Westminstenders: Throwing Boomerangs

[RedToothBrush]

British politics and media in a nutshell.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boomerang_effect_(psychology)#Political_beliefs

No EU progress, no discussion. Just this. Keep everyone in line by bouncing boomerangs.

Disaster capitalism looms, they just have to get us to the edge of the cliff before the centre reforms. That's it.

If the legal roads to stop Brexit are closed as David Allen Green says, then how do you force the political flood gates to open, especially with both the far left and the far right using micro-aggression against the public to keep the centre ground weak?

Answers on a ballot paper on 3rd May.

Nix was due to appear before the commons select committee tomorrow.

He is now refusing so its cancelled. There is talk of him being formally summoned.

Schona Jolly QC @WomaninHavana
The apologies are coming thick & fast for #Windrush.

But for what, exactly? Because the reality of entrenched govt policy has been exposed?

Are they apologising for the #HostileEnvironment policy, designed by the Govt, enshrined in law?

What next? Who next?
Who before?

I note it was May not Rudd who has ultimately been issuing the apology. Rudd might not be off the hook yet, but it looks a lot like May has had to take a good amount of the responsibility. Quite rightly. But yes, what now?

Going back to the destroying records , surely they can be kept as long as is deemed necessary , so if someone is still alive and the record is relevant to their immigration status given changes in the law, then surely it would be imperative to keep such a record. The ICO bit sounds like a load of desperate bollocks ?

I think the Home Office's justification was that the entry cards were not sufficient in their own right as they didn't prove whether or not the individuals concerned had stayed in the UK

The fact that they could have been used in conjunction with HMRC and other records to provide the necessary proof seemed to bypass them

Joined up thinking not ?

I used to teach A level ICT. The DPA was a big topic and my students had a number of discussions about it, including about how long data should necessarily be held. I recall someone saying “as long as it can be of legitimate use”. That was a 17 year old. Shame about the Home Office.

I can search on ancestry.co.uk for records of people leaving the UK in the 1960s.

Just, y'know, saying...

The apologies are coming thick & fast for #Windrush.
But for what, exactly?

Because they have been caught and to try to save their sorry arses. The Commonwealth Heads of Government are meeting in London, so they have to try to buy a few mates. Brexit means new deals with the white Commonwealth.

Amber Rudd is presumably trying to pass the buck back to May. What stopped her trying to do something about this policy before they got caught out?

May's willingness to apologise personally is interesting. It makes you wonder if she was leaned on by people who are trying to ensure that Charles becomes head of the Commonwealth given that's currently up for discussion....

Molly Scott Cato MEP @ MollyMEP
I've asked Avon & Somerset Police if they are investigating allegations about two #Bristol companies sharing data illegally with Leave EU.
The growing body of evidence points to abuses by the Leave campaign which must be fully investigated.
mollymep.org.uk/2018/04/17/leave-eu-data-bristol-companies/

I thought May's apology was lukewarm at best. IMO she believes in her racist policies, so it couldn't be sincere and heartfelt. If they had not been called out on them, she would still happily support them.

I look forward to the day when she falls from grace, and there will be a long list of things that she has failed at.

My comment to dh was that May's apology was nothing more than vibrating air - a series of meaningless words with no sincerity whatsoever.

George Eaton @ georgeeaton
@DavidLammy increasingly stands out as one of our finest MPs - exemplary on Grenfell, anti-Semitism and Windrush.

Seen a lot of similar comments today.

Can't disagree.

www.thesun.co.uk/news/6077459/queen-farewell-commonwealth-syria/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
SUMMIT ROW Buckingham Palace fear Syria row could overshadow Queen’s farewell to Commonwealth as she attends last summit
The 52 national leaders of Britain’s former colonies gather in London with Theresa May today

They are fearing Syria could over shadow the conference ?!?!

More here than meets the eye I suspect.

It does seem that relations between no 10 and the palace are particularly shit under this PM.

James Patrick @ j_amesp
Just to make my personal view clear on why no more hearings and evidence should be coming out of the @CommonsCMS right now:

All of these people should only be being interviewed under caution, all evidence seized and exhibited.

Damage has been done to potential trials already.

And, the investigation should be removed from the ICO and Electoral Commission, due to insufficient powers and resources, and handed to the @NCAUK under the direct supervision of @NCALynneOwens reporting to the Prime Minister And Parliament regularly until it is concluded.

The final benefit to this being it prohibits the abuse of privilege rules, preserves evidence, ceases ongoing potential prejudice to proceedings in court, but also ensures the press are operating within contempt rules to prevent anything except facts entering the public’s mind.

Anyway, that’s what needs doing in the interests of both the public and justice. Whether or not it happens is a decision that needs to be made at the very top of the NCA and from within Number 10.

Yes very much so. Perfect defence being lined up that any defendants can't have a fair trial due to the publicity so far.

But no political will to do this.

amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/17/home-office-destroyed-windrush-landing-cards-says-ex-staffer?__twitter_impression=true
Home Office destroyed Windrush landing cards, says ex-staffer
Evidence of UK arrivals discarded despite case worker protests, says former employee

James B @ piercepenniless
Among many other heinous aspects of this story, one that strikes me as an outright lie is that no archive would be interested in taking Windrush landing cards. They're the kind of useful source archives live for.

Simon Cox @ simonFRcox
This may underestimate Home Office’s potential for shocking isolation & ignorance.

Let me tell you a story. 1/
(Caveat: Home Office & immigration staff include many thoughtful individuals. But they struggle in a wider culture...) 2/
I was for almost 20 years a UK immigration lawyer. I represented people trying not to get deported, or trying to be allowed in to be with family or pursue their lives & ambitions. 3/
One time I represented a man, who had been refused a visa to join his newly married British wife. He was a citizen of Jamaica. 4/
When he appealed, the Home Office provided him with a copy of the notes his interviewer made at British High Commission in Kingston, Jamaica. 5/
The interviewer was - as usual - an immigration official posted to Jamaica. A British official, sent to Caribbean for a few years. To decide who gets a visa 6/
My client had previously visited UK, legally. He’d come for 6 months when he was about 20. The officer asked him about this stay. Here’s how that went > 7/
“Where did you stay?”
“With my cousin, in Brixton” [tweeps, that’s in S London & home to a big British Jamaican community]
“What did you do during your trip?”
“Not much. Was with my cousin. Saw his friends. Went to parties.” 8/
“Did you see any sights?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you go to Buckingham House?”
“No.”
“Did you go to Madame Tussaud’s” [tweeps, that’s a waxwork museum]
“No.” 9/
When the officer refused a visa, she explained that “applicant had not give a credible account of his activities during his previous visit”. 10/
I believe the immigration officer really thought that every foreigner visiting London goes to Buck House and Mme Tussaud’s. She couldn’t imagine another kind of person. 11/
The judge allowed my client’s appeal and he was able to join his British wife in the UK. 12/
Then there was the immigration official who asked my refugee client to say whether his Sudanese political party was “like Labour, Conservative or Liberal”. 13/
Our immigration department has too many people who have no knowledge or empathy for a world beyond their own personal - and really limited - experience. 14/
These officials don’t know that there are historians, geographers, archivists who want to learn from their work. And if they did, they wouldn’t see the point. Seriously. 15/15

For once, the gov't are being held to account by the media. Dugdale good on DP. Satbir Singh damning in a so very polished and eloquent delivery on C4 news, roughly 10 minutes in.

About Home Office, not just on Windrush, but any future EU dealings. Home Office not fit for purpose. Deliberate neglect. Hostile environment baked by the then Home Secretary, and of course now PM, into every level of the bureaucracy. Real concerns about any credibility into any guarantees that are made to protect Europeans. Slightly paraphrased.

Going forward ........ an inquiry into the record of the longest serving Home Secretary in modern times, TM, and the toxic legacy she has left behind her.

She wasn't on her own. And Cameron as PM didn't withdraw support for any of the measures.

What message does it send for the replacement of workers (esp NHS) after Brexit? If you're sending the message out "We'd like your nurses. We'd like your natural resources. We'd like your investment. But we're not going to treat people very well when they're here and in fifty years time we might throw them out. Again paraphrased.

Perfect ammunition for the EU to insist on robust citizens right legislation and the ECJ / ECHR and probably continued free movement.

Perfect ammunition too for not allowing Theresa May to use Henry VIII powers to push Brexit legislation through, because the clause protecting the Windrush generation was quietly excluded from the last immigration Act without being subject to Parliamentary scrutiny. Mind you, whether the MPs would have woken up in time to object, is a different matter.

The application pack says that "British passports must be presented at the interview"
So only those NI residents willing to get a British passport - or ale to obtain one in time for the interview - will be considered

Therefore people identifying as Irish and carrying Irish passports are second class citizens in NI. This is a big fat 'fuck you' to the GFA of course.

...........
Wrt the destruction of the Windrush landing cards - despite knowing that the archive in the basement next door had been destroyed, the letters sent in response to inquiries stated, ‘We have searched our records, we can find no trace of you in our files.’
David Lammy is right. This is cruel.
The Labour MP David Lammy said: “This revelation from a whistleblower reveals that the problems being faced by the Windrush generation are not down to one-off bureaucratic errors but as a direct result of systemic incompetence, callousness and cruelty within our immigration system.
I can only imagine the desperation of those facing deportation, and believing that they had somehow slipped through the cracks while everyone else was fine.

It is Kafkaesque.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/16/windrush-u-turn-welcome-but-theresa-may-policy-cruel

If you read about something like this from East Germany or the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic c.1967 you would be seething about the commies and what they did to people.

And not only 'second class citizens' but potential if not actual traitors. Echoes of the 'citizens of nowhere' train of thought.

Various exit deals will cost between £17 billion and £81 billion a year (for no deal).

Implications for NHS:

This would mean 22% less funding available for the NHS if there was a bespoke deal, and 9%, 31% and 44% less under each of the other options

www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/18/each-brexit-scenario-will-leave-britain-worse-off-study-finds

The Home Office have essentially done the same as the Romanian government who declared a man was dead because he had been away too long.

A Home Office spokesman said the registration slips provided details of an individual's date of entry, "not any reliable evidence relating to ongoing residence in the UK or their immigration status".

It does depend on what the registration cards said - but if they included information about being a British passport holder, isn't that the end of the story? If you are British, you should be entitled to live here. Admittedly I believe they changed the rules when Hong Kong was given back to China - not wanting to allow HC Chinese in. Meanwhile, 'Non doms' who have never lived anywhere else but in this country, pretend their home is elsewhere and avoid paying the full amount of tax.

It stinks.

Peter Brookes in the Times has nailed it.