Migrant watch (merged topic)

[kenneal - lagger]

...............
"Regime change" doesn't have a great record as a strategic policy.

I know but where you have a regime like Lukashenko's, Putin's, Iran's or the Taliban which seem to want to create mass emigration or support it for the detriment of a neighbour what can you do? A small number of countries are creating much of the migration into Europe at the moment and they are either riven by wars or so corrupt that people are leaving en mass. There is not much wrong with the countries apart from the way that they are governed. Climate change is likely to increase their emigration and it's not sustainable to have millions of refugees entering Europe or most other countries either. We will have to find a way to improve governance worldwide.

[UndercoverElephant]

Looks like Gary Lineker has finally been shown a yellow card. A red one may follow unless he agrees to stop tweeting ludicrous nonsense about Nazis. His tweet was reminiscent of uber-remainers before brexit -- the ones that had no clue that leave was going to win, and still don't understand why it happened. Absolute certainty of their own moral correctness -- a belief that the normal rules don't apply because their political opponents are either completely stupid or completely evil.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64920557

Gary Lineker is to step back from presenting Match of the Day until an agreement is reached on his social media use, the BBC has said.

It follows an impartiality row over comments he made criticising the government's new asylum policy.

The BBC said it considered Lineker's "recent social media activity to be a breach of our guidelines".

It added he should "keep well away from taking sides on party political issues or political controversies".

The BBC said it had been in "extensive discussions with Gary and team in recent days" and "has decided that he will step back from presenting Match of the Day until we've got an agreed and clear position on his use of social media".

It continued: "When it comes to leading our football and sports coverage, Gary is second to none.

"We have never said that Gary should be an opinion free zone, or that he can't have a view on issues that matter to him, but we have said that he should keep well away from taking sides on party political issues or political controversies."

[Catweazle]

Professional footballers have a rare perspective about racism, they train daily with immigrants, learn their stories, observe their abilities, develop extremely close teamwork and see the racism from the crowd every time they run out on the pitch. I'll forgive them if they get a bit tetchy about it.

[UndercoverElephant]

Professional footballers have a rare perspective about racism, they train daily with immigrants, learn their stories, observe their abilities, develop extremely close teamwork and see the racism from the crowd every time they run out on the pitch. I'll forgive them if they get a bit tetchy about it.

That is all true, but this issue isn't actually about racism, and that's partly why he has been suspended. It's a subjective decision to make a connection between stopping the boats and racism -- a connection which is made in order to grotesquely over-simplify what is actually a very difficult moral issue. He thinks it is an open-and-shut case and that all reasonable people ought to agree with him, and he's wrong.

All racists want the boats stopped, but not everybody who wants the boats stopped is a racist. If they were full of white people, I'd still want them stopped.

[BritDownUnder]

I don't think unsustainable population growth in the source countries of this migration has been mentioned. OK maybe not Albania, who are supposedly coming to become drug dealers, but Afghanistan has seen its population nearly double from 2001 to 2022 and their situation has not improved now the Taliban are in.

Perhaps the real question is whether the UK is willing to be a safety valve for other countries excessive population growth putting its own future at stake.

[UndercoverElephant]

Perhaps the real question is whether the UK is willing to be a safety valve for other countries excessive population growth putting its own future at stake.

The answer to that question is clearly "no", so the next question is how long it takes until the UK actually stops the boats. I personally have no doubt at all that they will eventually be stopped, and whether or not that happens before the next general election may have a big influence on the result. The tories won the last election because they were willing to get brexit done, and Labour wasn't.

[RevdTess]

That is all true, but this issue isn't actually about racism, and that's partly why he has been suspended. It's a subjective decision to make a connection between stopping the boats and racism -- a connection which is made in order to grotesquely over-simplify what is actually a very difficult moral issue.

It's unclear to me whether Lineker is being criticised primarily for comparing the govt to Nazis, or simply for making an overtly political comment while working for/with the BBC. Would he have been suspended if his tweet had simply said "The language used by government ministers about refugees and asylum seekers is dehumanising and we should be responding to the boats with generosity and efficiency not hostility" ? It would still have been a political tweet, but wouldn't have invoked Godwin's Law which is always triggering. I have the feeling he'd have gotten away with it if he hadn't gone with the ad hominem against the govt.

[kenneal - lagger]

............ we should be responding to the boats with generosity and efficiency not hostility ........................

and then sending them back or home!

Mass immigration to this country is not sustainable and we can't be responsible for unsustainable population growth in other countries. We also can't be responsible for other religions which subjugate women and find "honour" or "manliness" in having a large family. If "it is god's will" to have large families let them go to another country with the same religion to be provided for.

Perhaps we should remind them that it is perhaps their god's judgement on them that they are living in poverty? Perhaps their god is not happy with the way that they are governing?

[UndercoverElephant]

That is all true, but this issue isn't actually about racism, and that's partly why he has been suspended. It's a subjective decision to make a connection between stopping the boats and racism -- a connection which is made in order to grotesquely over-simplify what is actually a very difficult moral issue.

It's unclear to me whether Lineker is being criticised primarily for comparing the govt to Nazis, or simply for making an overtly political comment while working for/with the BBC.

It is necessarily both. He can do one or the other, but not both at the same time.

Would he have been suspended if his tweet had simply said "The language used by government ministers about refugees and asylum seekers is dehumanising and we should be responding to the boats with generosity and efficiency not hostility" ?

Yes.

It would still have been a political tweet, but wouldn't have invoked Godwin's Law which is always triggering. I have the feeling he'd have gotten away with it if he hadn't gone with the ad hominem against the govt.

The statement itself is unsupportable nonsense. It is over the top, and completely unjustified. People are allowed to make unjustified statements about political hot potatoes, but not if they are the highest paid on-screen talent at the BBC. Had he said the boats really do need to be stopped he would also have ended up in trouble (just a different demographic getting upset) and may well also have been suspended. The problem is that this is political dynamite either way, and high profile people at the BBC are supposed to avoid getting involved in such issues in public. The same applies to many other people -- my wife used to work for Hastings council and it was a sackable offence to make her own political views known on social media.

[PS_RalphW]

All the shows presenters, commentators and pundits have quit in support of Linekar. He is not an employee of the BBC but a freelancer.

[UndercoverElephant]

All the shows presenters, commentators and pundits have quit in support of Linekar. He is not an employee of the BBC but a freelancer.

I think he's finished, personally. I don't think he's going to back down, and neither will the BBC.

[clv101]

He might be finished with the BBC - but there's life after the beeb as Clarkson has shown. No shortage of commercial work, globally, the football business is booming.

However, equally likely is this represents some kind of crisis point for the BBC, Richard Sharp may be forced to step down while some year long impartiality inquiry is undertaken. A lot depends on the action/solidarity of other 'talent' and production staff.

This video highlights the state the BBC finds itself it, this latest episode may be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
https://twitter.com/LallyLangford/statu ... mByBw&s=19

[UndercoverElephant]

He might be finished with the BBC - but there's life after the beeb as Clarkson has shown. No shortage of commercial work, globally, the football business is booming.

However, equally likely is this represents some kind of crisis point for the BBC, Richard Sharp may be forced to step down while some year long impartiality inquiry is undertaken. A lot depends on the action/solidarity of other 'talent' and production staff.

This video highlights the state the BBC finds itself it, this latest episode may be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
https://twitter.com/LallyLangford/statu ... mByBw&s=19

I think the BBC has been slowly sinking into this sort of trouble since the David Kelly affair and also their coverage of the Assange case. It is not clear what the standard actually is, so it is very hard to be consistent. The bottom line is that the government do want the final say on what the BBC messaging is when the is something deeply controversial going on. I don't think this is what happened this time -- I think Lineker was out of order and overstepped the mark by a long margin. But it is no good the BBC being impartial until something is really on the line, and then changing the rules to suit the government of the day or narrow political party interests. There has to be a clear policy and the BBC must stick to it consistently, and that does not appear to be the case right now.

[UndercoverElephant]

All the shows presenters, commentators and pundits have quit in support of Linekar. He is not an employee of the BBC but a freelancer.

Until next week. Jermaine Jenas will quite happily take his job if Lineker quits or is sacked.

[clv101]

Seems the 'small boats' are a Brexit phenomena:

No small boat arrivals are recorded prior to 2018 when the UK was a part of a returns arrangement with the EU whereby anyone making the crossing could be returned. But the Government's Brexit deal did not include any agreement on a new returns arrangement and so returning migrants became far more difficult - and small boat crossings grew quickly.

https://www.durham.ac.uk/departments/ac ... om-brooks/

Abstract
The steep rise in small boat crossings across the English Channel is deeply worrying. Ever more lives are put at risk in making the 21-mile journey. Human trafficking gangs trade in human misery. The UK’s asylum system is put under additional strain and at ever higher cost to taxpayers. The public has lost trust in the Government to put this right. In order to address the problem, we must understand it and grasp its underlying causes. A key issue is that the Government did not see the problem of small boat crossings as a consequence of its policy failures, most notably its failure to secure a post-Brexit returns arrangement with the EU. An effective plan to deal with small boat crossings is urgently needed to win back public confidence, to save lives, to improve our asylum system and help put illegal human traffickers out of business. This Report is an attempt to outline such a plan with over a dozen recommendations.

Since the problem first caught it by surprise, the Government has repeatedly asserted it would get a grip on it. The Government’s primary means of addressing small boats was to enact the Nationality and Borders Act last year. This primary legislation was repeatedly praised for enabling the Government to take effective action. For example, on 6 January 2022, Suella Braverman, when the Attorney General and prior to her current role as Home Secretary, said the Act was required to “fix our broken asylum system” and that the Act would “stop” small boats. When the Act was passed, the Home Office declared it could now fix the system and effectively address the problem.

They were wrong and it is clear that their new plan for immigration has not worked.

Worth checking out the main conclusion:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm ... id=4351994