[mattomac]

So basically every piece around this was working on a figure that is 20% out.

I wonder if Reeves figures are the same, that's atrocious reporting by the ONS.

[Abernathy]

A few people in my local Labour Party have been clutching their virtual pearls in outrage at Mahmood’s proposals to reform the UK’s immigration and asylum systems. A handful have even cancelled their membership. I’ve seen the proposed reforms being called “racist” and “far right”. Yep, a set of reforms modelled on a successful immigration & asylum system implemented by a left-of-centre democratic socialist government in a Scandinavian country is supposedly “far-right”. It all reminds me a little of the farrago of outrage that greeted Labour’s issuing in 2015 of a campaign coffee mug, one of a set with main policy offers/electoral pledges printed on them, that read simply “Controls on Immigration”. The backlash that provoked was frankly, out of all proportion, and maybe this is similar.

If we start from the premise that the Tories left behind an Asylum & immigration system that was shambolic, dysfunctional, clogged up and sclerotic from 14 years of often wilful neglect and backlog, and that the Labour government, elected on a promise of change, is obliged to do something to get things working again , then that means overhauling the system completely.

Mahmood’s proposed changes have the virtue of keeping the UK as a signatory to the European Court of Human Rights, where other parties would withdraw our country from this critically important international institution.

I’m wary that the proposals may be something that could conceivably mirror the Windrush scandal perpetrated by the Home Office under Theresa May’s government, but getting past the outrage, it would seem that we do have a set of proposals that are fairly radical, but not entirely unreasonable, and which may just get the job done.

It does feel instinctively somewhat against the grain of Labour values, but perhaps we need to bite the bullet. Build a new, fair, humane, and effective asylum & immigration system that will shoot the Reform/Tory fox.

[Andy McDandy]

I'd suggest starting claim processing in France, get safe routes into the UK established (as ever, nobody is getting on an inflatable to cross the Channel in the middle of winter by choice), get people processed faster, so they're not in hotel/holiday camp limbo, and are earning and paying taxes. No boats, no hotels, better for the migrants, removes the targets for the mob - aside from the deeply racist wankers who'll never be happy anyway so fuck 'em.

This entire thing is a fugazi - it's a problem because some people have decided it's a problem, and that there's only one solution. Thus, any discussion circles back to "how fast can we send 'em back?", rather than examine any other aspect of the situation.