Conservative party/opposition watch

[clv101]

The policy would still be illegal even if the UK withdrew from the ECHR.

Yes, this was a key part of the ruling. Let's see how strong the calls are to join Russia and Belarus in leaving.

Parliament is sovereign in this country. It makes the laws. The court's job is to interpret and implement them. It cannot be impossible for the government to make this legal. The courts cannot over-rule the government about what the law is.

Indeed - hence Sunak's nonsense about emergency legislation to declare Rwanda a "safe country". He sees that as a way of trumping the courts, but I don't understand how a law saying black is white enables us to get out of international agreements like ECHR, when the reality on the ground is clear that black remains black and the ECHR requires it to be white.

[UndercoverElephant]

The Tories have been here before with UKIP, but it's very difficult for any new party to break through with our FPTP voting system..

And when they were here before with UKIP they responded by putting a the EU referendum into a party manifesto and then defied expectations and won a slim majority.

There may be an important difference this time, and that is that the outcome of the election is not in doubt. At this point tory voters are already resigned to Labour winning the next election so in a sense their vote doesn't matter as much -- Starmer will end up in Downing Street regardless of who they vote for, and regardless of which constituency they are in. They may therefore feel free to vote for the Reform party as a means of expressing their anger at being cynically betrayed by Sunak over immigration.

[UndercoverElephant]

Yes, this was a key part of the ruling. Let's see how strong the calls are to join Russia and Belarus in leaving.

Parliament is sovereign in this country. It makes the laws. The court's job is to interpret and implement them. It cannot be impossible for the government to make this legal. The courts cannot over-rule the government about what the law is.

Indeed - hence Sunak's nonsense about emergency legislation to declare Rwanda a "safe country". He sees that as a way of trumping the courts, but I don't understand how a law saying black is white enables us to get out of international agreements like ECHR, when the reality on the ground is clear that black remains black and the ECHR requires it to be white.

Then we must withdraw from the ECHR. It is going to happen anyway, so the UK might as well go first.

One way or another, uncontrolled migration into the UK will be stopped. I am absolutely convinced about that particular point. I am guessing it will also be stopped into the EU, and across many other international borders globally. It will eventually become the only way to keep collapse out.

[Mark]

There may be an important difference this time, and that is that the outcome of the election is not in doubt. At this point tory voters are already resigned to Labour winning the next election so in a sense their vote doesn't matter as much -- Starmer will end up in Downing Street regardless of who they vote for, and regardless of which constituency they are in. They may therefore feel free to vote for the Reform party as a means of expressing their anger at being cynically betrayed by Sunak over immigration.

We'll see I guess....
Tory voters will sometimes stray at by-elections, but tend to come back into line at a GE...
Expect a massive campaign in the mainstream media and on social media to stop Labour, much of it 'dirty'...

The GE is still a year away and isn't as cut and dried as you assume....
I'm old enough to remember everyone thinking that Neil Kinnock would win....

[mr brightside]

I'm old enough to remember everyone thinking that Neil Kinnock would win....

I think his exact words were, "Stone cold certain of victory", unless i'm mistaken.

[clv101]

What a farce:

But what about changing the law?
Mr Sunak said he is prepared to change any domestic laws or international relationships that block the plans.

This is harder than it sounds. The UK doesn't have some kind of trump card to unilaterally change international relationships such as the Refugee Convention.

British laws can of course be changed by a vote in Parliament - and that's why the PM says he will introduce legislation to declare Rwanda a safe country.

Is this a workable plan?
Lord Jonathan Sumption, a former Supreme Court judge and often a critic of the European Court of Human Rights, said the prime minister's plan was "profoundly discreditable".

"If the courts are told [by an Act of Parliament] that they've got to pretend that Rwanda is safe, whether it is or not, then that will work domestically," he told the BBC.

"But it won't work internationally. It will still be a breach of the government's international law obligations.

"It will be a breach of the refugee treaty. It will be a breach of the rules of customary international law which the government has been promoting and saying covers this obligation for some years."

Lord Sumption said it was unlikely that the bill could get through the House of Lords where a lot of the expert work is done in finessing complex new legislation.

"It would be constitutionally a completely extraordinary thing to do, to effectively overrule a decision on the facts, on the evidence, by the highest court in the land."

BBC News - Why the government has no good options on Rwanda
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67434842

[UndercoverElephant]

There may be an important difference this time, and that is that the outcome of the election is not in doubt. At this point tory voters are already resigned to Labour winning the next election so in a sense their vote doesn't matter as much -- Starmer will end up in Downing Street regardless of who they vote for, and regardless of which constituency they are in. They may therefore feel free to vote for the Reform party as a means of expressing their anger at being cynically betrayed by Sunak over immigration.

We'll see I guess....
Tory voters will sometimes stray at by-elections, but tend to come back into line at a GE...
Expect a massive campaign in the mainstream media and on social media to stop Labour, much of it 'dirty'...

The GE is still a year away and isn't as cut and dried as you assume....
I'm old enough to remember everyone thinking that Neil Kinnock would win....

I am also old enough to remember that, and the situation wasn't like this. People had high hopes Labour could finally win in 1992, but it was by no means a done deal. The current situation feels much more like 1996.

[UndercoverElephant]

What a farce:

But what about changing the law?
Mr Sunak said he is prepared to change any domestic laws or international relationships that block the plans.

This is harder than it sounds. The UK doesn't have some kind of trump card to unilaterally change international relationships such as the Refugee Convention.

British laws can of course be changed by a vote in Parliament - and that's why the PM says he will introduce legislation to declare Rwanda a safe country.

Is this a workable plan?
Lord Jonathan Sumption, a former Supreme Court judge and often a critic of the European Court of Human Rights, said the prime minister's plan was "profoundly discreditable".

"If the courts are told [by an Act of Parliament] that they've got to pretend that Rwanda is safe, whether it is or not, then that will work domestically," he told the BBC.

"But it won't work internationally. It will still be a breach of the government's international law obligations.

"It will be a breach of the refugee treaty. It will be a breach of the rules of customary international law which the government has been promoting and saying covers this obligation for some years."

Lord Sumption said it was unlikely that the bill could get through the House of Lords where a lot of the expert work is done in finessing complex new legislation.

"It would be constitutionally a completely extraordinary thing to do, to effectively overrule a decision on the facts, on the evidence, by the highest court in the land."

BBC News - Why the government has no good options on Rwanda
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67434842

This is misleading. The UK government does have a "trump card" on international law. It can withdraw from any international agreement. None of those are legally binding. The obstacles are political, not legal. Yes, they are still obstacles, but we do need to be clear about what sort of obstacles they are.

Also, the very fact that all this is now openly being discussed is the next step on the path to making it happen. The first political obstacle was bringing the remaining obstacles into clear view.

[BritDownUnder]

That refugee convention has certainly got Western governments in a bind. Probably why a lot of countries that seem to be a source of refugees have never signed it. Withdrawing from that convention would probably be a good first move.

[Mark]

That refugee convention has certainly got Western governments in a bind. Probably why a lot of countries that seem to be a source of refugees have never signed it. Withdrawing from that convention would probably be a good first move.

That would shatter for ever any credibility we have on the world stage....

Agree that the whole situation is a mess....
We want immigration sometimes (doctors, students, rich oligarchs), but we don't want the poor and unwashed...
We cause wars and accept some people (Afghans) and people from other people's wars (Syria, Ukraine), but send back settled EU nationals...
We confuse immigration with refugees and asylum seekers....
Somebody needs to get a grip.....

[Potemkin Villager]

Somebody needs to get a grip.....

https://news.sky.com/story/politics-new ... t-12593360

New Home Secretary James Cleverly has refused to explicitly deny that he called the government's Rwanda policy "batshit" - as Rishi Sunak pledged to change the law after the Supreme Court blocked migrants being deported to the African nation.

[UndercoverElephant]

That refugee convention has certainly got Western governments in a bind. Probably why a lot of countries that seem to be a source of refugees have never signed it. Withdrawing from that convention would probably be a good first move.

That would shatter for ever any credibility we have on the world stage....

Would it? Or would it lead the way into a new era?

Agree that the whole situation is a mess....
We want immigration sometimes (doctors, students, rich oligarchs), but we don't want the poor and unwashed...
We cause wars and accept some people (Afghans) and people from other people's wars (Syria, Ukraine), but send back settled EU nationals...
We confuse immigration with refugees and asylum seekers....
Somebody needs to get a grip.....

We want to be in control of our own destiny. Yes, we need to get a grip.

Sunak has gone from looking like a safe pair of hands to either totally incompetent or as dishonest as Johnson. He came to power as the "I can get a grip" candidate, after three previous PMs who quite clearly did not have a grip. That has all just shattered.

[UndercoverElephant]

3 polls now in the last 2 days have put the tories on 19,19 and 21 after several weeks averaging about 26-27. All 3 polls also showed a strong jump in support for Reform (10,11 and 10) That strongly suggests very recent events have lost the tories about 1 in 5 of what were their remaining voters. I do not understand what Sunak thought he was doing. How come he didn't see this coming?

[Forever_Winter]

3 polls now in the last 2 days have put the tories on 19,19 and 21 after several weeks averaging about 26-27. That strongly suggests very recent events have lost the tories about 1 in 5 of what were their remaining voters. I do not understand what Sunak thought he was doing. How come he didn't see this coming?

Rishi Sunak is a former hedge fund manager. He has no clue about politics or more importantly, geopolitics. Watch the various videos when he's talking to Elon Musk recently at the AI Summit. He was totally out of his depth.

[BritDownUnder]

That refugee convention has certainly got Western governments in a bind. Probably why a lot of countries that seem to be a source of refugees have never signed it. Withdrawing from that convention would probably be a good first move.

That would shatter for ever any credibility we have on the world stage....

Agree that the whole situation is a mess....
We want immigration sometimes (doctors, students, rich oligarchs), but we don't want the poor and unwashed...
We cause wars and accept some people (Afghans) and people from other people's wars (Syria, Ukraine), but send back settled EU nationals...
We confuse immigration with refugees and asylum seekers....
Somebody needs to get a grip.....

In that case you could adopt the attitude of Japan where they accept only 0.2% of asylum applicants compared with 40-80% in Western countries.

From Wikipedia
Overview of asylum applications in Japan 2012 - 2018
Year Total number of asylum applications received Total number of asylum applications approved
2012 2,545 18
2013 3,260 6
2014 5,000 11
2015 7,686 27
2016 10,901 28
2017 19,628 20
2018 10,493 42

Sadly the authorities in the West who manage and decide immigration applications are so infiltrated by biased people who don't act in their country's best interests. Until this changes the problem will continue. When I was in Japan all people who I spoke to about immigration said that immigration to Japan was not acceptable so they have a different national attitude there.

The Refugee Convention was well written all those years ago by people who made it so it could be an alternative immigration route.

I doubt Sunak will change any policy. I doubt that Braverman would have changed anything either.

As for Cameron, that is a bit of a blast from the past but he has shown poor judgement in the past and may show it again in the future.