Our PM lives in a different world

[Marmablade]

Article on BBC News today reporting Rishi Sunak reassuring people to hold their nerve and get through high interest rates.

This is the man who paid £325,826 in capital gains tax and £120,604 in UK income tax on a total of £1.9m in the last tax year.

Of that £1.9m, £156,163 came from his parliamentary salary, £173,398 come from investment and savings income and about £1.641m from capital gains - profit made on the sale of assets.

How can a man with an income of £1.9m a year possibly understand what the average person is feeling right now?? Holding our nerve won't pay the mortgage this month.

BBC News - Rishi Sunak urges people to hold their nerve on interest rates
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66012301

When and by whom was Sunak elected?

That isn’t part of our domestic law. I’m afraid you can’t just cherry pick bits of treaties that suit you - that’s not how law works.
As I said, there are some authoritative discussions by experienced practitioners of the position under criminal law of illegal entrants. If you’re genuinely interested in understanding, that is - i suspect you aren’t.

Erm, no the route can be legal or illegal when seeking asylum. The confusion comes from the fact that most nations choose not to prosecute illegal entrants if they immediately claim asylum.

As long as he doesn't come back and start lecturing us all on climate change and telling us we should be walking 20 miles to work instead of driving whilst he jets all over the world with the rest of the rich. Leaders should lead by example.

Yep. We choose not to prosecute illegal entrants, but we can and do deport them back to their home country if their asylum claim is dodgy (less than 20%).

By his party per our democratic rules. And at any rate by “subject to democracy” I was referring to the MPs of the Commons.

The way international law works is that a country that if a country chooses as the UK has done to sign up to the international convention then it becomes part of that countries national law. In addition there is very similar wording in the 1999 UK Immigration and Asylum acts which protects asylum seekers from prosectution based on their mode of entry into the country, providing they seek asylum at the earliest opportunity.

You're misdiagnosing the problem.

He fully understands how interest rates hit individuals and families.

He doesn't care.

He's a tory. The market prevails. He believes that to reduce inflation we need to raise interest rates. Our independent central bank is doing just that. He understands the impact on that man but believes this is pain the country needs to go through to come out stronger in the other side.

He's a tory. The older demographic who are more likely to vote for him are also more likely to have savings and no mortgage. So he believes his core voter base is happier.

He is behaving perfectly rationally based on his beliefs. He's a tory.

Sunak was educated at Winchester College, which has yearly fees of 50,000 per year. Anyone saying he earned all his own money is quite probably lying, and at the very best ignoring the massive privilege he grew up with.

That's be because most countries are signatories to the 1951 Refugee Convention which protects asylum seekers from prosecution for their entry into the country.

Indeed we choose not to prosecute asylum seekers for their entry into the country when we as a country signed up to the 1951 Refugee Convention (which incidentally was drafted in large part by British lawyers).

No, international treaties do not become part of our domestic law. That is why the HRA was passed - to incorporate a treaty (the ECHR) into our law and allow domestic courts to apply it.
im going to say this one last time, and then I’m going to ignore you. There’s lots of material from experienced practitioners on this issue available. If you truly want to understand the issue, read some of it.

...which is being abused by dodgy immigration lawyers

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/31/watchdog-shuts-three-solicitors-firms-accused-in-asylum-sting

whats your point about his parents? Running a pharmacy doesn’t seem especially privileged - anyone can do that if they go to uni and become a pharmacologist. Maybe you don’t even need to do that.

That is true, but the treaty is so wide you could drive a bus through it. Look at the verbiage of ‘shall not impose penalties…provided that they present themselves without delay and show good cause.’

So if there is delay- sorry can prosecute or
if they can’t show good cause- sorry can prosecute

Delay and good cause? Sorry can prosecute
No delay but no good cause? Sorry can prosecute

The definition of “without delay” and “good cause” is left to the signatories to define and we can make it as harsh or relaxed as we want to. Without delay could be same day, or less than 24hrs to present to the authorities. Good cause could mean prove you were kidnapped and being human trafficked or that your life was in imminent danger a la Dunkirk (under enemy fire) when you pushed your boat off the shores of France.

Don't sweat about it - it's just another government-bashing thread.

Yawn.

Exactly, the treaty is only a guideline that we write our own domestic laws within and this one has a massive amount of latitude.

I must remember to only hold approved opinions befitting my ancestry 🙄 completely forgot that I’m not British British.

@Marmablade this strikes me as a very jealous thread. How suited to the job should be more important than how wealthy is wife is. We need an economist as PM, we had the bubbling idiot that went down COVID lockdown over protecting the economy and we are now paying for it! Public sector pay cuts predate Sunak and to be honest I think they have a higher agenda to change most public sector jobs from being high paid to not. What's blatantly obvious is we can't afford to the benefit culture we have with high employment.

Our biggest problem as a country is we spend more than we earn which needs to stop hence a lot of his policies. Inflation is finally falling back towards 2% once we get there hopefully the base rate will fall, tho it is at more historic levels. How we tackle that with high house prices is another topic, it may be structural change is needed with mortgage interest being closer to the base rate and other debit being much higher.

By all means lets have a discussion about whether the wording of the 1951 Refugee Convention needs to be changed, but as the Convention and UK law stand it is not possible for an asylum seeker to enter a country illegally.

It is a shame that the aforementioned bumbling idiot didn't have a Chancellor who was strong enough to argue to protect the economy and instead spent billions of pounds on all manner of frauds so that the Prime Minister's various mates could get rich.

Mone anyone?

For the benefit of other readers; this is untrue.

Do you think it would be a good idea if the rich paid a same proportion of their income in taxes as those on lower incomes?

That would increase the revenue to the Exchequer.

If it is untrue why aren't all these allegedly illegal asylum seekers being prosecuted?

There has been a good deal of discussion as to whether the recent changes to immigration law are compatible with the 1951 convention. But no one has suggested that the laws passed by Parliament which are or might be incompatible are somehow not law, or can be disregarded by the UK courts. Parliament is sovereign.