Pandering to Racism 932


Here in Ghana people are stunned by the announcement that a bond of £3,000 will have to be submitted by visa applicants to the UK, redeemable on return.

It is unpleasant for a nation to be singled out as comprised of particularly untrustworthy individuals against whom special measures are needed.  Theresa May appears quite deliberately to be singling out countries whose citizens are normally black or brown – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Ghana and Nigeria.  They are all citizens with extremely close ties to the UK.  For example, all of those countries supplied large numbers of men to British armed forces in two World Wars; with little resulting gratitude.

The true level of Britain’s regard for the Commonwealth is disclosed in all its arrogance; citizenship of the Commonwealth countries with the longest link to the UK will become a positive disadvantage in visa application.  Israeli settlers living in Occupied Palestine on the West Bank, incidentally, will still be allowed to enter the UK without any visa at all, despite membership of neither Commonwealth nor EU.  Paradoxical, isn’t it?

The measure shows the arrogant British disdain for these countries – of which India pre-eminently but also Ghana are fast growing and important trading partners.  Undoubtedly Ghana will retaliate with measures which hurt British businesses; many of my good friends are senior Ghanaian politicians, and they are all furious.  The rhetoric the British employ about transformation from colonial status to a modern partnership of equals is exposed for the tissue of lies it has always been.  This is a straightforward racist measure, aimed at securing the racist vote to the Tories.

Not does it make any sense.  If you are intending to enter the UK under false pretences, and have the intent illegally to settle and start a new life there, then £3,000 is scarcely a deterrent given the substantial economic gains you intend to make over the long period you intend to stay.  It will rather seem a good investment; people will find the money.  The people it will deter are those who never intended to overstay.  The extra cash upfront,  to the businessman for a business trip, for the student coming to study, for the tourist will drive them to go elsewhere, to the UK’s net loss.

More cruelly it will deter decent middle class people from coming to see grandchildren in the holidays, from going to the niece’s wedding,  from going to graduation.  Those things will become the prerogative of the wealthy, those with plenty of cash to spare.

This does nothing to deter illegal immigration.  It merely demonstrates populist racism, demonstrates contempt for some of the UK’s best-disposed friends, and demonstrates that the government thinks the right to travel is only for the rich.  It is contemptible.


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932 thoughts on “Pandering to Racism

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  • Jay

    @Passerby

    “Just expressing artistic integrity” Sorry. Of which in this totaly insane situation we find ourselves witness to, sometime as we are taught in our early English Lit classes. When the time suits the agenda we do like to read into things slight deeper than just supposing.

    I find the UAE situation particulary disturbing in regard to the sentences recent sentences to a group of people.
    The information is not to available and perhaps Press Tv have other accounts.

    To negate that what is apparent to us in Syria and in UAE is truly despotic, what we find typicaly as is always the case in our conventional media outlet is the in complete and bias coverage.
    Sorry to stir passions enough in you to feel need to comment.

    I appologise Jonny Cash can evoke deep passions.

    Strange isn`t?

    Great strenghths are to be found here that is why we keep coming back.

    Thanks to everyone for their efforts.

    A court in the United Arab Emirates has sentenced 64 people to prison on charges of planning a coup in the country, Abu Dhabi television has said.

    Reported.
    On Tuesday, the Federal Supreme Court handed 56 people prison sentences of ranging between seven and 10 years, and eight others were sentenced to 15 years in prison in absentia.

    They were all convicted of plotting to overthrow the government of the Persian Gulf Arab state.

    With “Democracy”?

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)

    @ Dreoilin

    “But don’t be surprised if your words are quoted back at you when you ask someone else for a link to back up what they’re saying. K?”
    ___________

    That’s a fair point. But surely you’d agree that most of the questions I put regarding others’ posts don’t involve asking the addressee to provide links? Take the ‘Shannon question’, where I merely expressed some surprise/doubt about the 2 million+ plus figure – someone provided a link to Shannonwatch, which is fair enough, but I didn’t demand that they should do so. Or what I said about the number of Gazan casualties during Cast Lead – here again, I was merely making the point that if killing as many civilians as possible had been the Israeli intention they could have managed a lot more than the number they did – a thought which didn’t involve calling for links (and which, incidentally, didn’t imply approval either despite what some people are suggesting).
    I think one has to be reasonable about this and I think you’d find that very few if any of my posts base their case on demanding links or on the absence of same.
    Furthermore, furnishing links is not always very useful. Take emerberger (above) : a contributor here says something about Rory Carroll and then quotes this gentleman, who just happens to say the same thing. But what is the ‘status’ of emerberger? We simply don’t know. So the quote or link doesn’t really get us any further. It’s a little like linking to Lenin to back up one’s assertion that Marxism-Leninism is a wonderful thing.

    Enjoy the day!

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)

    @ Jives

    “I wonder exactly the nature of The Squeeze put on Correa?

    Maybe something he said on the phone or online? :.)

    I’m beginning to see how this Prism/NSA malarky really works…”
    __________

    I think the answer is really fairly simple and doesn’t involve Prism, etc, in any meaningful way. It is simply that Morales probably sees little point and little advantage in (further) worsening relations with Washington by granting asylum to someone for/towards whom Bolivia has no responsibility or obligation.
    And, as I’ve said before, if I were Julian Assange, I would also be slightly worried – Ecuador, in a way, finds itself in the same hole as Assange and, like him, would dearly like to dig its way out of said hole; the gesture of tweaking Washington’s nose has been made, but tweaked noses usually return to their original shape quite quickly. Cynical, perhaps, but that’s politics and international relations.

  • Komodo

    I often wonder why people fall for Habby’s troll games; to question absolutely everything, and demand proof, which is then rejected as unconvincing or unreliable, is just one of a common diversionary troll tactics.

    It’s because it does it so well, Macky. Just the right combination of apparent interest, curled-lip condescension, personal invective and rabbinical questioning. And never, never, any evidence for its portentous observations. There’s a lesson there for anyone intending to troll the Mail Online, which is where it gets its opinions. We all respond, don’t we? Sad to see you do too. But it really, really is better to ignore it completely, no matter what the provocation. Let it gibber and squeak under its bridge. Ditto, what I am increasingly led to believe is its foil/sockpuppet, English Knight/whatever it is today.

  • Kibo Noh

    Komodo. 8 26am

    “Let it gibber and squeak under its bridge.”

    Right on! That’s my resolution for today.

    As for the Evo Morale’s flight. Doesn’t that display that it isn’t only the Irish state that behaves like a groveling vasel towards the monster that the US has become.

    At least Ireland has the excuse of being just a small state.

    Clare Daly’s observations clearly apply far more widely in Europe

  • Dreoilin

    “South American nations furious over diversion of Bolivian president’s plane” – live blogging up to 9am this morning

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/03/edward-snowden-asylum-live

    A summary of events at 6.26am

    A major diplomatic incident has occured after a jet carrying the president of Bolivia was rerouted to Austria. Various European countries prevented the plane from overflying their airspace, amidst suspicions NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was onboard.

    Austrian foreign ministry officials subsequently said Snowden was not onboard. Morales, along with the Bolivian defence minister, remain at Vienna international airport.

    The defence minister has said that France, Portugal, Italy and Spain had prevented the jet from entering their airspace. The airspace ban is still being enforced by Spanish authorities. He blamed the decisions on pressure from the US government.

    A number of South American states have voiced outrage at the incident, and, according to Argentinian president Cristina Kirchner, the Peruvian president Ollanta Humala has called a meeting of the Union of South American Nations to discuss the ongoing events.

    The Bolivian vice president, Alvaro Garcia, said Morales had been “kidnapped by imperialiam”.

  • Dreoilin

    “At least Ireland has the excuse of being just a small state.”

    Yes, Kibo, and at least Ireland voted against lifting the arms embargo on Syria.

  • Dreoilin

    “a contributor here says something about Rory Carroll and then quotes this gentleman, who just happens to say the same thing. But what is the ‘status’ of emerberger?”

    Well, here is what Flaming June/Mary said:

    “I believe an archive of many (not all) of my emails to Carroll over the years is still avaialble here

    http://www.medialens.org/23_fg_75_lc/viewtopic.php?t=2664

    ———————-

    and the link goes to emails from “joe emerberger” who claims to be in Ontario

  • Dreoilin

    Kibo,

    Ireland also voted in favour of an upgrade in U.N. status for the Palestinians.

    But when Angela Merkel frowns about bondholders, Enda Kenny goes weak at the knees. And when the Obama women arrive in Dublin there is a silly media scrum.

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)

    @ Dreoilin:

    “Well, here is what Flaming June/Mary said:

    “I believe an archive of many (not all) of my emails to Carroll over the years is still avaialble here”
    __________

    I think (but may be mistaken) that you’ve fallen victim to Mary’s refusal to cleary indicate what is quotation and what is not.

    I read the above sentence as coming from emerberger himself: one of the reasons being that it’s unlikely that Mary’s been corresponding with Carroll for years. Also, in the full quote, emerberger seems to be a “reviewer”.

    Check out Mary’s full post again.

  • Macky

    “Let it gibber and squeak under its bridge.”

    Well that is what I long advocated, from H’s very first appearance here, but to my dismay I watched others continually feed him, and then my dismay first turned to alarm as other posters pretended not to notice the vicious bullying campaign against Mary, and to utter disbelief when certain posters started first to praise him (!), and then actually supported him in his attacks on others, especially on Mary. Things recently came to a head , where Jon had to intervene as things were getting out of hand, and he was warned off trying to engage with Mary, and as a consequence his trolling has been somewhat curtailed, and he has now resorted to playing the innocent, ever so polite but contrarian, poster; of course it’s just another masquerade, but I’ve decided to help him expose himself by engaging. Any shred of remaining credibility, especially with those yet to see the light, as he repeatedly fails in his attempts to defend to the undefendable, namely his contrarian positions, will quickly dissipate, revealing a ridiculous & very naked clown.

    Despite his self-declared “intellectual fire-power” bluster, and despite his agenda & unhinged views, I suspect that our dear trolling clown really actually wants to be accepted as an equal here; almost enough to feel pity for him !

  • Dreoilin

    “Reservists in the British Army will become specialists in cyber security, chemical-biological warfare and intelligence under sweeping reforms being carried out to transform the force in preparation for future conflicts, The Independent has learnt.

    “The Territorial Army, whose size is being doubled from 15,000 to 30,000, will have a much more integrated role to counter the new threats presented by technology and WMDs in the hands of insurgents and rogue states. It will also be extensively engaged in gathering information under plans drawn up by the military.”

    More
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/exclusive-army-reserves-to-become-specialists-in-intelligence-and-cyber-security-under-sweeping-reforms-8684012.html

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)

    @ Komodo

    “rabbinical questioning.”
    ________

    Wow, I must think seriously about growing a beard.

    More seriously, though, I’m aware that you’ve switched to the tactic of never responding (even to defend your own statements. That tactic contrasts with, for example, Macky’s, which consists in denial accompanied by insults and a feeling that he can ‘win’ an argument by being the last one to post.

    I’m honestly “incredibly relaxed” about both approaches, neither of which will silence me and both of which might indicate an inability to deal with my points in a reasoned manner. Silent readers will make the connection, I think.

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)

    Macky, on his road to Calvary, first suffered from “dismay”, which then turned into “alarm” which then became “utter disbelief”.

    Oh dear! The only things missing apear to be references to the crown of thorns and the cup of vinegar.

  • Dreoilin

    “I think (but may be mistaken) that you’ve fallen victim to Mary’s refusal to cleary indicate what is quotation and what is not …

    Check out Mary’s full post again.”

    Yep, you’re right. Damn and blast.

  • Mark Golding - Children of Conflict

    The territorial army or ‘army reserve’ thank-you Dreoilin, may be increased to over 100,000 according to my sources.

    They are/will be trained in riot management & crowd control. This includes training civilians to use body-length riots shields, protect themselves from missiles and how to identify and arrest “ring leaders’ using specially trained “snatch squads”.

    Army reservists are trained into how to work as teams armed with body-length shields in driving back hostile crowds.

    Come the revolution you are either with us or the terrorists.

  • Dreoilin

    “Come the revolution you are either with us or the terrorists.”

    That’s it, Mark.

  • Flaming June

    Hammond as Secretary of State for Defence, has announced large cuts to TA bases and increases in TA numbers and funding. He is supposed to have issued a prior copy of this statement to the House which includes the opposition. Only the media have had prior knowledge.

    Bercow is now hauling Hammond over the coals.

    Incompetent and fascist.

  • Flaming June

    Some very petty and irrelevant stuff on here this morning vis a vis what is really happening in the wider world.

  • Dreoilin

    “Some very petty and irrelevant stuff on here this morning vis a vis what is really happening in the wider world.”

    No, Mary.

    This whole blog is about what is happening in the wider world.

    But (if you’re talking about references to you) it’s not at all “petty” or “irrelevant” when people have difficulty in deciphering what you post, and to point that out. Is it REALLY so difficult to add quotation marks to quoted text? If I and others can do it, why not you?? Or, since you can clearly use italics whenever you want to, why can’t you do that with quoted text??

  • Ben Franklin -Machine Gun Preacher (unleaded version)

    Reuters, yahoo and Guardian are all I see covering the kidnapping. Blogs are verklempt.

  • technicolour

    is repeatedly calling someone ‘petty’, when all they’ve asked you to do is post info more clearly, not rather…petty?

    now you can call me ‘petty’ for saying this, mary, and we can go round and round in small circles. i vote you just post things more clearly.

  • Villager

    [Mod/Jon: excessive commentary about another poster – please ignore o/t news articles if you don’t like them]

  • fedup

    Reuters, yahoo and Guardian are all I see covering the kidnapping. Blogs are verklempt

    It is verklemmt!

    I am joining the spelling, grammar and phraseology brigade of correctness on the web, so watch your arse, ” ” marks, commas, and full stops! Beats the fuck out of typing anything remotely intelligent, and by denigrating your work makes me feel oh so superior to boot.

    Please do some more of this sort of thing, so that I can feel even more superior!

  • Dreoilin

    As I said, neither petty nor irrelevant.

    Mary’s just stubborn for the sake of being stubborn.

  • technicolour

    and do you expect Mary to take those comments quietly, Villager? if so, why? A ‘petty’ discussion about punctuation has now morphed into an all out personal attack. Improvement?

    Sheesh.

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