Statement by the Chair of the Conservative Party

[newnamethanks]

"If they don't like barges they should fuck off back to France". 30p Lee Anderson of course, not the BNP. Not the National Front or whatever their current name is. The Chairman of the Conservative Party. Supporters must be so proud. What a statesman. So Churchillian.

I understand that was just a humourless joke that we were not supposed to take seriously.
Much like the Downing Street briefings telling us not to party with friends and family during covid.

Are you absolutely sure though @jgw1 ? because someone else on this thread mentioned a trillion. Facts really are funny things aren't they, some are more factual than others it would seem ?

Great comeback, bravo.

Straight from the tory deflection book, remind me is that rule 48a "when you cannot hope to counter an arguement, look first for a spelling mistake to vanquish your opponent"?

No comment on the general thrust of the post then?

I am sure. I am very careful to only post verifiable facts.
Helpfully someone else also posted a link to full fact that demonstrated even claiming that the NHS cost 1/2 a trillion was some very odd way of accounting.

For those who say it's what the British people want.

This is the predictions for Bravermans constituency.

Remember it's been a Tory stronghold for over 2 decades.

It won't be the big landslide you'd expect.

And many think she wouldn't win at all if they hadn't manipulated it by changing the boundaries.

Kindly, remind us of how much better off we are after 13 years of the Tories?

I know Brexit has been one hell of a win. Remind me what else we should thank the conservatives for?

The moderate size Oxfordshire town where my DM lives is perpetually short of labour for low skill warehouse work. But it is equally short of rented housing. My SW area is short of care workers, and any rental house is chased by at least 10 people or families seeking secure long term accommodation. But as many of the new housing units being built locally are, I understand, being bought for Airbnb as for owner occupation. I don't even pretend to have a fair solution.

It would have been a solution to have a centre for processing in France. Our government declined that

I thought the French didn't want it either, saying they consider it would produce a "pull factor" which would bring more migrants to France:

https://www.ft.com/content/e79f74a3-be2b-432d-b6c9-adfd65299a26

Are you saying that the NHS won't get an additional 350million sovereign pounds a week ? I know there has been a bit of a delay handing out the spondoolics but I thought that must be because of administrative hold ups, much like the processing of asylum applications ?

Sadly, that article is behind the FT paywall. Which is a factor contributing to the poorly evidenced arguments here: all the authoritative and relatively impartial discussions are only available to those who can afford information. The rest make do with brief snatches of the highlights, not the lengthy nuanced arguments complex topics should get.

Don't worry the Daily Mail isn't behind a paywall and I can get all the information I need from it.

This.

How have they fixed it?

It's increased year on year since they came to power in 2016.

They've created the problem!

Why run an effective, functional asylum system when you could just destroy it instead and whip up a culture war to somehow scrape some voters.

The barges and Rwanda will have no meaningful effect on anything (certainly not ‘stopping the boats’) apart from wasting a whole load of money.

But these policies of neglect do have the side effect of whipping up a whole load of people into getting angry.

Supporters of this barge, and government- you’re being played.

I wish Lee Anderson would fuck off anywhere far away.

That should say came to power in 2010.

Sadly, that article is behind the FT paywall

Well that's really weird ... it definitely wasn't when I clicked and read it, but now it is, so maybe the FT only allows us to read an article once before paying?

Anyway the relevant bit I was referring to is this:

"Speaking to fellow ministers earlier this month, France’s interior minister Gérald Darmanin, stressed an oft-repeated line by French officials and humanitarian organisations when he said the “English have to create a legal route of immigration to Great Britain”. “That is the only way, when you want to join your father, your mother, your wife, or your husband in England,” he said. The problem is there is disagreement over what such routes would look like. Paris is clear that it does not want an asylum application centre on its soil. Such a processing centre “would create a huge pull factor to France”, said one government official. Other nations and territories have also expressed reluctance to participate"

I think though it also has the effect of putting off a significant number of people from voting Conservative.

Typically we like to think of ourselves as compassionate and caring for others. Hating some of the most desperate people in the world and making their lives more difficult doesn't really fit into that.

I wonder how much the Rwanda scheme has cost us so far? £1.3 million in legal bills alone and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The Tories are finished. They are at desperation point now. Whipping up xenophobia is all they have left.

Paris is clear that it does not want an asylum application centre on its soil. Such a processing centre “would create a huge pull factor to France

This seems fairly obvious as an issue. If people take huge risks now then take that away and the numbers would be very high.

not the lengthy nuanced arguments complex topics should get.

I am going to be totally honest here, despite a good swathe of the current Government being incredibly and expensively well educated, I don't think nuanced arguments on complex topics is high on their list of ways of convincing people to vote for them again ?

Three word slogans seem to be their relatively successful thing.

'Stop the Boats' as opposed to why is this happening and what are the raft of sensible and appropriate measures we can introduce to tackle it ? We have nearly 75k people we need to house, lets have a big row about something that will house an absolute maximum of 1k of them if we push the H&S limits to the, well the limit !

@Remembermynamealways well that's very interesting- I have a desk in a business centre that also has a company doing visa processing and biometrics based there their whole dept is wall to wall immigration all day every day, very little of it European- most of it is African, phillipines, Indian, Pakistani and a little from Hong Kong- it is not students- it certainly isn't rocket scientists/brain surgeons and it's whole big families too . I think this aspect is being very very well hidden from the public- so we have basically got rid of our complete rights to live and work within the EU for ourselves and our children, whilst bringing in a load of labour from outside the EU - incredibly pointless and at huge financial and economic cost too- I'm not a leave voter- but I don't think this was what plenty of people who were voted for either

jgw1 I think it was you who mentioned all the empty properties? Apologies if not.
Obviously it’s a poor state of affairs especially given the shortage of housing for lots of people - not just asylum seekers.
However what is the solution? Do you think empty properties should be seized? If so, for how long could they be empty before they were seized? Who would pay for their repair (which if empty for any more than a few months, will be needed)?
Some are empty because there’s a dispute over a will or ownership rights.

I bet there’s loads of unused space in stately homes owned by the national trust - attics and former staff quarters etc. Maybe these could be made available for homeless people.
I’d love to see the reaction of the NT if this was suggested - though since they now claim to be a progressive organisation maybe they’d be happy to oblige.

France and UK have done some deal.
Costs to UK around 481 million pounds over 3 years

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/whats-britain-frances-deal-stop-small-boat-crossings-2023-03-10/

Well yes, that's kind of what I thought - but folk seem so convinced that an application centre in France would be a good idea and that it's all our fault there isn't one, so I wondered how that works if the French themselves don't want it

Are the Tory party still the party of aspiration? With this thug of a Chairman, their core vote must surely have shrunk down to the undereducated and people with low expectations in life.

When I think of Tory voters now, I no longer think of gin and jag types on the golf course, my mental image is Wetherspoons at 11am with a betting shop next door, in some down on its luck town town. The kind of place where the locals scare off outsiders but bemoan the fact that outsiders won’t invest in their town. These are the people 30p Lee attracts.