Peter Ryley

Wow.

Graphic with a black and white photo of France Ellen Watkins Harper. On top of the photo, there is a poem by Frances Ellen Harper, an abolitionist and suffragist titled "Bury Me in a Free Land". The poem reads "I would sleep, dear friends, where bloated might/Can rob no man of his dearest right; My rest shall be calm in any grave/Where none can call his brother a slave."

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was a prolific writer who fought for women’s rights and the abolition of slavery.

She was one of the first Black people to publish a short story, authored many celebrated poetry collections, and helped enslaved people escape through the Underground Railroad.

It’s so funny to think about the fact that there’s people out there deferring every life decision to this

Seriously, there are people on here who think a numerical reduction in immigration will reduce Farage’s appeal.

Immigration *never* caused the harms Farage ascribed to it. It was all a xenophobic lie. The actual numbers never mattered.

Another thing many underestimate is the sheer rage and the depth of the misinformation they're facing. Much right populism is emotional and psychological, a deep phenomenon which may not be particularly amenable to policy. At its simplest it's a turning outwards of insoluble frustration. (1/3)

To be pedantic, it would be a third referendum after 1975 and 2016. The current score is 1-1.

An 'expert' is just another word for someone who knows what they are talking about.

iPaper headline: Photo of Farage speaking with small boat photo superimposed WHO BROKE BRITAIN? Farage's great project is to destroy the country he claims to love

Extract: THE EFFECT ON BRITAIN Farage has taken the demon in Powell's 1968 speech and used it to undermine Britain in 2025. He has the same currency as his hero and trades in the same goods. He is defined by hatred toward minorities. It could be that person on the train speaking a foreign language, or that bloke next door who might be Romanian, or the Polish plumber who came to fix the sink, or the desperate young man who made it over on a boat. He will make those people's lives a misery. He will make them afraid. He will make them feel unwelcome. He will turn this country's instinct towards decency around so that it is replaced by antipathy. Every time we follow him down this path, we become poorer and more miserable, tarnishing our own wellbeing through our devotion to his political goal. Minorities suffer because of Farage. But Britain suffers most of all.

“We have sacrificed our national success because of our fear of immigration. And now, if Farage has his way, we'll do it all over again”

Superb, important analysis of the profound harm Farage does to our country in his rabidly racist and egotistical bid for power
liveapp.inews.co.uk/category/407...

FoM meant that you could apply to stay for unlimited time within the parameters set by EU law. The UK never imposed those conditions. Why?

That ‘providing’ is doing some heavy lifting! You had unconditional rights to stay for three months. After that you had to register, which here meant showing proof of address, proof of employment and/or income, 4000€ in a Greek bank account, a tax number, and health insurance.

Faced with that choice, most chose to stick with the 90 days visa free limit, which was all they theoretically were allowed under FoM without registering. Some were already here full time, and others like me were able to become full-time residents. We had a really helpful local police.

The irony was that anyone who had registered previously and had five years income tax returns (even if they were nil) got ten year residency. The EU gave us an excellent deal and we had better terms than EU citizens - allowed a five year absence rather than two year before losing residency.

That was an added complication, though mitigated by the UK's double tax agreement. I know people who were 'living under the radar' who faced a dilemma. Registration and tax residence or to leave and limit their time. Under FoM they were already limited to 90 days but it was unenforceable.

It was very much the issue round here when Brexit struck. It's not about tax payable but tax residence. There were a lot of people staying for long periods without registering, even though under FoM they were required to for any stay over 90 days, which theoretically meant tax residence.

Immigration salience has less to do with aggregate Immigration numbers than
- visibility of boats & asylum > visas
- general vibes about integration
- elite cues from media & political discourse in shaping public perceptions

This is more true when immigration is falling then when it is rising

This post. The rise of the far right is a crisis of legitimacy not of popular opinions. The legitimacy of the far right is a product of elite endorsement of opinions held but not expressed.
I would add that when fascists come to power, they do so as minorities enabled by elite collaboration.

Indeed it is. But he muddles Farnborough in Hampshire - the town with the air show - with the Farnborough in Kent where Farage was born. The Kent town has no connections to aerospace at all. As someone born in Bromley, these things pathetically matter.

Nobody in The Moral Maze gets eaten by the Moral Minotaur, which is a fundamental flaw in the programme.

That said, I do have sympathy with people who had made a long term investment in a home with a view to moving or spending more time there when they could give up work. If you weren't able to do that, Brexit would have scuppered your plans. We were lucky, we could take early retirement in 2020.

In that case, the concern is with tax, not residence.

To do that that you had to show health insurance, proof of residence, and sufficient funds. In Greece that meant tax returns too, even zero ones. Greece had a paper based system of blue and beige cards. The UK never bothered to implement the rules. If they had the result may have been different.

What inhibited them was that 183 days residence meant becoming tax resident (in theory - there were plenty of workarounds, certainly here in Greece). But, if they were staying for more than three months at a time, even before Brexit, they should have registered anyway. FoM was not unconditional.

Time to look behind another "British General Election of 2024" advent calander window. As is tradition in every post 2016 Christmas, Brexit is in the air, with speculation about whether Labour might push to move closer to the EU. But what role did Brexit play in last July's election? Read on!

I suspect you have to be quite racist to stand out as "the racist guy" at a boys public school of the 1980s.

And heartfelt from her background of being prosecuted for ‘insulting Turkishness’ by addressing the Armenian genocide in The Bastard of Istanbul and her subsequent exile.

What A Writer Needs What does a writer need to keep creating stories?

open.substack.com/pub/elifshaf...

Spoiler (sort of) - it isn’t a cup of coffee

A little appreciated fact largely ignored by our “simplifying” media: the EU, including Freedom of Movement, was not just “them”, but also “us”.

Most of the public think net migration increased last year, when in fact numbers halved.

New findings from the Ipsos/British Future Immigration Attitudes Tracker show that 56% of the public thinks immigration increased last year. Just 1 in 6 realise it was down
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

The ‘Danish model’ is the darling of centre-left parties like Labour. The problem is, it doesn’t even work in Denmark | Cas Mudde This week’s local elections are the latest reminder that when social democrats move rightwards, they’re making a mistake, says academic and author Cas Mudde

After more than 10 years of “the Danish Model”, nativism is hegemonic in the country, the far right polls near level highs again, and the Social Democrats lost Copenhagen and poll at historic low.

European Social Democrats should look at the facts, not the myths!

Me in @theguardian.com

Why does nationality matter, anyway? Deciding someone's legal rights based on a nebulous combination of birthplace and parentage is a bit weird

"We grant people different rights based on their genetic heritage and on which scrap of land they happened to be born on. That’s mad, isn’t it?"

I just think, when debating immigration and so on, that we should try not to lose sight of the fact that "nationality" is a made up thing.