Today the government publishes to parliament its proposals on the residence rights of EU citizens in the UK post-Brexit. The EU has already , on 12 June, tabled the offer of full continuation of current residence rights to UK citizens in the EU after Brexit. This includes the right for British expats not only to remain in the EU country of current residence, but the right to continue to move residence around the EU.
By contrast May’s offer, which was amplified by David Davis with Marr yesterday, is peculiarly restricted. From a cut off date to be announced, EU citizens resident in the UK will be able to stay here, and after five years residence will qualify for a right of settlement.
What is the purpose of this mealy mouthed formulation, as opposed to matching the EU by immediately giving EU residents living here the right of abode? In effect, for the vast majority, it will mean precisely the same thing.
EU citizens resident here will in effect be able to remain permanently if they wish. But they will lose the entitlement if they move around. So a Polish man living here who, at some point in the next few years, has to return to Poland for a few months to tend to his sick mother, will lose his right abode in the UK. A French academic at a British university who leaves on sabbatical for a year’s teaching at Harvard will lose his right of abode in the UK. A Dutch employee of Shell posted out to Malaysia for a stint will lose his right of abode in the UK. Anybody who takes too extended a holiday abroad will lose their right of abode in the UK.
What on earth is the point of this?
The very large majority of EU citizens resident here will be able to qualify, and the small percentage being disqualified by moving abroad during the qualification period are likely to include the most economically active. The numbers penalised will be too small to have any substantial immigration impact. There is no result but pointless cruelty to a few.
Support for Brexit, and a massive percentage of the Tory vote, is motivated at base by a hatred of immigrants. May panders to these racists by inflicting otherwise pointless nastiness on a statistically insignificant number of foreigners, to disguise the fact that the Tories are accepting the reality; it is an economic necessity for the UK that EU citizens contributing massively to GDP can stay. The Tories cannot stomach the hated language the EU employs of “rights” of citizens. So the government rather adopts the language of immigration regulation, and qualifying criteria, where nobody has any “right” to anything.
Finally the Tories have to face the fact that a formal international agreement on reciprocal rights of abode between the EU and the UK, is not just a matter of domestic British jurisdiction. The international agreement will require an international judicial mechanism to oversee its enforcement. The xenophobic detestation of the – heavily British influenced – European Court of Justice means that the Tories will not accept the obvious body. David Davis conceded yesterday some international arbitration mechanism would be required, and seemed to postulate a new international tribunal including British judges. Exactly like the current ECJ before the UK leaves, in fact.
So that’s the Tories for you. Pointless new international organisations, pointless immigration bureaucracy, and pointless nastiness to foreigners to keep their knuckle-dragging tendency happy.
Precisely. A very good article. Sigh………
Could it be that the Tories are cynically trying to make the EU remove their offer of full residence rights so that retired British citizens in Spain, France and Italy return to the UK in large numbers? May knows these retired expats would be predominantly Tory voters if they were back here.
Unless they’ve been away for more than 15 years, they’re predominantly Tory voters right now as well…
No they aren’t predominantly Tory voters. I’ve read a lot of their writing, and that’s not at all what comes over. (and as we know from the last election, polls in Britain are no longer reliable, if you were planning to quote some)
The retired British expats who write blogs and books etc might not be predominantly Tory. But I doubt if they make up the majority.
Who said I was talking about retired British expats in the Dordogne? They’re only a part of the demographic.
It’s a bit of a gamble, I mean – they’re hardly going to vote Tory if conservatives take away their right to live abroad are they?
Shatnersrug
Yes but the Tories would spin it that it was the EU tough negotiating stance that caused it. And they would be believed by many.
reel guid
Nah, spin there may be, but who would believe it? Only people ignorant of the situation, and that would not change the voting intentions of the people involved, which are not particularly pro-tory. On the referendum they’re almost universally anti-Brexit.
If the expats get kicked out of their Eurodosses because of the Tory (Offficial) partei, they might feel a little resentment and make it known by voting against the Tories (Official) in the British state’s fake elections.
Yes, but many have been away for 15 years or more. And there must be many who have been away for less and just haven’t bothered to register as an overseas voter. After all, if you’re busy enjoying the delights of the Dordogne or Tuscany then doing the admin to get a UK vote might be one of those things you don’t get around to doing.
Makes you wonder why the Tories don’t make it easier for expats to vote…
As I understand it (and I could be wrong as I read this in the media) Many Ex pats were not allowed to vote at the EU referendum due to the electoral roll chosen for the referendum discounting them as eligible, although legally the were, but were allowed to vote on the general election. As I say that information could be incorrect as it came from mainstream media.
I’m pretty sure the referendum used the same electoral roll as normal elections.
[Looking it up…]
Yup, see s. 2 of the Referendum Act: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/36/section/2/enacted
Thank you Martinned for putting me right on that. I never know what is true or false information in mainstream media anymore.
Hardly! If all the retired Brits living in EU are forced to return they will all require housing, medical care and top up benefits to survive. No-one will be able to sell their property in Spain France etc so all will be homeless and without a doubt the NHS would collapse with the influx of older residents requiring care previously provided in Europe. And seriously do you think that people who have lived for 12 months in fear and with real anxiety for their futures would consider voting Tory ever ever again?
Oh I don’t know. People just keep on voting Tory against their own interests.
Do they though? My parents are extremely happy with their retirement, they say themselves they have benefitted greatly from the last 7 years. They’re not arseholes and they see the bigger picture but many of their friends don’t. The Tories have pandered to the comfortably retired whilst encouraged their bigotry, that is their base – the reason they failed to win s majority is because they floated a policy of steeling the pensions of their base.
Are you saying there could be problems from immigration?
Spain and Portugal are full of British expats who pollute the areas in which they live. It would be an extremely good thing if they were forced out of these countries ,obviously it would cause quite a bit of short term economic problems for them ,eg another bank or two might go bust,but in the longer term getting rid of the Brits would remove a lot of ugly concrete.
That’s right they’ll just love the Bastards that make them sell up and return to this shithole!
Given that this demographic has seen the value of their pensions fall, will see the value of their foreign homes plummet and may end up having to give up a gin soaked sunny lifestyle and attempt to get back onto the UK property market I doubt they will be very disposed to the Tories.
In saying that I would be surprised if Spain expelled the Brits following their contrition for expelling their Jews and Muslims a few centuries ago. The French however might have other ideas!
Very nice piece, and I entirely agree. But I do think unpleasant meanness in the British bureaucracy is a long-standing tradition from before the second world war, and it’s not only limited to Tories, so I don’t know how it would stop now. I mentioned some months ago my late Polish father-in-law’s participation in the forced repatriation of Polish soldiers to Soviet-occupied Poland after the war, but there are lots of other examples.
Yes Laguerre-i do agree with you, that this mean meanness while not confined to the British is certainly a feature of a certain Britishness-small minded Xenophobia, and a vindictive attitude with in the circles of the bureaucracy-where interpretation is rarely generous.
One could also argue that it is is universal. Jerome K Jerome’s Three men on the Bummel lampoons the petty jealousies and bureaucratic nit picking that is an expression of the power of minor functionaries whose livelihood is dependent on the kind of sycophantic that is agreeable to the harsh implementation of rules. The period JKJ is writing about is pre 1st world war, and it is easy to see that the mentality of population was primed for the coming disaster by the structure and empowerment of bureaucracy. However I think it waxes and wanes according to the political context.
At the moment there is an interesting absence of accountability within government-both local and national. The ‘officers’ of local government in my experience, are inclined to interpret the rules vindictively for their advantage, and convenience. There was an article in the Guardian this am which I skip-read on my phone but when i went to the online computer version of the G I could not find the article.
The gist of the article was that the loss of accountability in politics is related to the press and in particular the near elimination of local press. I though t it might be an interesting idea to explore.
Here.
Grenfell reflects the accountability vacuum left by crumbling local press
Emily Bell
Decline of advertising revenue and changing perceptions of ‘quality journalism’ have left no room for much needed local reporting
https://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2017/jun/25/grenfell-reflects-the-accountability-vacuum-left-by-crumbling-local-press
Surrey’s main local press is dire. Trinity Mirror. Advertorials and the like.
Polish and other east Europeans who were repatriated after the were in exchange for alied pow who came under the juristrician of the red army, this was agreement betweenChurchill and Stalin.
A battalion of Banderista Ukrainains who served in the SS, were transported to Britain and then later onward to Canada. Many of these Ukrainians were used in Operation Gladio and in underground war against the Soviet Union. I have seen an article highlighting it recently.
There neo-Nazi descendants are notable for their prominence in the present Ukrainian regime.
Not forgetting Gehlen,who was Hitlers spymaster, and controlled a large network remaining behind in the Soviet Union. Plus the operation which collected Nazi scientists and Engineers to work on the Rocket and other programmes in the US.
Here is a report.Judging from the address it may be a sanitized version of the Ukrainian division.
http://www.ukrainiansintheuk.info/eng/01/former-e.htm
The transfer of Nazi Scientist and Engineers was called Operation Paperclip.
Do your own research on both stories.
Yes, very well put.
These are the new puritans, whose route to pleasure is denying it in others.
Excellent article. Tory policy encapsulated in one title and so true. They cannot see beyond their own egos, nor do they care about the sufferance of the people their selfish acts afflict.
I was against Brexit and voted against Brexit.
However if I lived in an area with a large influx of immigrants but no added housing to cope with them, if I lived at the top of a high rise building where as many as 40 people lived in one two bedroomed flat. If the council services couldn’t cope so there were plastic rubbish bags and old furniture and mattresses cluttering up the star wells then I could well have been tempted to vote differently.
Wait, you’d vote in favour of Brexit because HMG and/or your council have a rubbish housing policy???
So if you lived in an alternative fantasy of your own imagination you might have voted different. What would that redundant observation have to do with anything or be of any possible interest to anyone else?
Seems fairly clear to me. Fred was describing a situation rather familiar to a great number of British people, which might have predisposed them to vote LEAVE. Note that those areas where large numbers of migrants were dumped, without any additional provisions for the councils tasked with providing for them, were precisely those areas that voted this way.
Fred’s ‘scenario’ is a tissue of exaggerations, fantasy scenarios and social issues with little or nothing to do with immigration. So why is he bothering to construct these fantasies and tell us how he voted? Seems utterly pointless, and irrelevant to the topic.
More recently the Grenfell Action Group (GAG), which represents the interests of the largely immigrant tenants who lived in the tower, warned about the fire threat posed by discarded rubbish, and complained that parked vehicles were blocking access for the emergency services. The council’s much-vaunted £10m two-year transformation of the tower – completed in 2016 – was another source of concern.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/17/grenfell-tower-government-councils-fire-safety
In January 2016, GAG warned that people might be trapped in the building if a fire broke out, pointing out that the building had only one entrance and exit, and corridors that had been allowed to fill with rubbish, such as old mattresses.
Fantasy scenarios?
Ian – you must have missed the part of Fred’s post where he began with, “ …if I lived in an area with a large influx of immigrants but no added housing to cope with them…” .
Strikes me there’s a scenario there precisely to do with immigration. Perhaps you, along with Craig, want to ignore any problems associated with large amounts of immigration, pretend everything is grandy and dandy for everyone concerned apart from the racist scum who just hate foreigners.
No, that isn’t fantasy, obviously. What is fantasy is your determination to blame ‘immigration’ for it.
glenn, it’s a scenario for which you have precious little evidence. Theres is a housing crisis and shortage, whatever the level of immigration. blaming ‘foreigners’ who boost the economy and benefit most of us for inadequate social policy for all UK residents is just lazy prejudice, and of course is a convenient excuse for tories and right wing propagandists and their policy failures.
“No, that isn’t fantasy, obviously. What is fantasy is your determination to blame ‘immigration’ for it.”
Where did I blame immigration for anything?
The problem is we are having the debate now we should have been having before the referendum, when this was an embarrassing referendum free zone.
The question is is wanting immigration control racist? While personally I would like open borders and freedom of movement I don’t believe those who want controls are racist. Racism isn’t about controls on the borders racism is about how we treat the people who are here, treating people differently because of where they were born or telling people who live here they don’t belong.
There are many forms of bigotry and one of the worst is labelling people with different opinions to you as evil instead of trying to work out why they believe what they believe, walking a mile in their shoes if only mentally instead of making the differences another excuse to hate people.
You’re off on a wild goose chase. Obviously you have some resentment at what you imagine people are saying, with a convoluted and not entirely clear anti-immigration agenda.You are conducting an argument against your own imagined opposition, and that is why I said such statements are irrelevant to the topic of this blog.
“Support for Brexit, and a massive percentage of the Tory vote, is motivated at base by a hatred of immigrants. May panders to these racists by inflicting otherwise pointless nastiness on a statistically insignificant number of foreigners,…”
I don’t believe more than 17 million people are motivated by a hatred of immigrants or that they are all racists.
Fred: “I don’t believe more than 17 million people are motivated by a hatred of immigrants or that they are all racists.”
Nor do I. Just because some people actually appreciate the culture of their locality, which has been developed on a fairly democratic basis for hundreds of years, and do not want to see that totally blown away – that doesn’t mean they are necessarily racist.
Some people, arguably elitist very well placed individuals themselves, might have a “vision” of absolute free movement and an entirely homogenised society without the slightest distinction anywhere you go in Europe. A bit like every High Street you walk down in Britain, or Main Street in America – exactly the same no matter the city or State. Same shops, same everything.
Some of us like things to be distinct – a distinctly Swiss, Dutch, French, British or even German feel to a place. But no – that makes us racist in the view of Ian, or maybe CM. Everywhere should be exactly the same.
This is just incredible to me. I like the uniqueness about a place while I travel around Europe. But that’s racist apparently!
This is just one aspect of why the project for Total EU Integration is plainly wrong, and why Brexit is occurring. If the pro-EU camp had managed better than cat-calls of “racist!” – or even been willing to debate the point! – perhaps thing would be different,
In the meantime, how’s that slur of “racist!” working out for you guys?
Funny how you two keep obsessing about something nobody said. And keep attributing false statements to others. Chip on shoulder.
“Support for Brexit, and a massive percentage of the Tory vote, is motivated at base by a hatred of immigrants. May panders to these racists by inflicting otherwise pointless nastiness on a statistically insignificant number of foreigners,…”
The above is pure left wing liberal bigotry,the sort of bilge propagated by champagne socialists like Blair and Brown, almost always spouted by the partisan, divisive, privileged of the left who rarely have to live with the reality of their policies.
It’s refreshing to see them fume as they reap what they sow, however the deepstate ultimately has similar interests to theirs as the Trojan horse May recently proved, we will get a very soft brexit, predominately one in name only, we will also be punished for it, made an example, for the rest of Europe to ‘learn ‘ from.
The top 10 richest and poorest areas of northern Europe
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=4575424
Paranoid? Check. Conspiracy theories? Check. Ukip/alt-right cliches, cut and paste unsourced claims? Check.
Why do you insist on labelling verifiable facts as an ‘alternative fantasy’? Fred knows what’s going down, and you obviously don’t. I’ll just throw in that getting a number for the death toll at Grenfell has been considerably complicated by undocumented illegals living there in dodgily sublet flats. Think it’s just Grenfell?
Anybody using the term ‘illegals’ is generally spouting ukip crap, or ukrap.
Anyone leaping on one word instead of responding to an argument is generally bereft of an actual rebuttal.
Would you prefer ‘illegal immigrant’ perhaps? Am I guilty of denying persons* entering the country the full dignity of their status? Do you feel that no distinction should be made between those who go through the prescribed process and those who don’t and are hence in breach of our democratically decided law? What is your preferred term? And your euphemism for a flat-bladed digging implement?
*Sufficiently gender-neutral for you, I trust.
Repeating whatever you read in the right wing press and alt-right sites as if must be true (yeah man, that’s what’s going down0 doesn’t actually constitute an argument.
“If the council services couldn’t cope”
Though the reality is they don’t cope not that they can’t. I wouldn’t have have been tempted for this and other reasons, unless I imagine myself with a Sun inspired brain transplant.
So it was the immigrants who allowed the rubbish to pile up, and not the whites who also inhabited the block, and not the council who failed to carry out their duty of rubbish removal, for which the occupants paid in their council taxes, was it?
I think I was explicit in saying it was the council services that couldn’t cope.
Kensington has £300m in its emergency funds.
Good, concise analysis. So the tories, trapped by their own prejudices and hostages to fortune they have given to the tory press, have to reinvent the wheel, except very badly, so much so that it will fall off at the first attempt to use it.
So well said..great article..exactly EU citizens in UK will be held “hostage” if they choose to stay. What about the sneaky CSI rule that suddenly propped up by Home Office? This will affect stay at home mothers, students, self employed/sufficient??? Is the nasty party going to change that?? as it will mean so many more will not be able to apply for PR. Me, a Dutch national married to a Brit, is fed up being treated inhumane. We decided to move to Netherlands where our marriage means something…not here in UK.
And…what about the future..see what happened in past with rights of Commonwealth people..eroded away again and again. The chance this happening to EU citizens is a reality.
There’s definitely something to the proposition that hate now trumps reason and self-interest in the minds of Tory voters. I read over the weekend that the only age group in which the Tories achieved a majority was the over-59s, a group who May targeted mid-campaign for harsh austerity – dementia tax, end to the triple-lock, winter fuel payments, etc.. Equally counterintuitively, the Tories also achieved a majority among the poorest D and E working-class voters, the sector of British society who stood to benefit most from the equalizing measures in Labour’s radical manifesto.
The fact Hillary Clinton managed to win a majority among the very poorest Americans (who are disproportionately non-white) but the Tories won a majority among the poorest Britons (still overwhelmingly white) lends further weight to the perception that projecting hatred of perceived ethnic inferiors is what won the Tories the election.
Point being: the Tories’ antipathy and cruelty to East European migrants is very far from pointless. It seems to be their primary vote-winner.
The over-59’s are rapidly becoming the only group which has memories of a pleasant country to live in..
The Tories and the DUP have now done their shabby deal.
Shabby deals are usually better than no deals, as the French Fourth Republic’s governments proved.
The Tories and the DUP. The social Darwinists in league with the anti-Darwinists.
Well put reel guid.
The SNP and the Leave campaign. The socialist nationalists in league with the capitalist globalists.
Speaking of Brexit.
Global Empire – The Corbyn Factor Pt 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6vSKHYMQws
Looks like (and it’d be strange if there wasn’t some possible good aspects) it seems it could be made positive.
Cracking listen. Includes an interesting discussion of SNP and the election.
Pointless cruelty is indeed their MO. Your article ties in nicely with the recent High Court ruling that the benefit cap causes ‘real misery for no good purpose’. More of the same will follow (except possibly in Northern Ireland where with an extra £2.5bn coming their way I assume they’ll all be living in gold mansions).
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/benefit-cap-judicial-review-welfare-payments-government-loses-lawsuit-court-case-judge-misery-a7802286.html
And pointless privatisation of essential services:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-hunt-nhs-firm-nhsp-health-department-save-money-taxpayers-70-million-year-a7807911.html
Not exactly pointless. It is planned.
True. My bad.
But, seeing that I have been ranting somewhat lately about the EU, worth noting that the Tories’ objectives are in this instance very much in accord with the EU’s, and for the same reasons.
https://corporateeurope.org/power-lobbies/2017/06/creeping-privatisation-healthcare
“Support for Brexit, and a massive percentage of the Tory vote, is motivated at base by a hatred of immigrants.”
I don’t think that’s true. If you are affected by a large influx of immigrants driving down wages, placing pressure on housing, schools, hospitals and so on, then you are likely to want to vote against that situation. It does not mean you “hate immigrants”.
I don’t even think that immigration is the main reason for Brexit anyway. People simply wanted the ability to make their own decisions as to whom they are governed by within their own systems of government, rather than live under an unaccountable and anti-democratic system such as the EU.
If you are affected by a large influx of immigrants driving down wages, placing pressure on housing, schools, hospitals and so on, then you are likely to want to vote against that situation. It does not mean you “hate immigrants”.
No, it just means you’re placing blame in the wrong place.
And if you placed the blame in the right place, and adjusted the situation accordingly, you wouldn’t need immigrants, seeing as we’re all generalising.
My mother was an immigrant.
Now works in a local school, most her life.
This comment is offensive.
Why is it offensive? Do we have to plead for “more immigrants, more immigrants!” in order to not be offensive?
Heck, I like water, but wouldn’t want my house flooded with it. Just because I recognise that too much of it in one place causes a problem, it doesn’t mean that I hate water, does it?
^^^ Try using your nut glenn.
OTOH, I note the old charge of racism being repeated. This rather more balanced account of the issues involved is preferable to the polemic:
https://www.ft.com/content/7c008997-e2a9-360d-89a3-1646dcbdae0f?mhq5j=e2
Yes, immigration is an issue. No, someone who doesn’t want their local dialect to become Polish isn’t a racist. And if our businesses and services are dependent on foreign investors and workers (yes, increasingly, they are) we’ve lost our autonomy.
Isn’t autonomy a minor concern of the Scottish independence movement too? Sorry if I got that wrong…
Anyone who thinks their local dialect is in danger of becoming Polish has reality issues. Hard to think that there aren’t racially motivated precepts at the heart of believing this.
Speaking of reality issues, What’s “autonomy” ?
If “foreign” workers and investors where working in a context of good regulations and genorous wealth distribution, Actual people would be more free.
Your talking about ideology…”autonomy” bound within a racial notion. Ie the “US” will somehow be more free because “we” don’t have “them” involved. …I don’t think most people actually care.
You don’t live in Norfolk, evidently.
Get lost.
Or Lincolnshire.
Speaking of reality issues, What’s “autonomy” ?
Google is your friend
If “foreign” workers and investors where working in a context of good regulations and genorous wealth distribution, Actual people would be more free.
They’re not. It’s a free market, remember?
You(‘)r(e) talking about ideology
I’m not. I’m talking about autonomy.
”autonomy” bound within a racial notion. Ie the “US” will somehow be more free because “we” don’t have “them” involved. …I don’t think most people actually care.
Not ‘a racial notion’ but the belief, supported by history, that actual borders reflecting the differences even between Caucasians with different histories and customs, work pretty well, whereas problems of integration and exploitation arise when those borders are removed. Also the knowledge that globalism only works for the few, not the many. It’s not as simple as you’d like to think. If you think.
Don’t you try and patronise me mate.
You wrap this up any way you like. There are no clear definable distinctions between human beings, no matter what lines are painted around the earth. …Sure, locality to certain cultural practices influences people in differing amounts, and it does when one travels, May decide to become a Muslim as a result, etc.
What brand of globalism are you tailing about? Or doesn’t that need illustrating in your neat, little, contemptible world.
Don’t you try and patronise me mate.
I have very little alternative, going by your debating level
You wrap this up any way you like.
That is my right and privilege. This blog supports free spoeech.
There are no clear definable distinctions between human beings
Tangible nonsense.
…no matter what lines are painted around the earth. …Sure, locality to certain cultural practices influences people in differing amounts, and it does when one travels, May decide to become a Muslim as a result, etc.
May it teach you true humility in the knowledge of Allah, the Merciful, the Wise and obedience to His Will. Whatever you are now doesn’t seem to have done the trick. I shall pray for you….
What brand of globalism are you tailing (talking? railing?)about? Economic. The only alternative I can think of is the ISIL dream of a universal caliphate, but happy to clear that up for you.
Or doesn’t that need illustrating in your neat, little, contemptible world.
I suppose really, it doesn’t, in any world containing rational beings who have read beyond the Daily Express (which isn’t too keen on immigrants either, but let it pass). So I’ve illustrated it for the benefit of one who doesn’t. Happy to oblige.
” The only alternative I can think of is the ISIL dream of a universal caliphate”
WHAT? What the….
So there are no differentiating factors in “globalism”?
The FORM of globalism (of capital) not people is in fact what’s FEEDING ISIL. The disenfranchisement of the poor and workers, the people, here and there, same root.
Well, yes, for once. Globalism (and the perception of Western decadence) are feeding Daesh. One of its inevitable and wonderful side-effects, wouldn’t you say? What I was suggesting, had you bothered to read it, was that capitalist globalism is one global movement, Daeshwould very much like to be another, with a global caliphate, and there aren’t really any other globalisms to talk about. This was in response to some attempted nitpicking on your part regarding the kind of globalism I was discussing. I was not discussing Daesh, the only alternative globalist movement,but economic globalism, prioritising markets over people. Got it yet?
“Anyone who thinks their local dialect is in danger of becoming Polish has reality issues. Hard to think that there aren’t racially motivated precepts at the heart of believing this. ”
Tell that to the Kashubians…..
The DUP deal is not going to come under the Barnett Formula. That is the exact opposite of what David Mundell publicly promised at the weekend.
The Tories lie to and manipulate Scotland on a daily basis. And their media friends are busy all the while filing SNP Baad stories.
According to the Ministry of Truth in Scotland, no more money will be available to Holyrood, due to the Tory/DUP deal. However the MoT in Scotland are fair chuffed and ran a long report on the aircraft carrier, as it gets ready to depart Rosyth, and commence sea trials.
It has taken nine years to build the aircraft carrier the Queen Elizabeth, and a few billion quid.
You forgot to mention that it will be five years before she’s operational, or the cataclysmic clusterfuck attending the sidden realisation that her catapult doesn’t fit the F35’s we ordered for her. A very British fiasco. But what will Rosyth (innocent of the major problems so far) be doing next? And after independence?
Building ships for a Scottish navy, and competing with other shipyards around the globe for contracts.
Think you’ll find global labour costs will argue against that to some extent. You can’t beat a nice wasteful HMG defence contract for keeping the books in the black. But the best of luck: Germany manages to make submarines for Israel, and providing you can find investment in the sort of hi-tech you need to stay at the bleeding edge of the market, I’m not saying it’s impossible.
Well Scottish shipyards were once the envy of the world. Why not again, difficult, but not impossible as you say.
“Greenock has a rich shipbuilding heritage. Scotts was founded in 1711 and became the world’s oldest shipbuilding firm. Lithgows (founded 1874) was at one point the largest privately-owned shipyard on earth.”
http://www.westcollegescotland.ac.uk/about-us/culture-history/
Don’t want to labour the point, but how come the major and magnificent* Scottish shipyards started finding themselves in deep dung? Answer, the British Empire concept was dead in the water, and the requirement for a huge navy had been sidelined in favour of air power, blitzkrieg and intelligent missiles. And aren’t you leaning a little close towards the idea of Scotland joining the arms salesmen? (if so, please, please reclaim Liam Fox when you leave)
*not being sarcastic, I stress.
This supercarrier was only commissioned because the US applied pressure to have it built. To give them backup in their wars.
Ahh, but look at the kudos it will bring the empire as it swans around the globe, metaphorically screaming to other nations we’ve not invaded for a wee while…look at the size of me!!!! ?
Given that the Tories need to pay money to the DUP in order to secure their support in parliament and get their (modified) programme for government passed shouldn’t it be Conservative PARTY that pay the money to the DUP rather than the UK taxpayer?
However, how can the British government, (who’ve just moved 450 Bank of Scotland jobs to Indian) be allowed to form any sort of deal whatsoever with the DUP, when the British government is arbiter on the Good Friday agreement.
It’s surely compromises their position, and I’m a Green politician is challenging that very stance. Why is the media not constantly highlighting it?
Ros
Strange thing is Tony Blair was saying during the election campaign that the Good Friday Agreement might need amended because of brexit. Yet he hasn’t criticised the Tory/DUP deal as far as I’m aware. Unlike John Major who has criticised it.
reel guid.
We lesser mortals know fine well, on questioning anything untoward regarding Brexit, and the Tory/DUP.
That now is not the time.?
BLiar has been speaking to the Israeli gangsters-in-charge at the Herzliya gathering.
His hypocrisy is evident.
‘ [..] If you think of this country and how it has been built over the last 70 odd years, how extraordinary this nation is today, think what it can offer the world. And then think of the imagination that is needed to create the circumstances in which peace can be achieved with Palestinian neighbours, on a basis of a partnership of equality and respect.
Then this country can become what it can and should be, which is: a model to the region; a partner to the region; and a gateway from the region to the world.
I’m crazy enough to think it could happen. This is my 182nd visit to Israel. I’m very happy to do another 182 and more, provided at the end of it that hope is turned into a reality.’
Tony Blair: a new path to peace exists
http://institute.global/news/tony-blair-new-path-peace-exists
I see NATO was represented along with JP Morgan, the Council on Foreign Relations, Raytheon, Fox News and Sawers ex MI6.
http://www.herzliyaconference.org/eng/ See Speakers
How much money are they paying the DUP ?
According to media reports, £1 billion, plus £500 million, for something or other, plus the covert deals.
Which George Bush senior described as the Unknown Unknows.
And the Conservative and Unionist party doing grubby little deals with the Democratic Unionist Party is different to the SNP doing grubby little deals with the Scottish Greens how?
Scotland receives money from Westminster not tied to the Barnett Formula all the time.
http://www.parliament.scot/ResearchBriefingsAndFactsheets/S5/SB_17-19_City_Region_Deals.pdf
You think it would be unfair for Belfast and Derry to get the same deal Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen gets?
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/letters/region-deals-could-earn-cities-millions-35854198.html
You mean like this Fred?
https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-unsurprising-twist/#more-96208
If you can’t be arsed writing your own comments I can’t be arsed following links posted without explaining commentary.
Especially links to Nationalist propaganda sites.
Oops!
By your tone Fred, I gather you don’t particularly like that link, or is it you don’t particularly like the truth in the link.
Incidently Fred, did I mention that the British government sent 450 Royal bank of Scotland jobs to India?
450 British jobs gone.
I wonder what you think of that, I certainly know how you felt when the Scottish government, paid of staff on short term contracts.
Contribute
Contributions which are primarily just a link to somewhere else will be deleted. You can post links, but give us the benefit of your thoughts upon them.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/06/moderation-rules-commenters/
It’s the usual from the Tories, this bloody country is in a terrible state, and it’s all Johnny Foreigners fault.
How we hark for the good old days, when we had no foreigners except those we took as servants, whilst bringing education and democracy to their savage like countries.
Of course in the process a few died, mainly because they wouldn’t convert to our way of thinking, and we took the odd artifact, back to Blighty, just as a reminder, of what a wonderful time we had jaunting around the globe bringing enlightenment.
If only Brexit could turn the clock back to those illustrious halcyon days…..sigh.
There are to many people (imo) who post just because they like the sound of there own voice.
..’O i’m so clever, The charm and whit’…!
Know what I think of that? Get a life you sad irrelevant narcissists.
It’s as good a reason as any.
No it’s not.
Oh yes it is,
Oh no its not,
Look out he’s behind you.
Is it pantomime season already. ?
Arlene Foster can be Baron HarDUP.
Except she isn’t hard up now.
Anyone got some spare cash so that the Royal Navy can provide airplanes for its new aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth? Maybe it will have to use it as the world’s largest, floating lemonstand.
It’ll make a great open day venue for Armed Forces Day. Colonel Davidson can wear her Yooniform with pride and supervise the facepainting for the weans. They can have a choice. Either red,white and blue or orange.
Yes, I can picture that, Arlene Foster, will also be in attendance, painting the kerb stones red, white and blue, and painting hands red. ?
We can do better than this.
Im not like those idiots who think (and yes I include some of the indy supporters in that) we can just “BE’ like, Norway or Sweden or Denmark or whatever the hell place it is. We are where we are and who we are. But…There are examples when you look at countries with similar systems where they are doing much better things for the society as a whole. …Choses that are made right here in this country that effect everyone.
These have been my concerns all along (the primary and correct ones) that Brexit so abhorrently diverted leading to blood on the streets. So why aren’t we now getting down to it….
A lot are to be fair. And fair play to them/us.
Seems to me there are two primary linked burning issues, Necessary in the short term.
Public ownership of services, banks, rail, utilites. And workers ownership and control of businesses.
The latter is imo essential to get done also. Essential. Just to start us moving in a progessive direction.
ps, Minor point will be getting this (Craig’s blog so insert offensive exptive here- ……. …..) out of office.
Little thing.
Doh, yep that’s worked so well in ‘progressive’ Russia (pre collapse),China (under Mao) North Korea, Venezuela and a host of other failed socialist states.
I have to look into how this is proposed legislation or whatever it is, is going to effect me..
My mother never could afford the astronomical fee that denotes “citizenship” is this country. And right now I feel like you can stick this whole idea we’re the sun don’t shine.
I feel sick tbh.
I wish she’d move back to Germany where they still at least have some notion of civic responsibility as a society. This place stinks. But to old now. All her life basically she’s worked here, most in a local school where she is very valuable. But very little to show for it in material terms.
….Id cards? …really?
NO.
Worked all her life yet could never even afford citizenship.
Says a lot doesn’t it.
This place is killing me.
You may find this depressing.
https://www.freemovement.org.uk/massive-increase-in-family-immigration-fees-for-2016-17/
meh, It means nothing. No more than shit on a shoe. “naturalisation” My ass…
SNP cabinet minister Keith Brown has made a telling tweet about the Ruth Davidson honorary colonel nonsense.
He said that party politicians should not accept an Armed Services role.
Why should his words be telling ones?
Because back in 1982 Keith Brown yomped across the Falklands as a Royal Marine. That’s why.
At that time Ruth Davidson was at playgroup. She later went on of course to a dazzling military career at weekend Territorial camps in the Trossachs.
Yes, very true, however, the ferocious battle of Mount Tumbledown, was nothing compared to Colonel Davidson’s arduous trek to Cameron barracks.
Where the 32nd Signal regiment (including Colonel Davidson), could be asked at any minutes, to unhitch the generator and set up the aerial, after a long weekend of boozing and frolicking.
Surely a V.C is on the cards for bravery, of course the knighthood comes first. ?
She’s the Rape Clause Clausewitz.
Will this group who are allowed to stay gain the right to vote?
The ever increasing number of workers who cannot vote greatly concerns me. There are 23 million full-time workers in the country including an estimated 4 or 5 million non voting British nationals. So you are looking at roughly 20% of total workers who cannot vote the vast majority of which will be median earners and below. This is a huge disenfranchisement of the working class.
The EU immigrant worker is the ideal of exploitation. Can’t vote for their own interest. Unlikely to be in a trade union. Ignorant of UK employment law. More likely to leave the country than demand better conditions. Part of the profits these non voting workers make can then be funnelled to the Tories and other right wing groups to reinforce political domination.
The Spineless of State for Scotland David Mundell has failed to tweet anything about the DUP deal.
Too embarrassed is he? After saying it was going to be linked to the Barnett Formula.
Or is it a set up so The Colonel can come through the woods like Blucher at Waterloo and appear to save the day by getting London to agree to a link to the BF?
Probably not. Just another shafting of Caledonia to go with all the many others.
Nigel Dodds has called Puppy Surgeon Sturgeon a hypocrite and threatened to publish correspondence between the DUP and the SNP before the 2015 election.
Yes he threatened to publish his party’s correspondence with Labour too. DUP got a big bundle of Zinoviev Letters have they?
All of them waiting with nothing to do but share a few moments with you, to use the words of the great Val Doonican.
Yeah Mundell isn’t giving interviews today, he’s hiding under the stairs in his jim jams, until midnight when he plans to make good his getaway on board HMS Queen Elizabeth, if it makes it under the Forth’s bridges unhindered. ?
So the deal with the DUP will only cost £1,000,000,000 of taxpayer money (that we know of), to keep the Tories and May in power, and overcome the hubris and folly that caused her to unnecessarily call for the last election. What a bargain!
Martinned
June 26, 2017 at 10:46
Makes you wonder why the Tories don’t make it easier for expats to vote…
……………………………………………………………………..
It was in their manifesto Martinned, to scrap the 15-year time limit for general elections but they didn’t want it for the EU referendum because of fears that ex-pats in Europe might be anti-Brexit; even if they would normally vote Tory.
I question why British people who emigrate to foreign countries should be allowed to vote in UK elections anyway.
Now, if the majority of ex-pats were suspected of being mostly Labour voters…?
“I question why British people who emigrate to foreign countries should be allowed to vote in UK elections anyway.”
Because it’s the world-wide tradition. Everybody can except in Britain. There are lots of young who are forced to move abroad for work. Why should they lose their say, just because of their economic circumstances? Particularly on the question of Brexit. It happened to me, and I resent it highly.
fred
June 26, 2017 at 10:44
I was against Brexit and voted against Brexit.
However if I lived in an area with a large influx of immigrants but no added housing to cope with them, if I lived at the top of a high rise building where as many as 40 people lived in one two bedroomed flat. If the council services couldn’t cope so there were plastic rubbish bags and old furniture and mattresses cluttering up the star wells then I could well have been tempted to vote differently.
…………………………………………………………………………
“…a large influx of immigrants…”
“…where as many as 40 people lived in a two bedroom flat…”
Fred you are patently a racist and I think the mods here should delete your post.
lol, there’d be little here but tumbleweeds where they to enforce such requests about racist memes. “True scots” meme-ers would also have to go….
It’s not pointless in the least. CIA is using its British satellite to harass the EU, now that the union is trying to protect its interests against the US plan and conspiracy for war on Russia. You’re much more apt to censor the obvious now that you’re transitioning from prophet to politician, but until you acknowledge the purpose of the UK puppet regime you’re going to get squelched by its fake democracy.
The whole thing – Brexit – is a total waste of time, energy and an immense amount of money. It’s also cultivating hatred of foreigners and of ‘The Other’. It’s really a form of national self-harm.
I think that a self-destructive folly has to continue to its end of complete defeat, before sense will percolate into the heads of government. “A Bridge Too Far” was a good warning at Arnhem in 1944 , but nobody listened, and the result was the destruction of the 1st Airborne Division, except for two thousand who managed to get back over the river. All would have died, had the the opposition been more than a handful of panzers recovering from the defeat in Normandy (yes, I am aware of the British nationalist version, which sees the noble Brits as being defeated by a massive horde of Boche, but it isn’t true, and really quite improbable)
The whole thing – the EU– is a total waste of time, energy and an immense amount of money. It’s also cultivating hatred of nationalists and of national sovereignty. It’s really a form of capitalist exploitation.
FIFY
Heh heh. Spot on.