c15mnw.bsky.social

Asylum system in UK ‘out of control’ and dividing country, home secretary says Shabana Mahmood to unveil new proposals modelled on Denmark’s controversial system

Everything about the current 'debate' around this is dismal, not just morally but because it is so stupid. For example:

It conflates asylum-seeking and illegal immigration (and sometimes with migration generally)

It shows no understanding of why there is AS

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025... 1/3

Sultana might be a better fit with Polanski's new-vibe Greens than this group, tbh. The YP project is so dead now it has little chance of meaningful impact other than splitting the left vote.

I also sense we might see the first Labour-to-Greens MP defection over these disgusting asylum proposals.

No-one seems to recall that the Tory proposal wasn't for a processing centre in Rwanda, or for deportations of failed asylum seekers there, but for asylum seekers arriving in the UK to be sent to Rwanda and then treated as applicants for asylum *in Rwanda*. That's a huge difference.

This incredible quote by playwright and #humanist George Bernard Shaw (recited here by Jeff Goldblum) feels like the perfect way to start a new week:

Shaw’s words remind us that life isn’t something to be cautiously preserved or merely endured: it’s something to be lived with purpose✨

The bloody neighbours have gone out and left John Cage’s 4’33 on full blast again.

Always remember that a parliamentary majority can (purport to) render a country "safe" by an Act. The Conservatives sought to do that with Rwanda, regardless of the facts.

Dear [my MP’s name], As the Home Secretary prepares to announce sweeping changes to the UK’s asylum system, I see it as both my duty as a citizen and responsibility as a migration expert to do all I can to urge policymakers to oppose the proposals—not only for what they will do to refugees, though that is the first concern, but also for what they will mean for all of us and the future society we live in.  That is why I am writing to you as my MP. This letter explains why I consider the need to oppose the Home Secretary’s proposals urgent and, at the most fundamental level, in the national and your constituents’ interest. I was born in Germany, a country whose history taught me how quickly societies can go down dark paths; how quickly our leaders can fail in the choices they make. But the history of the displacement of people that the Nazi regime was responsible for also shaped my understanding of why refugee movements occur—and why our response to any of them can never compromise what are, and must always be, universal human rights. Which is why what is happening in the UK now is so deeply alarming. A manufactured crisis As of June 2025, there were 42.5 million refugees globally. Over 70% of them are hosted by low- and middle-income countries; most of them immediate neighbours. Overall, five countries—Colombia, Germany, Türkiye, Iran and Uganda—host a third of the total number of refugees; Germany is the main host in the EU, hosting 2.7 million. The UK hosts 548,000 refugees; that is 0.78% of the UK population. About 110,000 people are in receipt of asylum support; that is 0.15% of the UK population.

🌍 42.5m refugees
Over 70% of them are hosted by low- and middle-income countries.

🇬🇧 548k refugees
= 0.78% of the UK population.

It is not refugees who tear our country apart, it is the mainstreaming of far right policies. And that’s a risk to all of us.

My letter to my MP.

#asylum #Mahmood

🧵

The only Legitimate Concerns about asylum seekers are concerns for their well being and safety. For a rich country like ours to incessantly whine about these people as if we are their victims is perhaps the single most pathetic spectacle in British politics over the past quarter century.

And ofc, like almost everything Labour do at the moment, it's politically stupid: immediately & predictably denounced as 'not going far enough' by Tories and Reform, highly unlikely to gain Labour votes from those parties, and highly likely to lose them votes to other parties. 3/3

If you're cheering Trump on then you have no right to call yourself a patriot.

You absolute moron.

With all the serious problems in UK politics, a bit of light relief is provided by the utterly irrelevant shambles that is Your Party.

Ah the 1970s.

Stagflation, three day weeks, collapsing infrastructure. Civil War in Northern Ireland. In yer face racism and bigotry everywhere. Bin strikes. Strikes in general. Blackouts. Industrial decline. Wage inequality. Dog crap everywhere. And households spent 25% of their income on food.

Adelita Grijalva is FINALLY sworn in and is now officially a member of Congress

81 years ago, FDR proposed a second Bill of Rights to guarantee every American the right to employment, healthcare, education, housing, and a living income. His words are as relevant now as they were then. Watch.

David Attenborough describes how, after smelling blood, the predators (the right wing media) circle their prey (the BBC), with Trump as the savannah sun.

@bjennings90.bsky.social absolutely nails it. (www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...)

SUPERB and angrily unvarnished response, by former BBC chairman, Lord Patten.

"I don't think that we should allow ourselves to be bullied into thinking that the BBC is only any good, if it reflects the prejudice of the last person who shouted at it." ~AA

Note that still in post at the BBC is Robbie Gibb, who helped set up GB News, and John McAndrew, formerly director of news and programmes at GB News.

A big win for people more outraged by a silly edit at the BBC than by a man impeached by Congress for literally inciting an insurrection being back in the White House. Pathetic.

Leaving the EU means the U.K.’s national broadcaster must now kowtow to the King of America.

Grotesque.

We are so far through the looking glass that the man who tried to overthrow an election becomes president, the people who attacked the Capitol are turned into martyrs, & it's the BBC that gets punished - cheered on by the worst news outlets in the UK & the two most dishonest politicians of our age.

Seems the bbc will do absolutely anything for celebrity traitors.

This is the most abysmal, pathetic thing. The BBC head resigning because the corporation is not supine *enough* to the far-right.

He was a truly terrible director general. There were many reasons he could have gone. This is really the most preposterous and absurd.

Blue Labour is the Militant Tendency of the 2020s, and just as damaging

Definitely worth paying for a flu jab this year, about £15 at pharmacies!

www.bbc.com/news/article...

The 'Great Noticing' Era Ever since Labour came to power, the British media has started to notice a whole series of problems they spent the previous 14 years completely ignoring

It’s as if they think we’ve all been in a coma for the last 15 years, rather than watching the Tories smash it all up in front of us.

Very good on our ‘let’s-not-bother-with-right-wing-racism-or-Farage’s-corruption-and-let’s-blame-Labour-for-everything’ media.
www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/the-great-...

Texas… it’s not just Grijalva….

#TrumpEpsteinFilesCoverUp

Dominic Cummings was always an absolute arsehole.

The Conservative right loves to talk up imagined genius among their ranks when in truth there's nothing there but attitude, flex, and pose. Mogg, Johnson, Gove, Cummings. All tiresome little nobodies trotting out rehashed nonsense. Often nasty.

The full transcript of Zohran Mamdani's acceptance speech is very much worth reading in full. Even if you don't agree with your politics, it's very beautifully put together.

archive.is/8VqQJ

[this is a useable link to the NYT transcript]

School pupils are to be taught how to tackle conspiracy theories, spot 'fake news' & root out misinformation. The Daily Mail, ajudged by Wikipedia to be an unreliable new source, is furious. You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to work out why.