... to think that Nigel Farage will be our next PM?

[ohime]

Or, more accurately: AIBU to be afraid that truly nasty piece of work Nigel Farage who has, by all accounts, always been utterly useless at (or at least completely uninterested in) the actual business end of governing will be our next PM because everyone is so fed up with all the other parties being, variously or all at once, so corrupt, incompetent and useless that we've collectively abandoned all hope? I will never vote for Farage, who is a horrible man, or any of his party which keeps having to fire people for being just a teensy bit too overtly racist - but it seems from the polls that for many people the choice against the status quo outweighs what we may be choosing. (For an example, I can't believe that Farage's stated position that DOGE in the US didn't go far enough with its swinging cuts to the social safety net would be popular with UK voters who recently elected a government on the basis that it would reverse years of Tory austerity... not that that's worked out so well...)

That isn't logically consistent: we either have a responsibility for the women of Afghanistan or we don't. (and I think it's clear that we can't be responsible for women worldwide in oppressive countries)

No, we don't. Afghanistan was messed up long before we got involved.

Britain invaded Afghanistan in 1839 so it depends how far we want to go back and how far you think Britain interfering with other countries round the world gives us some responsibility.

Biden always the one who was fine with selling women and children back into oppression, there certainly were many dissenting voices here. I’m unsure why this is now our moral responsibility. One of the most shocking aspects of his presidency - not that Trump wouldn’t have done the same, we know he would.

I don't believe we have any responsibility to make up for for historic actions.

Neither does any other country.

I'm not asking for compensation or special treatment from Italy, Mongolia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Algeria or Turkey.

Our responsibility is only for the actions we take now.

We cannot help all peoples wherever they are, i'd have thought thats quite obvious.

Just as we couldn't help all jews in the 30s and 40s but it doesn't mean we should send back to probable death people already here.

You can't compare the Holocaust where 2/3 of European Jews were deliberately, systematically murdered - including 90% of Polish Jews - with women in Afghanistan having low status and few rights.

Using that to try to make your point is pretty low.

We should definitely take responsibility for those who already are in the UK. What NF is suggesting is nothing short of inhumane.

I somewhat agree with you. However I do think we need tighter controls on who enters now?

You lot in Reform are much better at flooding social media than you are at politics.

This could definitely have Labour there instead. Given polling and agenda setting.

That's a different issue. I personally think that genuine asylum seekers should be allowed in. There is a question mark around numbers, but asylum is an important concept to me. What I'm absolutely livid about here is Farage stating his intention to send back women (and maybe even children) who have ALREADY filed asylum claims in the UK to a regime that WILL severely punish them for escaping their clutches in the first place. What do you think will happen to them when they return to Afghanistan? Don't you think they will be made an example of? Do you remember the infamous public execution scenes in the Kabul football stadium in which women were shot in the head (dates back to the first Taliban regime in the late 90s early 2000s)? I won't link to those videos but they should be easy enough to find. That's what the Taliban were and still are about. How can a politician who claims to want to be a statesman even consider sending women back to that fate? How can anyone consider him for their representative on the world stage for one solitary second?

whilst I agree with the importance of asylum too - I think it’s a question around limits. Our economy needs to be able to sustain it.

I also think we need some control over immigration, although not of genuine refugees. It needs to be done intelligently. For example, we can’t refuse to help Afghan citizens who helped us in the war there. We’ve behaved despicably towards them. We also need to stay away from right wing headlines and have an honest debate with the electorate about indigenous population decline problems and specific skills shortages. My area has plenty of foreign carers and the last thing we needs is racist oafs insulting them-they’re desperately needed by care homes and people will get terrible care without sufficient carers-including the relatives of Reform voters!

Not at all, it illustrates how wrong it would be to send back women to Afghanistan.
It was also the right wing here that also didn't want jews/refugees of any sort, coming here, some things never change....

Many of whom would be killed, esp if they had any sort of education or links to UK/US forces.

I think is "pretty low" to send people back to a place where they face torture or death, which is what Farage has said, like you he believes we can't save everyone, so we save no one.

but the debate is more complex isn’t it - women and children don’t have to either be sent back to Afghanistan, or, given asylum here. There are plenty of third ways. It does need international agreement as what happened in Afghanistan was an international mess and the latest crisis was caused by Biden.

perhaps we should ask Trump to pay because the US’s actions caused the recent rise.

What a mess!