Starmer thinks I am an enemy of the state

[Bumblebee72]

So we have it Starmer has declared at conference because I support Reform I am now an enemy of his Government.

Who would have thought it, a middle class British worker, now an enemy in the country I was born. And they say Reform is the party of Fascists. Yet we also now have the Home Secretary saying "In solving this crisis, you may not always like what I do. We will have to question some of the assumptions and legal constraints that have lasted for a generation and more". Maybe the Home Secretary too will be deemed an enemy of the state.

Am I being unreasonable to think this should be seen as a rallying cry to get this Government out at the first opportunity.

lol indeed. Maybe try your ‘respond’ with others.

No it is not. It is about child benefit, which is a totally different benefit from universal credit. Child benefit is available to the first children in a family, regardless of income up to £50,000.

Not just "some people". People who applied to come to the UK, who worked and followed all the rules, who went through a lengthy application process to be given permanent residency and inany cases have been living and working in the UK for years if not decades. In many cases they will have family here. And often they are working in the NHS and doing important jobs. I don't see how the "I'm not racist I just don't like people exploiting the system" types have a leg to stand on here. The very people being punished are people who followed all the rules. I want to give people the benefit of the doubt but I can't see how it isn't about racism or nativism at that point. Or just about punishing people for no reason.

It's the difference between a party raising taxes for the year ahead. And a party retrospectively raising the taxes for the last 20 years just gone and accusing you of underpaying/tax evasion based on their brand new rules. We might agree/disagree on a future tax change, but I think we would both feel its deeply unfair to change rules retrospectively like that.

To be fair white bread, white(ish) cheese/ butter and white potatos and you can make pretty much all decent food - toast, bread and cheese, cheese sandwiches cheese on toast, chips, baked potatoes with cheese

I bet you voted for Brexit too!

People have pointed out that he did not call you or anyone else an enemy of the state. Have you posted this deliberately to stir up trouble? Well, we're not having it. We are sick of this rabble rousing.

He is right. it goes against traditional British values to stir up hate. How can you be proud of that? And I very much look forward to hearing which of REform's policies, apart from their anti-immigration stance that you are aligned with.

Yes but that’s her interpretation, apparently.

I am a left leaning centrist. My natural political home probably aligns most with the Lib Dems, but not always. I will vote for any party if they have policies that align with my values or if tactical voting is needed to keep parties that go completely against my values out of power.

I don't disagree with the basis and sentiment of most of Labour's policies at the moment, but I do disagree with some of the detail around how they are implementing them.

I think they've been far to (small c) conservative in the implementation of their policies and needed to be much more ambitious. I don't think they should have necessarily increased employers NI - I think they should have increased Corporation Tax and the top rate of income tax, alongside an increase in the tax free allowance.

I think they were right about needing to reform PIP, but they went about it the wrong way - it should have been done in line with a solid plan and considerable investment to enhance mental health services, so that the threshold for PIP increased for people with mental health problems in line with a decrease in those waiting for support and services.

I think they need to implement a complete overhaul of the national curriculum, increase school funding so more TAs can be recruited. I think they should solve the teacher crisis by offering graduates in STEM subjects forgiveness of their student loans if they take up a secondary school teaching position for five years.

I think they should reverse the Tory policy that stopped our medical students getting first dibs on training places and bring back bursaries for nurses.

I think they should massively increase carers allowance and fostering allowances, so that it is affordable for people to care for a relative without needing to work, or foster a child as it would drastically decrease the social care bill in both adults and children's services.

BUT

While I think they have made mis steps and haven't been as ambitious as I would like them to, they are a much, much better option than Reform, who not only wouldn't do any of the things I would like to see, but would in fact do the opposite.

I know people have issues with Blair because of the Iraq war and PPP, but that aside, go back and have a look at what Blair and Brown did in their first 100 days in 1997 - it set the framework to fix a lot of the damage done by 18 years of Tory rule, but it took the whole of their first parliament for the impact to be seen.

I would like to have seen something like that from this Labour government, but I also recognise that while, in 1997, Blair and Brown were dealing with years of public service destruction, it was nowhere near the scale of the current issues, and they weren't also dealing with Brexit, a growing right wing and the international instability that Starmer is dealing with.

Things are stabilising slowly, they will start to get better, even if it is not as quickly as I would like. In the meantime, despite domestic challenges, Starmer is proving himself to be an excellent statesman on the world stage, which given the current state of world affairs, is very much needed.

So there you go @EasternStandard - there is my thought's on Labour - now are you going to address the issues I raised about Reform or are you going throw me another straw man to answer?

How are you not embarrassed by the scale of misrepresentation here?

You're either deliberately presenting a complete lie, and doubling down on it.

Or your comprehension skills are very, very, very low.

Which is it?

Errm, if that's true he will need to deport his German wife. Or is it just the non whites he wants rid of?

The best thing that our country could have done is leave Rishi Sunak in to give it a go. He was the best of the bad bunch. An alright bloke and he was getting some things done when the conservatives were booted out.

The British people have had enough. I don't know why this has turned into a race issue. Don't people of other colours here have issues getting doctor's appointments, their kids in a decent school, have their elderly parents lying on the floor in hospitals? Don't they resent paying for the workshy? Are their wives, daughters and sisters not in any danger of undocumented males coming here on boats? Or, are they facing the same issues as the rest of the people?

Britain should be closed for a while, whilst it gets its house in order. If you have a British passport, you are British, end of. If you don't, then sorry, but you are here as a guest and you may not be able to stay unless you have a solid case. TBH we should just let everyone who is here now stay, and just draw a line under it for a while.

No racism. Everyone is British. Let's get our house in order for us ALL.

I am politically homeless. I am right of centre, but no one is doing it for me. However, Kerr Starmer is a socialist, a far left in disguise. If we are talking hate, then I'd say it is KS who hates British people and to be more specific, he hates WC white people. He thinks we are as thick as shit and need someone clever like him to make decision for us as we are too stupid and ignorant to do it ourselves.

I agree it's a harsh policy. It's not "rounding up non white people en masse" though.

What we should do is stop allowing ALL political parties to distract us with these alarmist sound bites. They create these whirlpools of chaos to detract from the real depressing problems this country faces. They all plot a self serving, provocative path, playing rough and loose with the lives of the people they pledge to serve. We all deserve better than any of them.

It’s not about child benefit. There’s no cap on the number of children you can claim child benefit fit for, it’s available for ALL children in a family. As you say, universal credit is a totally different benefit - capped at two children.

How would deportation work then? Like, how would you make all those people leave? I agree in principle it might also include Polish residents etc so also some white people. But I will go out on a limb and say there will be an exemption for French girlfriends.

Couldn't agree more

But the answer to an over-burdened welfare state isn’t to bring in unlimited numbers of low-skilled, poorly educated immigrants, who in turn will grow older and expect a pension - what is your solution, endless immigration? At what point do you say enough?

There are now more people benefiting from the welfare state than there are those who contribute. Is this sustainable? How are all these people to be educated, housed, their health taken care of? You’re creating enormous problems for your children and your grandchildren in years to come if you think this is in any way sustainable.

It’s all very well saying you want a fairer society for all, but that’s just empty words, it’s meaningless. In your case, you’re prepared to sacrifice the future of your family in order that you suffer no discomfort. What about the young people here - citizens of this country? Those in poverty, those who’ve had a poor education, in low-level jobs with no hope for the future or hope of ever owning a home or having a family of their own? How about we do right by them?

How would Labour?

Pfft. Firstly he said the Reform is an enemy of national renewal. Big deal.

Second, Farage has previously called left wing protestors the enemy. He has called the BBC the enemy. And he has called the EU the enemy.

So you’d think he’d be slightly thicker skinned about others using the same motive language.

And I agree whole heartedly with all of that.

😂

Much bigger key drivers of lower business growth is Brexit, which makes it more expensive to do business due to import and export costs and additional red tape. My DH has is out in Ireland at the minute - the product that he is putting into place cost over £3k in customs fees which didn't exist before Brexit. It's not a massive impact for his company as they don't do a huge number of jobs in the EU, but for business which have a higher proportion of exports, the cost is crippling.

Another much bigger driver than the increase in NI is a lack of investment in infrastructure and public health. Business do not want to invest in a country where the infrastructure is not there to support them and where large proportions of any potential workforce are likely to end up needing time off sick.

All of the things I mention above are as a result of the Tory's and Reform, and while I don't necessarily agree with the NI increase, I don't know what people expect them to do when Brexit and 14 years of running down public services, a worsening global situation, and the daily whipping up of public outrage as well as selective reporting by the right wing press mean that Labour are trying to govern the country, essentially with both hands tied behind their back.

I’ve read your other post and there’s a fair bit on various things being the result of others not Labour. Inflation is not helped by NI now. We had high asylum claims early 2000s pre Brexit, just by lorries. Debt is higher due to Reeves decisions now.

Yes some of those things went up with Covid and Ukraine but that being the case I didn’t want a party that would increase spending / borrowing and debt servicing. I thought it would cause economic issues to have a party which politically needed to respond to demands for more, and I think we are seeing that now. Reeves is just keeping the markets at bay but she has to deal with a party that wants higher spending.

As for Reform, they’ve picked up massively since Labour got in. As much as people applaud Starmer he is making their job easier. Votes are flowing from red to Reform. I thought it might happen pre GE due to some of Labour’s policies, so I guess it’s not so surprising.

They do seem to be responding on immigration so we’ll see if they can get voters back. Harder with the insults though.

This is a truly depressing point of view.

Well, I don't have a problem with the current Labour deportations of for example people who have had the requests for asylum denied, or their requests for residency denied. Some of those are organised deportations, most are people leaving voluntarily because they know they don't have the right to stay. That's how it's meant to work. It's what people say they want (or maybe they want it done faster, more efficiently etc).

It's different if it's very large numbers of people who are currently living here legally. Either you scare people so much they leave of their own accord. Or the government/police/whoever comes along and catches them at their workplace or homes. The police already do this. For criminals. I can't envisage how one could do this for large numbers of law abiding people without it looking like a rounding up and mass deportation.

It's like if you said you were making a cup of tea I'd assume you were going to boil some water because that's the only way to make tea I can think of. It's not hyperbole.