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Comment by SilverBirch | Hacker News Reader

Excuse me, but literally today is the first day that the government starting flying asylum seekers to Rwanda[1], and yesterday they published legislation with the intention of breaking international law[2]. They've also recently curtailed rights to legal protest[3]. The Prime Minister has a history of law breaking including illegally shutting down our parliament[4]. This government only got their majority when UKIP candidates stood down in favour of the Tory party at the last election. By any reasonable definition England is currently governed by the far right.

[1]:https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-61791994

[2]:https://news.sky.com/story/a-mess-unrealistic-doctrine-of-ne...

[3]:https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-56400751

[4]:https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/11/uk/scottish-court-uk-parliame...

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In the year to March around 3/4 of people seeking asylum in the UK were granted it. This is the same PM that granted foreign students 2 year work visas on graduation. Hardly the actions of a bunch of Nazis. The huff and puff about immigration is entirely superficial, because at heart the conservatives are a party of business and they know full well immigration benefits the country. Their stance on immigration is best seen as a law and order issue, with a veneer of pandering to Daily Mail readers.

What’s your reasonable definition of far-right?

There's a saying about the UK's far right parties (the likes of UKIP, National Front (1) etc) that in the long run it's not a winning proposition, as the Tories can always adopt the same rhetoric, and they always have better suits.

This has indeed happened.

1) https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/old-poster-sparks...

UKIP is not far-right. You can't just label anyone you disagree with as "Far Right". You have to base your argument on facts.

You can't just label someone as "not Far Right", just because you agree with them. That's denial.

I would say the onus of proof would be on the accuser.

Immigration enforcement raids against mostly black/brown people. Putting them on flights to countries they left as infants. Sending asylum seekers to Rwanda for "processing". Sending British citizens to the Carribean because we were too disorganised to issue them passports in the 50s.

The Tory party has absorbed the UKIP/EDL/etc vote. It rules by populism alone at this stage.

LoL. This is not a definition.

There’s a whole lot of working definitions provided by the 20th century that can be used as measuring sticks on the passage to the right. Signs include a breakdown or suppression of a free press, simplification of the political spectrum, identification of and processing of enemies of the state, weakening of the rules and protections of government and so on. A shift from the idea of equality of all (protection of minorities) towards the will of the majority.

There dan also be an anti-rational or anti-scientific aspect. And as an old history prof lectured, the political spectrum is not linear it’s a circle. The far ends turn out to be the same part of the circle. Power for the in group and problems for the rest. Read animal farm.

You're conflating "the right", "far right", fascism, and totalitarianism. Which, I think, is why the term "far right" was invented - so leftists could basically call other people fascists without having to substantiate the claim.

Being "on the right" is about policy. Someone on the right believes in democracy, freedom, capitalism, human rights, etc. They hold policy positions such as lower taxes, controlled immigration, and greater punishment for criminals. These policy positions put them in opposition to those on the left.

Someone "on the right" is not a fascist, and is not nearer being a fascist than someone "on the left". Fascism means the abolition of human rights, democracy, free capitalism, and everything "the right" believes in.

It's common to cherry pick little policy points from previous facsict states and use that as evidence that the right is facsict. "Hitler limited immigration, the Tories want to limit immigration, the Tories are fascist!!!!". That makes no sense. "Mao raised taxes, Biden wants to raise taxes, Biden is literally a communist!!!".

Facsism is not about policy. It is a fundamentally different, totalitarian, way to structure a society.

Ok, then socialism and communism aren’t associated with the far left. This makes right/left terms about where they sit in parliament. We’re trapped by common usage when it comes to jargon, and your usage of fascism vs. Nazism shows you’re not parsing them correctly. The former was a corporatist state that preserved trappings and some legitimacy of existing governmental power. The latter, well, didn’t.

How about: leaders <- government <- owners <-> workers -> government -> leaders. Which I can’t format in a circle. And the presence or absence of “for all” can be a tell about where on the political spectrum people or groups sit.

It’s generally accepted that the red states sit to the right vs. the blue states and the us sits to the right of Western Europe. There’s a spectrum of countries as there’s a spectrum of states (or provinces in Canada). The “political middle ground” can be constructed from this set and then decorated with secular or religions states from elsewhere throughout.

> communism isn’t associated with the far left

In what world? :-))

The same world where fascism isn’t associated with the far right. Where jargon is fluid and arbitrary. Was responding to previous post trying to separate fascism/right wing.

How do you like Umberto Eco's attempt to characterize ur-fascism?

> The same world where fascism isn’t associated with the far right.

I made no such argument. Fasicm isn't associated with the actual, modern day right wing of politics.

This is why "far right" is such a slippery and nefarious term. It allows you to conflate right wing politics and facsism.

If you think the Tories are fascist, then make that argument. Don't hide behind this newspeak.

In the same world where fascism isn't associated with the far right.

There are many possible axes to divide politics, in many (but not necessarily all) conservative politics and fascism tends to be projected to similar spaces and Soviet-style communism and socially-progressive politics to the same.

Once you start looking at multiple of these at the same time, things do tend to look quite different.

> Signs include a breakdown or suppression of a free press, simplification of the political spectrum, identification of and processing of enemies of the state, weakening of the rules and protections of government and so on. A shift from the idea of equality of all (protection of minorities) towards the will of the majority.

The Chinese Communist Party has all the stuff you listed here.

True, and I stated the spectrum is a circle with absolutism or totalitarian being a leader-only political setup. The workers might own the means of production in China but they damned well better not try to act on that thought. Ask jack ma.

Well that is a good question as no real solid answer. I do know that what has been classed as far-right in the media has shifted more and more towards the center to the stage that if Hitler was around today, most things on the current far-right would appear centerist-left. Though I like to look at that as progress. Though equally some people class what is on the left as far-left and it's all just got very silly with focus upon labels and arguing over rational logical debate with facts.

If you look at various media outlets, their own definition of far-left or far-right varies so much that you can end up being labeled as both very easily.

Another issue would be cultural aspects and you will find what is far-left or far-right will vary country to country and with that. Subjective labels have and always will be a can-of-worms.

> I’d say post-Brexit England has drifted away from the far right.

> By any reasonable definition England is currently governed by the far right.

These can both be true, IMHO you're talking about different things - 1) the position of the electorate and 2) the position of the government.

And the growing gap between them.

The refugee crisis is a global issue, and it shouldn’t be left to any single country to shoulder the burden simply because it is the first port of a refugees arrival.

Rwanda is a country with a recent successful history of rehabilitating refugees, and the president reached out to offer a home to those who need it.

For geography alone, the UK would be a better destination for the flood of Ukrainian refugees coming in, where as African asylum seekers would be better served by a country close to home.

As a member of an ECOWAS county, I’m happy to see that once again counties on the African continent are handling their own refugee situation. Immediately post WW2, this was more common practice and it lead to deeper economic and social ties between the counties of my region.

Our stepping to perform a social good is in no way a support of right wing sentiment.

> Rwanda is a country with a recent successful history of rehabilitating refugees, and the president reached out to offer a home to those who need it.

Not sure how well there success is measured after recently finding out about this:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people...

Israel also had a similar arrangement which collapsed after it was found to break Israeli law. Apparently some journalists tried to track down the refugees involved in that scheme some years later and found barely a handful had remained in the country.

My suspicion is this is just a short term attempt to boost the PMs popularity among the segment of his support base who think mistreatment of refugees and immigrants is a good thing. It's not a serious attempt to change substantive policy.

It's just sweeping a problem under a carpet approach.

Real solution is alas one that eludes us today. The real issue is the blur in lines between economic migrant and refugee, with one used to bismish the other and anything to address the former being classed as an attack upon the later. Hence the whole subject is just a can or worms that just does not get dealt with.

As for the UK, when the majority of the economic and refugee's arrive via safe countries like France then it kinda adds a whole layer of debate that you just don't get with other countries migrant/refugee problems.

Honestly should be that people who need to escape a country for fear of their life should be able to walk into any other countries embasy and apply for asylum. That though is still not a thing, which only helps fuel illegal smugglers who will take refugees and economic migrants equally if they have the money. Which is the bigger sadness of all with how things are working currently as how many true refugee's in fear of their life have died as they had no means to pay for a way out! That whole aspect of thought is just sadening and yet, overlooked as the focus is all about those who had the means or morals to pay smugglers and can imagine there are those who probably had the means but equally ethics and morals that meant they were unwilling to pay in effect crimininals.

So I guess changing how people apply for Ayslum and the ability to walk into the nearest forign embassy would certainly be a start in solving things.

Then distibution equally needs to be fair around the Globe, so no one country becomes burgened, though that would be a whole area of debate the UN could work out. Certainly the ability to apply at embassys would be huge improvment.

> As for the UK, when the majority of the economic and refugee's arrive via safe countries like France then it kinda adds a whole layer of debate that you just don't get with other countries migrant/refugee problems.

I think a country which in the last 3 years had a melt down because they couldn't buy toilet paper; Crashed the supply chains for petrol and diesel by sheer panic; and thought it was a national crisis when KFC ran out of chicken should perhaps wind it's fucking neck in.

It is only natural that people fleeing persecution or not attempt to find a place which gives them the greatest opportunity to have a decent life. There are many contributing factors here everything from prior knowledge of English, family connections and reunification laws.

> I think a country which in the last 3 years had a melt down because they couldn't buy toilet paper; Crashed the supply chains for petrol and diesel by sheer panic; and thought it was a national crisis when KFC ran out of chicken should perhaps wind it's fucking neck in.

I'm reminded of a quote though darned if I can find a source, but it's something like "Don't judge a place by the idiots it keeps".

Denmark's left-wing government is planning to send away asylum seekers too.

It's interesting times when protecting borders from illegal immigration is seen as „far right“. It's not „far right“ rising, it's some people pushing Overton window extremely to the left.

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/denmark-talks-with-rwan...

> protecting borders from illegal immigration

Asylum-seeking is not illegal immigration.

right, and they're going back once the situation in their home country stabilizes, correct?

What happens when/if their asylum application gets denied though? At least in France they don't get forced to leave and they find themselves in a strange grey area.

They can seek asylum in or from Rwanda then, right? I mean, it’s not like they are trying to immigrate to UK, they are just running for their lives, so safety in Rwanda should be good enough, no?

> Asylum-seeking is not illegal immigration

Economic migration under the guise of asylum seeking is though. And pretending that all the people who make the attempt to gain Asylum in the UK are legitimate non-economic migrants is absurd.

> Economic migration under the guise of asylum seeking is though.

Correct. As is murder, theft, etc. I don't think anything in my comment suggested they're not?

I don't think even the most fundamental left leaning people are against sending illegal immigrants away - the problem is that UK is choosing to send people away to Rwanda, basically telling them that it's a safe African country, good luck there. Ministers have confirmed that yeah, it's "possible" that for instance Ukrainian refugees could be sent there if they didn't follow the right procedures and are deemed "illegal".

I can only imagine that if not for horrible optics, UK would send them to Australia.

But oh well, I guess if your dream is to resurrect the British Empire, having a foreign penal colony is one of the requirements.

What’s wrong with Rwanda?

From the point of view of Africans, we see this as a Rwanda led initiative to take care of refugees in a country that is safe, and in an environment that is closer to their homelands. Although in the past Rwanda has had is troubles but … so did Ireland and the UK on different scale. Rwanda of today is a different place, and the current president has long experience in handling refugee situations and defusing the natural tensions of people in a refugee crises.

Is it absolutely necessary for refugees to leave to go to a different continent, to live on an island where they will forever look like an “other” and have a culture and weather that is totally alien to them?

There should be more to this equation than the thought of sending people to the most prosperous country that they can.

I have literally never heard an African perspective on this before your comment. Thank you for this, it's very enlightening!

The UK can't send asylum seekers to Australia because Australia is a sovereign entity and wouldn't accept them. Indeed Australia already has anti-asylum policies locally, and these influenced the model for the UK's decision.

Well of course, it was a tongue in cheek comment - that UK would probably send people to Australia, just like it used to. I'm not saying that it's possible, realistic, or even a good idea in the first place.

> it's some people pushing Overton window extremely to the left.

Everyone that learns about the Overton window is immediately convinced the other side has been pulling it in their direction for years.

Are you trying to say that migration laws and practices and coverage in mass media didn't drift in certain direction compared to 20/40/60 years ago?

20? Probably not hugely. 40? Maybe in some aspects of policy. 60? Probably.

But you're talking about Denmark and I know nothing about Danish domestic policies - which is why I was intentionally broad in my wording.

The Overton window is poorly named. It's an irregularly shaped blob rather than a rectangular frame. Some things can move in different directions at different times.

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