think.

1. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/oct/20/bnp-members... "...firm but voluntary incentives for immigrants and their descendants to return home".

Nothing says "British far right" like a Cabinet full of ethnic minorities.

Our Home Secretary has just instituted an illegal policy of deporting African and Asian refugees to Rwanda.

Irrespective of the colour of her skin, her actions are those of the far right.

I thouroughly disagree with the practice and it’s morally repugnant, but hasn’t it just been court-tested and declared legal?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/10/uk-deportati...

No, it hasn’t. The court ruled that there’s nothing in U.K. law that bars specific flights but they didn’t rule on the legality of the policy itself.

This will be challenged at the court of appeal and will, eventually, be found a breach of international law.

So it’s illegal in your opinion but not in actual fact?

It’s normal for the high court to side with the government in these cases only for them to be overturned on appeal. That’s not my opinion, that’s the experience of immigration lawyers.

So yes, the policy is unlawful _in fact_ but the legal process needs to catch up to that.

Except the Supreme Court have said they will not consider an appeal.

So it is not illegal.

They’re not ruling on legality, they’re refusing to grant injunctions on the flights.

This doesn’t mean they’re legal, it means the courts won’t stop those individuals from being deported while the legal case for the policy is being argued. The decision to grant, or not, an injunction is not in itself a judgement on the underlying policy. The court did the former, not the latter.

What would it take to convince you that this policy is not illegal? (For clarity, I agree with you that it is an awful policy.)

Very simply the Supreme Court would have to rule that the policy was legal and detail how it was in line with UN conventions on refugees.

The English courts haven’t done this yet, they just said they won’t issue injunctions to prevent certain deportations.

Do you expect the Supreme Court to rule on all government policy? Is it the case that you feel government policy is illegal until ruled legal by the SC? Sort of guilty until proven innocent? If the SC decides not to rule, say it just dismisses the case (not sure what the mechanisms are here) would the policy be perpetually illegal or would that be taken as tacit legality of the policy?

This does seem logically consistent to me, just trying to understand your position better.

I expect the Supreme Court to rule on extremely impactful and controversial government policy that interacts with international law. That’s a huge part of its job.

Whether I think it’s legal is based on what the policy is, whether it was passed into law by Parliament (in this case, there’s no Act of Parliament), what legal experts have said, whether it’s been tested by the courts.

You know, how most sensible people make decisions: they look at the information available and make a decision based on that.

Yeah I guess it's just interesting because there's a difference between saying its "immoral" vs "illegal". An Act of Parliament has been passed (Nationality and Borders Act 2022) which gives the legal backing for this, explicitly says that refugees which still have a pending asylum application can be moved to a "safe third country" which is willing to take the asylum responsibilities. Does this change your mind that the policy is legal, given that the information available has expanded to include, you know, all the Acts of Parliament?

No for two reasons:

- it might still violate the Human Rights Act

- it’s still a matter for debate whether Rwanda is safe for refugees

Just reading one Act isn’t enough because real life is complicated.

Okay but we can agree that your point about there being no Act of Parliament is not relevant then.

It being a matter for debate whether Rwanda is safe is, I think, not something the SC is going to rule on.

It violating the Human Rights Act seems to be the only real issue for the SC then? Again, I just wonder whether this policy is likely to be illegal under that Act given that the relevant clause says "No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. I just doubt that deportation would fall under torture, inhuman, or degrading treatment _in the spirit of this Act_. I agree that this policy is immoral but kind of doubt that the SC is going to find it tantamount to torture. But maybe there are other arguments here that I'm unaware of?

What is your legal basis for your assessment?

That many other (EU) countries who have implemented the EUHR directive deport asylum seekers to other countries, and those countries SC equivalents have not found it to be illegal.

I guess my legal basis is precedent.

Your legal basis on which you base your opinion on U.K. law is (supposed) precedent from countries that are not the U.K.

Forgive me if I find your entire premise suspicious and decline the opportunity to debate further.

Since when is dealing with illegal migration under coverage of refugees „far right“?

When it’s refugees legally seeking help? This policy has nothing to do with illegal immigration.

Because nowadays vast majoritie of „refugees“ are not refugees in a classic sense.

E.g. my country had thousands of „refugees“ hoping over border from Belarus last year. Last time I saw statistics, not even 1% was eligible for „refugee“ status. Even skipping the part that, according to international law, refugee is legit for the first safe country.

That last sentence is completely incorrect and is enough for me to safely disregard everything else you just said on the basis you don’t actually know what you’re talking about.

Even if some people try to challenge it and enable refugee shopping, calling it „incorrect“ shows that you don't know much about this topic.

It’s easy to prove me wrong: point me to the relevant lines in the relevant treaties or conventions that state this.

You can’t because they don’t exist. There is no obligation to seek asylum in the “first safe country.” This is a common trope trotted out by right-wing mouthpieces which is where I’m assuming you got the rest of your “facts.”

If you cross border illegally and don't ask for asylum, then you're, well, illegally crossing the border.

For EU, there's Dublin agreement.

Quote or reference the lines in the Dublin agreement that state this. Also, point out where IN U.K. LAW the Dublin agreement and these lines apply.

Your first sentence is irrelevant because this applies to refugees claiming asylum.

As I understand it — IANAL — the asylum seekers which the UK is sending to Rwanda, are actually allowed under international law (i.e. treaties the UK has signed) to seek asylum in the UK.

Rwanda in particular is an odd choice if you are genuinely concerned about the well-being of people who are fleeing persecution, given the UK government travel advice for its own citizens.

It is also a very expensive choice (about the cost of giving them free food and accommodation in an average bit of Hull for over 2 years); but even in its own terms, it does not appear to have changed, nor is it likely in the future to change, the minds of the extremely small number of asylum seekers who have not been put off the UK by virtue of it being a damp sheep-filled rock in the North Atlantic where they will be banned by law from seeking employment.

It's not expensive if it stops people from faking refugee.

What percentage of asylum seekers in the UK were eligible for asylum?

> eligible

Even using “granted” as a proxy for “eligible”, hard to tell as every source I found contradicts all the others, somewhere between 25 and 75 percent.

However, this isn’t the right question, for two reasons.

First: The number you want to compare against is the people whose minds were changed by the latest policy. Given how few people were seeking asylum in the UK even before this, the maximum is already low.

Second: this policy does not improve the expected accuracy of government judgement regarding the legitimacy of any given claim.

"Illegal"? There is no right to settlement of anyone in any sovereign country of which they have no citizenship in. It's entirely dependent on the laws of that sovereign country, and those laws are (usually) in place because of the preferences of the voting constituents, ie, actual citizens of the sovereign nation.

You are throwing around "far right" as a slur in this discussion and that doesn't address facts or the truth of the matter.

The policy addresses refugees which are covered under a number of UN conventions. Deporting them is illegal.

I’ve already explained why it’s far right policy but let me explain in simpler words:

Only black and brown people are sent to Rwanda under this scheme. White Ukrainians are not. That’s why it’s a far right scheme. One might even call it racist.

Her views on immigration are indistinguishable from those of most people in India or Bangladesh. They’d do the same thing if the shoe were on the other foot. And those are definitely not “far right” countries.

There's plenty who think India has drifted to the far-right in the past decade.

What’s happening in India is merely the westernized elite losing their grip on culture: https://unherd.com/2021/04/the-culture-wars-of-post-colonial.... But the desire of Indians to have their country without other people in it goes back to independence from Britain.

Calling it “nativism” would be inappropriate because that would make it seem like a thing that needs a label. To the contrary, that’s just how most societies are. What we need a label for are the small minority of folks who feel the opposite way.

> What’s happening in India is merely the westernized elite losing their grip on culture

It can be both simultaneously.

> the desire of Indians to have their country without other people in it

It's a bit more than that though. I don't think you know enough, sorry.

Feel free to educate me. I’m from neighboring Bangladesh, and the situation with pluralism in India seems like the situation with secularism in Bangladesh. Western educated elites trying to impose it on a larger population that doesn’t want it. Or at least has a vastly narrower conception of it than the elites do.

At the end of the day, Bangladesh exists because Bangladeshis wanted a country for Bangali Muslims. Most Bangladeshis subscribe to that core premise. So it’s bizarre to me when people attack Britons upset about immigration from Bangladesh using accusations of “racism.” The Brexiter and the average Bangladeshi are ideologically on the same ground. Their differences arise due to conflicting interests, not conflicting ideologies.

> The Brexiter and the average Bangladeshi are ideologically on the same ground.

Except you forgot to include the part where Greater Pakistan military overturned the democratically elected Bengali prime minister, so that Bhutto could hold onto power as Bengalis are unfit to lead. You also forgot to mention that Pakistani military killed a million plus Bangladeshis.

Please point out where the EU sent in an army to kill a million Brits.

You make so many bad faith arguments, its really nauseating to sit around correcting all of your Gish Gallops.

Waiting to hear from you how the independence of African nations and the overturning of Apartheid was an act of racism/ethnocentrism by black people against white people.

He knows enough. Trust me. Here is a crazy conversation I had with him. Most of his arguments are in bad faith.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31348078

Rayiner is an ex Muslim, currently Christian, brown Bangladeshi immigrant to USA who wants the brown people to leave the United States - so that white people can have a white United states - just like "Indians/Bangladeshis want a country for themselves" a need that Rayiner made up on behalf of the citizens of India and Bangladesh.

Significantly, Rayiner excludes himself from the list of brown people who need to leave USA. I have heard of Jewish Nazis and watched the Clayton Bigsby comedy sketch- but it is surreal to interact with someone like this online.

Instead of white, he uses the word "culture" which is the hip dog whistle in urban circles.

This is such a wrong summary of the thread you linked that you are obviously just trying to stir up a flame war. Flagged.

India is definitely becoming a far right country. Once you attack republicanism not to add more democracy but to remove transparency and to add imbalance within the legislative power, you are far right.

In fact, it is easy to distinguish political far right from political far left. Both wants to remove/weaken the institutions. One will push for more personal power(aka: strengthen executive, weaken judicial and legislative power (you can add push media concentration). The other will push towards revocative referendums, random selection for public committee, and overall a weakening of the executive power (refund/divide the police and stuff). As long as with stay within economic center (basically modern capitalism shades).

If you don't think moving toward a less republican government is enough, we can go historically: a marker of far right is treating/talking about the country like a living organism.

I'm talking myself into believing that India is already far right, i should stop arguing :/

The...legal policy?

The policy so legal, everyone is now pulled from the flight and it was cancelled after a challenge to the ECHR.

Who exactly in the cabinet is far right? Truss, Sunak, Javid, Raab and the rest hardly come across as the right wing mob. Rees-Mogg is the only one who maybe comes remotely close and he’s got one of the most minor positions.

Truss is moving to break a treaty to appease the far right nutters in her party.

Javid, as Home Secretary, stripped a teenager of her British citizenship, leaving her stateless and stranded somewhere in Iraq or Syria.

The teenager is a terrorist sympathiser who left the UK to join Isis. And she isn’t a teenager any more.

Irrespective of what she may or may not have done, her citizenship was stripped on flimsy legal pretexts to satisfy their racist supporters.

That's total bollocks.

For those reading along, the "teenager" being referenced is Shamima Begum, who ran away from home when she was 15 to allegedly join ISIS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamima_Begum

There's an interesting discussion to be had about whether a government official can strip someone of their citizenship (even though in the UK it seems to be part of their powers under the Nationality Act) - it's not correct to frame this emotionally under "deported a teenager" when there are specific issues at play here. Same with slandering anyone who is not politically aligned with you as "far right".

I didn’t say he deported a teenager. I said he stripped her citizenship, leaving her stateless to die in service of appealing to racists to vote Tory.

If I’m thinking of the same person, she’s ethnically Bangladeshi. But Bangladesh wouldn’t let her back in the country even though it has a right of return for people of Bangladeshi ethnicity: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/bangladesh-will-not-ac...

Bangladesh is an officially socialist country. You’re just defining “far right” to include everyone who disagrees with a narrow view of immigration.

Regarding your sibling comment: is Bangladesh “racist” against Bangladeshis for not taking her? What an absurd smear.

I never said Javid was a racist, I said the policy to deport black and brown refugees to Rwanda, while not treating Ukrainian refugees the same way was racist. This should be self-evident by just looking at the facts.

You’re making another false equivalence with Bangladesh when Begum was born and raised in the U.K. and had never been to Bangladesh. And then trying to use that in bad faith to insinuate things I never said.

In a sibling comment you said he was “appealing to racists” by blocking Begum’s return. My question is whether Bangladeshis are racists for the same reason?

And it’s not a false equivalence. Bangladesh has special rules for return of children of people of Bangladeshi origin. My brother was born in Virginia but could travel back to Bangladesh without meeting the usual immigration conditions by showing proof of our parent’s birth in Bangladesh. Begum was in the same position. But Bangladesh isn’t as sympathetic to terrorists as some folks in the UK.

Notwithstanding the bizarre "far right credentials" point:

- Liz Truss (current Foreign Secretary) was SoS for DEFRA under David Cameron.

- Sajid Javid (current Health SoS) was BEIS SoS under David Cameron.

- Grant Shapps (current Transport SoS) was Minister for Housing under David Cameron and later party chairman.

- Brandon Lewis (current SoS for Northern Ireland) was Minister for Housing under DC.

- Ben Wallace (clearly ultra right wing (/s), and SoS for Defence), Minister for Northern Ireland under DC.

I don't think this is an exhausive list, these are just the SoSs I can think of off the top of my head. Your statement is just so untrue it just makes me think you don't know much about UK politics and don't really care enough to even google your "facts".

> The rest are all new faces with far right credentials

What does that even mean? That anyone who wasn't a member of the SWP in their youth is automatically a closet fascist?

Ben Wallace probably gonna go home and have a silent cry if it he hears someone has been calling him "far right".

Exactly. People stopped voting for UKIP when the Tories took on UKIP's 'policies'.

Labour has come to be run by London elites that hate the values of the party’s working class base. In that climate, Tories simply need a pulse to win elections.

I think they could still enjoy success while being run by London elites, if they even pretended to stand up to the Tories or painted themselves as a meaningful alternative they'd clean up. They just seem to be very content sitting as in opposition to the Tories administering the UK in a very slow, sleepy decline.

Labour has made it clear what they really stand for: the liberal culture values of the urban elite, while paying lip service to, you know, labor. The more they “stand up” on those grounds, the more they will alienate both traditional Labour voters and the working class BAME voters they have become increasingly reliant on.

Honestly, I feel you. I don't know who I'd vote for if I was in England, from the outside I don't see any party I wouldn't hate myself for voting for.

The Tory party of higher taxes, pride flags covering every government social media account and currently minting coins with the "progressive pride" flag? Sounds like they're about to burn down the Reichstag.

They're also the Tory party of criminalising dissent, corruption, Russian influence, and offshoring refugees.

The fact that homosexuality isn't as controversial as it once was doesn't preclude their authoritarian nature.

Are they pulling that “it’s zee Russians!” in the UK too? Seems to be a very popular bogeyman all over the Western world.

Considering the amount of dirty Russian money ( Londongrad), the fact that Russian spies tried to assasinate a former Russian spy, murdering British civilians by accident, and Russian support for Brexit...

It's not a boogeyman, it's part of the reality.

None of those things actually infer Russian interference. At least not any more than say Chinese, or French.

Dirty money in the tens/hundreds of billions doesn't infer interference? Including sizeable donations to the Conservative party?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/12/world/europe/russian-mone...

Hardly proof of Russian control.

So we've moved the goalposts from "Russia boogeyman" to "you can't prove Russia controls everything", which nobody is claiming.

Russia is involved and dangerous.

Yeah, it's really weird that when you:

- Take a bunch of Russian money - Hang out with a bunch of Russians - Ignore the recommendations of your national security apparatus to appoint Russians to permanent positions in your upper house - Employ a bunch of people who have ties to Russian interests. - Delay investigations into how your government didn't do anything to prevent Russian interference in a national referendum.

People make the completely illogical conclusion that you're somehow sympathetic to Russian interests.

Seeing as London has been corrupted by Russian money, numerous Russians have been murdered/attempted to be murdered by the Russian state in the UK, and the current PM is the former mayor of London, it’s more than valid to discuss Russian influence in the UK.

Further reading: https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2022/mar/21/butler-to-the-...

I mean Canada has been corrupted by Chinese money (see Vancouver home prices recently?) and has a pro-CCP member of the government in British Colombia.

Yet I keep hearing about Russians.

It can be both, you know.

Sounds like both are more just political point scoring?

Brexit in UK and US exit from nato were both Russian propaganda projects.

Lip service while they tried to backtrack on banning conversion therapy.

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