This & that

[juliet]

The Home Office now stopping people in the street on the basis of their race (& note also that they want to stop benefits/housing for failed asylum seekers with small kids, as well. So we're getting rid of them by starving their children, are we? Fantastic).

And a less depressing link:
the Underground turned upside-down (picked this up off someone else a couple of weeks ago).

Hunt Bill being discussed today. Thumbs crossed...

Interesting site showing current US voting polls - bit depressing atm, though.

I don't think I have any US readers who are currently overseas, or indeed any US readers at all, but just in case: register online for overseas/absentee ballot.

Comments

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

I haven't engaged with it at all, I don't agree that it's the problem. We probably can afford to let more people in, certainly in cash terms we can afford to, as long as we accept that if they are a net cost then that's money we can't then spend on something else.

When I referred to 'expensive' I was talking about the process of determining applications - expensive as in a waste of money if we ignore the outcome, which I rather thought at the time was what you were advocating, though you have since clarified that you weren't.

I'd just say that asylum and immigration are different systems, and if we want to change the immigration system, we should do so in an honest manner, not by letting people through the asylum system whose claims turn out not to be satisfactorily founded.

As for the immigration issue, I'd happily have a more liberal immigration regime with some of these countries, especially the ones with a history of, ahem, engagement with the British state.

At the same time, we are a wealthy and crowded island, a free-for-all would cause an influx. In terms of volume, I'd freely swap the more liberal policy globally for having a less liberal one than now for much of continental Europe.

Unfortunately, these are two things we can't do, because we've given our democratic control of both of them away, and is one of the reasons I don't think we benefit from membership of the European Union (I often discover that this makes me right wing too, right wing like Tony Benn, of course).

As for negative media stereotypes, I'm afraid I don't have time to sort out asylum seekers, I'm too busy trying to work out how to stop the Tories winning every local election round here by turning them into a referendum on Travellers.

[lilithmagna.livejournal.com]

Interesting points, and I agree with some. But let's remind ourselves that where this started out was as a discussion of proposals by the government to cut off the benefits of failed asylum seekers (incidentally the local authority support rates are about 45% of income support rates). In fact this has been a process of gradual restriction and disentitlement. The point is that the Government has more recently drafted the legislation with get out clauses for the supported person if a human rights abuse might otherwise result. Where the Courts have interpreted this so as to protect the disabled and families, the Government rather dishonestly blames the judges for protecing those human rights.

For me, if the government can lawfully remove someone it should do it, while preserving minimum standards of decency for those who have not yet been removed. Starving people out of the country is not an option. While the righting of economic inequality abroad is a desirable end, my view is that this will take a long time coming. In spite of Blair's aid agenda the loan servicng element of the south still outweighs any aid from the north, and everything so far implemented however radical is but a sticking plaster (not that some of the recent initiatives are entirely unwelcome).

In the meantime, I prefer to make sure that those within our shores are looked after while they are here.

My comments on xenophobia in the predominantly right wing press arise not because of my views on your own politics; rather they come from frustration at the spectre of Labour and Tories outbidding each other to seem tough on those who need protection. Bill Morris recently castigated Labour for overusing the term bogus asylum seeker (to the point that foreigner = asylum seeker = bogus became almost interchangeable). It's all slipping back again though.

If you remeber the single mother and workshy dole scrounger of 80's mythology, and compare it to the asylum seeker today, you may see what I mean.

A final thought; I recently read that according to Home Officde figures the net cost of immigration is a surplus to the economy of 2-4 £ billion(sorry, can't remember the exact figure). Food for thought, no?