In all fairness, the “immigration” story is likely just a convenient spin on a more realistic goal of state surveillance on it’s own citizens.
Worst I knew for sure of a specific country which had no databases of who was currently imprisoned, with inmates just walking out. Yes, it is that bad.
At the end it can just be viewed as an IT problem, the same way most corporations have multiple CRM and have been working on "a 360 view of their customers" for decades. Even most licensed, audited banks have those types of error margins if you really asked them to provide a clean list of their clients.
So all we hear about Digital IDs is a marketing term for the new version of that database they are working on.
A lot of countries were already collecting fingerprints when issuing IDs decades ago. But those projects fails like most CRMs.
So now the UK and others are arresting people for Facebook posts because it is actually a good database. Probably way better than their actual fingerprints or criminals databases.
I am not sure if you should be terrified or just not care about those announcements.
The Labour government has realised that whatever their own feelings are about people coming to the UK by irregular means and claiming asylum, they need to be seen to recognise the popular narrative right now that the boats must be stopped, and be seen to be taking action.
So I don't think the immediate state goal right here is likely to be anything deeper than desperately trying to head off Nigel Farage, who is capturing a lot of public discourse about this 'crisis'.
The ‘small boats’ narrative is ludicrously over-reported here. It’s such a clear case of those with most of the resources scapegoating those with none of the resources as the cause of everyone else’s problems.
> unlikely to gain them many Farage supporters
Farage is polling ahead of both major parties at the moment. That support came from somewhere. To characterise all of those supporters as only interested in populist bastardry seems a bit of a surface take on the issue. Why have they turned to someone like that? Most likely they feel their own lives and prospects getting worse and in their dissatisfaction have turned to an easy answer, someone who promises to change everything and blame the outsider. To put it starkly, reductively even, you don't get nazis when everyone feels like their life is on the up and up. Well not many anyway.
The mainstream of UK politics needs to get to grips with (perceived?) worsening standards of living and failing services, and actually take action that makes people's lives better. Instead for decades now it has just tinkered at the edges, seemingly run by ambitionless accountants. Shuffling half a percent here, half a percent there, not really achieving very much but spewing vast volumes of hot air. It's not really a wonder to me that a sizeable minority are looking outside of that, or are getting frustrated that they can't get a doctor's appointment or the roads are falling apart. It's all too easy for Fartrage to say - look over there!
"Freeze Non-Essential Immigration. Essential skills, mainly around healthcare, must be the only exception" - Reform manifesto page 5.
The main thing Farage supporters are voting for is to see fewer Muslims and brown people and Pakistanis and Africans, and the main thing Farage is doing is stirring up is racist hate and division; Reform's own manifesto tells their supporters that they will still be seeing an awful lot of foreigners under a Reform government.
If their lives were looking good, if government services weren’t a mess, and if they perceived the government was actually changing things for the better, reform would have a hard time finding suckers to vote for them.
The small boats issue is enough in the public eye it’s going to have to be tackled. But beyond that, reform need to be beaten by the UK government fixing things and making the UK optimistic about the future, rather than just same-old same-old and the whole place feeling like it’s in managed decline.
It has to be tackled even though it won't fix the things the supporters want fixed, because they're doing a surface level reaction. Your earlier comment opened with "To characterise all of those supporters as only interested in populist bastardry seems a bit of a surface take on the issue"; "blame the other and look for the person offering them easy answers" is the populist bastardry, it's not a surface take to say what people are actually doing.
If you'd tried to argue that people are liking Reform's plans to scrap thousands of EU laws, cancel HS2, roll back labour protection laws, cancel ULEZ zones and give more kids asthsma, scrap 20mph zones except "where safety is critical" (because some pedestrian deaths are less important than car drivers driving everywhere they like as fast as they like), encourage smaller landlords (because housing will be better when the wealthy own more houses), etc. then you could say voting for Reform wasn't a surface take. How many Reform supporters are switching because of their pledge to bring in "online delivery tax at 4% for large, multinational enterprises"? Who thinks "Cut A&E waiting times with a campaign of ‘Pharmacy First, GP Second, A&E Last’" will put the Hope back into Land of Hope and Glory? And how many are acting along the lines of "Nigel hates the people we hate! he will hurt the right people!"?
> "reform need to be beaten by the UK government fixing things and making the UK optimistic about the future, rather than just same-old same-old and the whole place feeling like it’s in managed decline."
So far in this government, that's feeling very a very remote and unlikely future.
Yep, because it has become a public embarassment, it's very present in all the news coverage, and the government have promised to get a handle on the situation but haven't. If they don't get it in hand the press and opposition will continue to use it as a club to beat them with. Like as not this is now a large political issue in the UK. Yougov polls suggest that around 70% of the UK public now have negative views of people crossing in small boats -
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/WTZfT/3/
But look beyond that (and the generic "people coming to work illegally" category). The support for 'populist bastardry' against the wider category of immigrants drops off substantially. So yes, a government wanting to stay in power in the UK is probably going to have to do something to reduce at least the perception that people are entering the UK this way, but they won't need to follow through and go 'full Farage' to placate a lot of the public.
> because they're doing a surface level reaction
Yes? Have I claimed anywhere that the reactions of the general public in this matter are rational, sensible, moral, or really anything other than misplaced and misdirected anger about the decline of their own circumstances? I think you'll find I even called them "suckers".
Don't mistake me for someone that thinks anything about Reform is reasonable or a good plan. It's fucking shocking.
> it's not a surface take to say what people are actually doing.
That's pretty much the definition of 'surface take' I'd go for. To be other than surface you need to look at motivations and beyond that the actual causes of the behaviour.
The poster I replied to and accused of having a surface take was saying Labour won't win many Farage supporters by tackling the small boats because the supporters are only interested in populist bastardry. Firstly, the figures above show us it's far from only Farage supporters who have views on this specific issue. Secondly, that's not all that Farage supporters are interested in.
For example look at this info on what reform supporters believe - https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49887-what-do-reform-...
Yes, there is a lot of populist bastardy of the "bring back hanging!" variety in there, including literally that. But there are also signs of wider disaffection and some quite left-wing views -
"Rich people in the UK are able to get around the law or get off more easily than poorer people"
"Big businesses in the UK take advantage of ordinary people"
"Ordinary working people do not get their fair share of the nation's wealth"
"Utilities like energy, water and railways should be run in the public sector"
"Rich people in the UK should be taxed more than average earners"
> If you'd tried to argue that people are liking Reform's plans...
I would be very surprised if most Reform supporters had the first clue what the party's actual plans are, beyond the headline of deporting immigrants.
> So far in this government, that's feeling very a very remote and unlikely future.
I very much agree, which is why I'm coming to the sad conclusion that Farage is quite likely to be the next PM.
tl;dr - Reform support is a symptom of mass disaffection and perceived decline in living standards. But Labour are backed into a corner and have to stop the boats regardless.
Speaking from the other side of the pond, we can say quite confidently that the solution is not electing someone who will make reckless, bold moves. The brain trust here voted against “ambitionless, measured improvements” and for that, we got a chaotic circus.
I think this is part of why Brexit got through as well, some people felt it was a way to shake up a crusty, unresponsive establishment. That didn’t go so great!
For example, Denmark created the highly criticized "Smykkelov" in 2016 which lets us confiscate any values asylum seekers have over 10.000 DKK (e.g. jewelry as the name says, but never actually used for jewelry just cash) in 2016. It has been hardly used (10 times in the first 3 years), but it had enormous press coverage. The largest left party (and the party of current PM) voted for it.
The previously largest nationalist party (DF) have never been in power, despite existing for 30 years and getting 20+% of the vote in 2015 -- at most they were a support party to the right-wing government.
What's Labour's plan when the boats are stopped and Reform progresses to "round up and deport all the brown people"? They are never going to out-anti-immigrant the anti-immigrants, all they will achieve is losing the left-wing vote.
I'm not sure if they end that route that they would need to out-anti-immigrant the anti-immigrants any further, but in the current climate they will need to be able to make the case that the country can decide who comes in, and that migration is to the benefit of everyone, migrant or not.
Again, it doesn't really matter if it's an actual problem, it is an important enough perceived problem that they need to be able to show they have a grip on it and are running the show in the interests of the average Brit on the street.
Then to really put the issue to bed, they'll need to do something about the failing services and general feeling of decline in the UK. As I said in response to a sister comment - you don't get many nazis when people feel their lives are going well. It's not so concerning if some out group is getting a slice of the cake if you feel you're getting yours too. It's when your slice seems to get a little smaller every day that you start looking for scapegoats.
Of course the other question is - will they actually lose the left wing vote? Or would they win it back?
Opinion polls in UK politics (from what I've heard on the radio) put the politics of 'Reform' voters left of centre - they're keen on renationalising rail, water and electricity for a start. All solid left-wing ideas outside of immigration policy, that you'd usually expect to hear from Labour supporters.