A Corbyn Government Would Have Defended People’s Rightful British Citizenship

This week the Tories once again took away more of the British people’s hard-won freedoms with the Nationality and Borders bill, proposed by Dominic Raab and the noxious Priti ‘Vacant’ Patel. This allows the government to strip a naturalised Brit of their citizenship, without giving notice to the person concerned. It follows the 2002 act that allowed the government to strip someone of British nationality so long as they had another. Then there’s the 2014 Immigration Act, pushed through by Tweezer when she was home secretary, that allows the government to strip someone of their citizenship, even if it left them stateless, so long as they could apply to another country for theirs. The Home Office decided that notifying the person affected could be done simply by putting it in their file if their whereabouts were unknown. The High Court ruled that this was insufficient, and so Patel has including legislation exempting the process from judicial review. Which has been described by Ian Dunt at inews as retrospective legislation denying people their right to appeal. It doesn’t matter how long the naturalised person has been here. They could have been here their entire lives, Patel and Raab can still strip them of their British nationality. This has been excused on the pretext that it would stop foreign criminals using human rights legislation to avoid deportation, particularly under the legislation protecting ‘the right to family life’. This is another Tory lie. Mike has pointed out that no foreign criminal has ever dodged deportation using that clause. The effect of the act is to turn immigrants into second-class citizens. This has chilling implications for the rest of us, because what Tony Benn said was true: the Tories start their attacks on people’s rights with immigrants before moving on to the settled population. But as this appears to target Blacks, Asians and channel migrants, it will inevitably be supported by racists.

It’s alarmed very many people. The increased restrictions on immigration have been criticised by a number of Jewish organisation, including Reform Judaism. They have stated that Jews who fled to Britain in the 1930s were not protected in 2021. According to Zelo Street, the Board of Deputies has expressed similar concerns. But Zelo Street has also pointed out that Patel’s and Raab’s wretched legislation particularly affects Jews because of Israel’s ‘Right of Return’. According to this, all Jews everywhere have the right to settle in Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu went further, and declared that every Jew around the world automatically had Israeli citizenship. This didn’t impress the growing number of Jews critical of Israel and its persecution of the Palestinians. One Jewish American said on the Net how ridiculous it was that he, who came from Anchorage in Alaska and had never been to Israel, had the right to settle their, while his friend, a Palestinian, was banned from entering his homeland. And the Israeli state certainly seems to share this sentiment when it comes to The Wrong Kind of Jews. There have been a number of instances where Jews, who have voiced criticisms of Israel, have been very quickly rounded up by the Israeli authorities and put on the next flight home when they’ve tried to enter the country. It’s obviously a case of all Jews being citizens of Israel, except for those that aren’t.

But the effect of Netanyahu’s wretched piece of legislation combined with Patel’s and Raab’s is that any Jew, who gained their British citizenship through naturalisation can now be stripped of it, as there is somewhere else they can go. The Street notes that despite all the screams about Corbyn and anti-Semitism, in reality genuine anti-Semitism comes from the far right. And this is the direction in which this government is moving. The Street concludes

‘That may not be the current intention of Ms Patel and her pals. But, with the certainty of night following day, after they come for the Muslims, the far-right come for the Jews.

And the far-right have now been quietly emboldened. Be afraid. Be very afraid.’

https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2021/12/borders-bill-and-anti-semitism.html

Absolutely. But one other thing may be said about this vile piece of legislation and Britain’sJ ewish community:

It would never have been passed by a Corbyn government and Jews would have been protected.

Corbyn was never an anti-Semite. Indeed, he is one of the most anti-racist MPs and has spoken up in the House and elsewhere in support of the Jewish community. He was simply critical of Israel and its persecution of the Palestinians. But the militant Zionists, who denounced him and his supporters as Jew-haters don’t distinguish between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. As a result, Britain has been denied a government, which would have actively defended the rights of Jews alongside other ethnic groups. Instead we have an increasingly extreme right-wing Tory government, which is taking those rights away, alongside those of the mainstream, White, gentile population.

And unfortunately, this is a government that has the support of those who claim to represent Britain’s Jews. When Tweezer got in, she was congratulated by the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis. Who was one of those pushing the anti-Semitism smears against Labour. Now, partly thanks to this smear campaign, British Jews are left vulnerable to real anti-Semitic persecution. All done perfectly legally by the next racist, who fancies his or her chances as the new Oswald Mosley.

The BUF also had women members, who used to go out goose-stepping to defend Britain from Communism. I wonder if Patel’s wardrobe contains the odd black shirt and jackboots?

Boris’ Views on Brexit and Massive Lack of Tact in Myanmar Show Why He Should Not Be In Politics

Here’s another Tory politician, who should by rights be firmly ejected from the House, or at least barred from any position of governmental responsibility: Boris Johnson. BoJo would just love to be prime minister, and so has tried to scheme his way there, joining the Leave campaign after he initially backed the ‘Stay’ group, and then stabbed the former Tory leader, David Cameron, and his fellow Tory, Michael Gove, in the back.

As the Tories have complained, he’s trying to drive government policy over Brexit from the backseat. On Saturday, Mike put up an article reporting how the Tories’ Blond Ambition had laid down a set of four conditions that need to be met for a good Brexit deal. One of the experts on politics, who commented about it on Twitter, Ian Dunt, immediately demolished all of them.

It’s not hard to see parallels with the Kippers in this. UKIP are rapidly falling into obscurity. They were a single issue party, pressing for Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. And now that’s happening, they’ve lost their entire raison d’etre. So they tried a few months ago to lay down their conditions for Britain’s negotiations over Brexit with the EU. Almost needless to say, they were also rubbish and nobody took any notice of them either.

But it gets worse. For some reason, BoJo the Clown is Britain’s Foreign Secretary, a position for which he is entirely unsuited, for all he likes to boast that his Turkish grandfather was the last vizier of Ottoman Turkey, who was hanged by his outraged people in protest at one of the treaties breaking up Europe in the aftermath of the Great War.

Diplomacy, as part of international relations, requires and prizes very careful, guarded speech in order to prevent avoidable offence, offence which can easily rapidly escalate into disastrous breakdowns in international relations. And in serious cases, war. We talk about ‘tact and diplomacy’, and when describing actions or comments that may cause serious offence, often say, ‘Wars have been fought for less’. BoJo, like Trump, seems to possess none of these qualities.

Covering his official visit to the Shwedagon temple, the holiest Buddhist shrine in Myanmar’s capital, Yangon, Channel 4 showed the tousled twat start to recite the opening line from Kipling’s The Road to Mandalay, about the temple bells calling back an English soldier to the Burmese girl he kissed. Britain ruled Myanmar, then called Burma, from 1824 to 1948. And it’s fair odds that its people just might be somewhat sensitive about our occupation of their country. You can easily understand why reciting a poem by a writer renowned as one of the poets of British imperialism, in the country’s most sacred temple, might just be taken as a slight. The documentary, which included the incident, was shown last night on Channel 4. Fortunately, the British ambassador, Andrew Jenkins, was on hand to stop Johnson. The clip shows Johnson asking him why, to which Jenkins simply answers ‘It’s not appropriate’.

http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2017/09/30/boris-johnson-is-out-of-control-again-heres-why-as-if-you-needed-to-see-the-reasons/

It says much about Boris’ complete lack of sensitivity and self-awareness, that he had to ask Jenkins why he shouldn’t recite it. He clearly saw nothing wrong in it, an attitude that could easily be interpreted by his Burmese hosts as imperial arrogance.

This isn’t the first time the Tories have said or done something, that has sparked an international row. I vaguely remember that BoJo managed to upset the Russians, when he went on a diplomatic visit to the Baltic states a year or so ago. And it wasn’t that long ago that Modi’s India accused Britain of colonialist condescension.

If Boris did, by some horrendous mistake of history, get into 10 Downing Street, then it’s clear that within a very short period his lack of tact would have torn the Commonwealth apart, having insulted and alienated as many of its members states as possible, and joined Trump in ramping up international tensions with Russia, Iran, North Korea or whoever into a full-blown shooting war.

Brexit is likely to seriously damage the British economy. True, Boris wasn’t responsible for the Leave campaign, but he did add his weight to it for no good reason than his own, over-vaulting ambition. And now his utter unsuitability for any kind of role in the Foreign Office is amply demonstrated yet again.

Get this oaf, and the other Tories, out of office as quickly as possible.

Biased BBC Savages Corbyn over Woman’s Hour Slip of Childcare and Brexit

I’m writing this up because I’ve just had all I can stomach from the biased BBC and its blatant partisanship against Jeremy Corbyn and in favour of Theresa May. As Mike has already blogged, Jeremy Corbyn was asked on Woman’s Hour about how much his plan to give free childcare for children between the ages of two and four would cost. The Labour leader had forgotten it, and so the interviewer, Emma Barnett, pressed him on this point. Mike states that the Beeb has been making much of this, running it on their website and discussing it on the Daily Politics.

It has also been played up on this evening’s Six O’clock News, where George Alagiah and John Pienaar have been gloating about it. They’ve played the interview as if it was a triumphant ‘Gotcha!’, with Barnett asking how the public can trust him with their money if he doesn’t know how much this will all cost. Alagiah and Pienaar were saying pretty much the same thing themselves, with Pienaar commenting that Corbyn would need to convince more people.

Pienaar did cover the loud welcome the Labour leader was given when he went to meet his supporters, but he sneered that it couldn’t be worse (than the Woman’s Hour interview) and declared that he needed all the friends he could get.

The programme then moved on to the Tories, where it was all about Theresa May’s claim that she was the best person to negotiate with Europe, and then if Corbyn goes into negotiate, he will be ‘naked and alone’. This was then followed by a vox pop with two ladies with Brummie accents saying how impressed they were with Theresa May, because everything she did was wonderful, and they didn’t like Corbyn.

At that point, I gave up. It was one of the worse, most blatantly biased pieces of journalism I’ve seen outside the Tory press.

And many people have been similarly unimpressed. Mike over at Vox Political has reblogged some of the Tweets people have put up condemning the Beeb for the handling of the Woman’s Hour interview. They’re worth reading, as they rightly point out that Corbyn and the Labour party have costed their proposals. It’s the Tories, who haven’t. Owen Jones commented that the press is rewarding the Tories for insulting the electorate by not costing their proposals, while ‘Isobel’ commented that this was ‘typical Woman’s Hour, insulting women and children just to get at Corbyn. She also made the point that the programme apparently had the attitude that only good Tory women listened to their programme.

http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2017/05/30/bbcs-shame-attack-on-corbyn-over-womans-hour-interview-is-crushed-by-the-public/

Alagiah and Pienaar made much of the Labour leader’s failure to provide the costing for childcare, citing that it showed that Labour didn’t know how the extra money would have to be raised through new taxation. This shows where the real anxiety comes from.

Yes, folks, we’re back to the Tory scare tactics that Labour is going to grind ‘hard-working’ people down with a massively increased tax burden.

In fact, most people won’t be paying any new taxes. The only people who will, will be the extremely wealthy earning over £80,000.

People pretty much like upper 25 per cent of the population, who have done extremely well from the Tories, and from the poverty, insecurity and hunger they have inflicted on the other 75 per cent of the population. That means top earning BBC producers and presenters. Such as, I’ve no doubt, George Alagaiah and John Pienaar.

As for Theresa May being a tougher, better equipped negotiator for Brexit than Corbyn, don’t make me laugh! Mike also reblogged this little piece of damning judgement from Ian Dunt of the politics.co.uk website.

“So what can we learn about May’s negotiating tactics over Brexit from the way she has handled this election? She makes spur-of-the-moment decisions for which she has not prepared. She is a control freak who receives too little advice from outside her immediate circle. She pays insufficient attention to limitations in her operational capacity. She does not stress-test ideas before implementing them. When the ideas then fall apart she quickly capitulates, but even then is unable to halt the bleeding. She U-turns in a way which maximises the humiliation but does not close down the issue. She makes promises which will do little to benefit her but which make her disproportionately vulnerable in other areas. She diminishes her reputation with the very people she most needs on side in order to placate those who she already has on side. She adopts a strategy upon which she is unable to deliver.”

See:http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2017/05/30/if-jeremy-corbyn-went-alone-and-naked-into-brexit-negotiations-hed-still-be-better-dressed-than-theresa-may/

In fact, it’s very clear that Theresa May is nothing like a good negotiator. Remember when she turned up at a Euro meeting, and they all snubbed her? And she has absolutely no clue what she thinks she can achieve, or at least she didn’t. For some time when asked about Brexit all you got was waffled about how she would try to get the best deal for Britain – as if nobody else would have the same objective – and then follow it up with the mantra ‘Brexit means Brexit’, repeated ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

What makes this all worse is Pienaar’s sneer about Labour promising us all ‘nice things’. No, John – Labour’s proposals aren’t about ‘nice things’, as you so patronisingly call them. This is about issues of life and death.

Let’s put some stats to this.

There are over 100,000 people in this country, who have to use food banks. Whatever lies Dominic Raab and Tories like him spew, they don’t do it because it’s free food. They do it because if they don’t, they die of starvation.

And there is something deeply wrong in this country, when nurses have to use it. Well, Andrew Neil asked May about this, and it was damning that she didn’t have an answer except, ‘There are complex reasons’.

And 600 or so people have died of starvation after being thrown off disability benefit through the heinous work capability tests. They have been the subject of artworks, very moving videos on YouTube, and commemorated by Johnny Void, Stilloaks, Vox Political, and so on. Mike a few days posted a piece about a disabled man, who took his own life after the DWP told him his benefit had been overpaid, and he was due to be investigated for fraud.

http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2017/05/24/grandfather-took-his-own-life-because-dwp-said-hed-been-overpaid-but-wouldnt-reveal-the-amount/

As for the NHS, the Tories are starving it of funds and privatising it piecemeal, making sure more services are commissioned from private healthcare companies, and more hospitals turned over to them to run. Because they’ve been following the standard line of privatising it by stealth since Maggie Thatcher. Andrew Lansley and Jeremy Hunt were both enthusiasts of private healthcare, as are many of the Tories.

And if you want to know how well private healthcare performs, you only have to see the American system, where 50 million people couldn’t get proper insurance coverage and 30,000 people die ever year because they can’t afford the doctor’s and hospitals’ bills.

And it was very, very much like this in Britain before the Nye Bevan and Clement Atlee set up the NHS.

So if you want more poverty, more starvation, and people dying because healthcare has been privatised, and they can’t afford whatever it is they’re being charged by Unum, Circle Health, Virgin Healthcare and Bupa, then vote Tory.

If, however, you want people to have proper education, proper healthcare and be able to go home at night secure in the knowledge that they’ll have something to feed themselves and their children without relying on charity, then you have only one choice.

Vote Labour.

As for Pienaar and Alagaiah, I’m sick of them. They’re now as bad as Laura Kuensberg. With this disgraceful hatchet job, they’ve shown they’ve thrown away any pretence at objective journalism long ago.