Alison Thewliss

Let’s defeat the politics of hate and despair with the politics of hope.

Honoured to march with the STUC through Glasgow against racism, and for a fair and diverse country that we must remain.

Today's migration stats illustrate the migration doom loop in action...

(from my presentation at the IMF last week)

Scrapping the two child limit and the rape clause has been a ten year fight, with many folk involved. This will help so many families who have been struggling, and I'm glad for them today.

Well done to all the campaigners who have kept up the pressure on this. It's been a long ten years, and so many families have been harmed by this pernicious policy.

Can we all have a moment please for @thewliss.bsky.social who has pursued this outcome, doggedly, for over a decade.

The two child limit and the rape clause should never have been on the statute books.

@thewliss.bsky.social Listening to the #Budget and reflecting on all your years of hard work on abolishing the #rapeclause

Thank you. It took a real team effort.

Quite the correction by the Telegraph. The publication in question is @freemovement.bsky.social

Thanks to @petewishart.bsky.social for highlighting the @lsepress.bsky.social report to the home secretary, commissioned by #PCS and Refugees Together which suggests policy changes which would enable refugees to contribute to UK economy and be self-sufficient quicker.
www.pcs.org.uk/news-events/...

The anti-asylum proposals being set out by the Home Secretary reinforce the dehumanisation of individuals coming to the UK to seek safety and set the UK on a course for even more inhumanity. We know from the existing 20-year-route how it put people's lives on hold and prevents them from settling. It leaves people in precarious positions and at more risk of exploitation. It denies them the ability to be able to rebuild their lives after suffering unimaginable horrors, as well as leaving them in fear that at any moment they may be ripped away from their family and friends once again. We need an asylum system which treats those coming for safety with dignity and respect. A system which processes their applications faster and more effectively. A system which allows them the right to work so that they can integrate and support themselves. What the Home Secretary proposes is one which treats them with contempt and hostility.

We must stop the hostility towards, and demonisation of, people just trying to seek safety. Our statement on just some of the Home Secretary's proposed changes to the asylum system

Completely beyond why people try to defend Labour record on treatment of asylum seekers. They are awful.
They have done terrible things the Tories never even thought of, like denying any refugee who came here through irregular means from EVER becoming a citizen & ENDING FAMILY REUNIFICATION. demons.

It's not as if Labour even believes what it says... Starmer and his acolytes in Westminster, Holyrood and The Senedd just blow in the wind of political opportunism.

I had the highest immigration caseload in Scotland, and was proud to advocate on behalf of constituents. It's important work and makes a huge difference to people's lives.

I hear that some Labour MPs have reverted to pre-2015 behaviour of not supporting people with immigration casework. Shameful.

ECHR has protected domestic-violence survivors, disabled people fighting cuts, bereaved families demanding inquests, racialized communities resisting police abuse & people in mental health settings facing neglect.

Don’t be distracted. This is a rights rollback for everyone. tinyurl.com/3namk9ss

No 10 tells Labour MPs it expects support for tough new asylum policies Some backbenchers already opposing planned immigration crackdown seen as ‘economically and culturally illiterate’

Govt pushing for “tough” asylum plans,but the real danger is the move to rewrite how UK courts apply the ECHR.This won’t stop at deportation cases

Undermine rights for migrants,&you weaken the tools every marginalised group relies on to hold the state to account
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Just wilful performative cruelty that is entirely out of step with the majority of British people.

How many Labour MPs got into politics in order to vote for stealing jewellery off of people seeking refuge from war and persecution?

Imagine spending 20 years waiting to see if a reconsideration every few years would uproot you again. Never leaving the system. Constantly wondering whether you'd need to challenge a new decision made, thinking about evidence and getting legal help. Never feeling safe. It's inhumane.

There’s just so much performative cruelty and stupidity in the asylum announcements that it’s hard to know where to start.

But one place to start is that if its aim is to reduce small boats crossings, it won’t work.

We’ve had 5 years of deterrent policies. They don’t work.

Imagine you find a place to make a new life for yourself after a traumatic event. You form a family, find work, make friends, learn a new way to live. Then 20 years later a government minister decides you haven’t ‘tried hard enough’ so sends you back to the place of your trauma. 1/3

Jewellery, gold teeth and glasses frames, pens and watches and watch chains.
These things were taken from the desperate and dispossessed as they entered the camps.
If you are a Labour MP, it is time to act. Either you take back your party for humanity and solidarity now, or you leave.

Dehumanising language
Undermining human rights protections
Putting people in military camps
Seizing their jewellery

Shame on the Labour party

Since removing the two-child benefit cap is all over the news today I just wanna shout out my ex MP Alison Thewliss @thewliss.bsky.social who was absolutely Instrumental in keeping the issue in people's minds when it could easily have just faded away

Thank you. I hope it finally gets scrapped, it's been a long fight.

Buckhaven, Methil and Wemyss Villages (Fife) by-election, 1st prefs:

SNP: 1594 (42.6%, -4.9)
RUK: 1080 (28.9%, new)
Lab: 778 (20.8%, -19.5)
LD: 99 (2.6%, +0.4)
Alba: 83 (2.2%, +0.9)
Con: 64 (1.7%, -4.8)
Sovereignty: 45 (1.2%, new)
(Greens 2.2% in 2022)

SNP elected stage TBC (3rd time lucky!)

While Labour copies Farage’s policies, our NHS and care homes are finding it harder to recruit the staff they need.

We have a solution.👇

24 SNP members, a mix of ages, at a meeting

💛 Brilliant conversations last night at the inaugural meeting of the new Glasgow Central SNP - plans well underway for next year's Scottish Parliament elections.

www.snp.org/join/

Clerks and committee staff are absolutely great, as are the Library team and the Doorkeepers. Fonts of all kinds of knowledge! I don't miss being in Parliament, but I do miss all the people who work there and their chat.