Foreign nationals living in social housing would be given three months to find private accommodation or face being deported under a Reform UK government, Nigel Farage has announced.
Not that the Lanyard Classes will allow this to happen. Would require primary legislation that overrides every possible roadblock, obviously.
But ballsy, deffo.
A source close to Steve Reed, the Housing Secretary, hit out at the proposals, claiming they would create an “ICE-style” system in Britain.
“Farage knows there’s no way of this happening without establishing a Trump ICE-style deportation police force in the UK. Something he will presumably be trialling in Manchester should he win the mayoralty election.”
They added: “If he thinks Brits look at American politics longingly,
Well, some do acshully. And the point of democracy is to find out how many, no?
For many of us, ICE is not a threat, it’s a good thing. I wish they did it here, catching and deporting dangerous illegals. I don’t understand what the minister is doing by raising that unlikely possibility.
ICE does not confine itself to catching and deporting dangerous illegals. It also deports harmless illegals, and a few legals mixed in for good measure because it does not operate with due process as required by the constitution.
And if you’re so keen on deporting people because they are dangerous, why draw the distinction between those here legally and illegally?
I draw no such distinction, dangerous is sufficient. But not the only criterion, I’d have a category of not conducive to the public good, a reason which is used to exclude otherwise legal foreigners so why not to get rid of those present.
And incidentally which provision of the US constitution reuires due process for someone who is not being punished by taking life, liberty or property?
ICE detain people. That is deprivation of liberty. Deporting some also deprives them of liberty. The provision is in the fourteenth amendment: “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”.
“No conducive to the public good” is a UK criterion, so irrelevant to ICE. Though I’d like to see you show how you are conducive to the public good, if you think that’s grounds for deportation.
You are literally saying no one can even be arrested without a criminal trial *first*? Or that Terry Stops are unconstitutional?
Do you know the first thing about American jurisprudence? It does not look like it.
I can’t see how you could think I am saying the nobody can be arrested before conviction. That’s not what “due process” means. For arrest, that requires probable cause. But due process does not then stop. Someone cannot be lawfully arrested and left detained for life. Apart from a potential requirement to allow bail, the detention must only be as much as is needed to further the investigation and reach trial.
harmless illegals ?
By definition they are criminals.
Why are you so keen on importing criminals?
Whereas you are so saintly and law-abiding that you have lead a wholly blameless life.
Non-sequitur.
And in any case, no one is protecting me from the consequences of my actions should I be caught breaking the law – unlike people like you who wish criminals to be allowed to do whatever they want.
Omelettes, eggs…
ICE operates with ‘due process. But, as people like you like to remind us – immigration violations are not *criminal* violations. So that due process is not as extensive as it is in criminal courts. You know what an Article II court is? And how it is different from an Article III court? Of course you don’t. No more than I know the finer details of how the British government is organized.
The harmless illegals are shielding the harmful ones. Oh, and the harmless ones are still leeching money even when they’re not actively participating in scamming the government out of my money.
No legal has been deported. Some have been caught up in sweeps, true. As have innocent people when busting large criminal gatherings. Then its sorted out at the detention center.
I don’t draw the distinction. Get rid of the dangerous ones here legally too.
The U.S. Government Accounability Office disagrees with you: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-487
And dealing with the progressives who try to thwart them in that harshly. Don’t forget the cherry on top!
Interesting that the “source close to” didn’t want to be named.
That’s because it’s the person themselves, but gives them deniability.
“Don’t quote me on this.”
The Blair tumour is too well established and has been nurtured by the Uniparty such that it is now a “final weeks” condition so such measures won’t be enacted. The Snivel Service will actually block it, lawyers and judges will be inventing laws to make it illegal. Nigel pushed Brexit over the line because he had half the population behind him, but on this one, not enough people will give a FFaaRD…
That’s from my old SF reading days. I think Vonnegut wrote it but I’m not sure. It’s Flying F at a Rolling Donut and appealed to my 20 something sense of humour as a good way of saying “I don’t care”
And as a last firebreak, the Judiciary will just wave their hands and reinterpreted existing law to their own ends.
It’s how all this shit started way back when, when it came down to defining ‘immediately announce yourself’ could mean ‘pass through multiple safe countries, hide for months, and then demand asylum once you got caught’.
ICE is a government organisation set up in 2003 to enforce the law of the land.
The Obama administration logged more than 3.1 million ICE deportations, according to Syracuse’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
But sure, Orange Man Bad.
It’s actually stuff like this that encourages my new found conspiracy theory tendencies – what is it, exactly, about Trump that makes them lie about him 24/7?
I don’t know, but I have reached the conclusion that it is because he is an outsider who cannot be relied upon to do what the insiders want him to do.
“ I have reached the conclusion that it is because he is an outsider who cannot be relied upon to do what the insiders want him to do.”
Absolutely. It shows that Western ‘democracy ‘ is a sham – there are massive powers behind the throne that aim to gatekeep who sits on it. Those considered a threat to their interests are attacked using all the forces they can utilise, which are considerable.
It shows that Western ‘democracy ‘ is a sham.
I beg to differ. What it shows is two rather unsurprising things: (i) that democracy is imperfect and admits of degree [ie democracy is not all or nothing] and (ii) that the current Establishment in the UK has an ideology [whodathunkit?], because there is no ideology-free point-of-view in human affairs.
All societies have an Establishment that will resist removal by insurgents: democracies are no different. Indeed, a sequence of Reform governments would create their own Establishment, which in turn would resist removal. How far our left-liberal Establishment would go to frustrate and obstruct a Reform government would largely depend on how well Reform prepared for government- not only with a swiftly implemented legislative programme that neutralises obstructive legislation, but also with firmness of purpose, party discipline, improved candidate selection…etc.
PS Whether we can still reasonably expect a majority Reform government will be an interesting discussion after Makerfield. Rupert Lowe is one mega-plonker…
“I beg to differ. What it shows is two rather unsurprising things: (i) that democracy is imperfect and admits of degree [ie democracy is not all or nothing] and (ii) that the current Establishment in the UK has an ideology [whodathunkit?], because there is no ideology-free point-of-view in human affairs.”
Did ‘the Establishment’ in 1945 attempt to stymie the Labour Government’s plans to nationalise everything? No it didn’t, it let them get on with it, because they were a government elected on a manifesto and the principles of democracy dictated that they be allowed to enact it. Ditto the same in 1963 and 1997. Even Mrs T got what she wanted in the 80s; while there was opposition it was restricted to traditional politics. The Civil Service largely did what they were told and the courts had nothing to do with political issues.
None of that applies today. The Civil Service are blatantly ideologically aligned, as are the courts. A combination of legal enabling acts, third sector ‘charity’ organisations channeling dark money into legal actions means the role of Parliament and the Executive have largely been neutered. Democracy exists in name only – we get to vote to put people into theoretical power, but there are a whole army out there who wield far more power who are entirely untouched by any democratic forces whatsoever.
Now you are right, a (very) determined Parliamentary majority could eventually turn that around, but as things stand there is no democracy in the UK. We are run by an unelected cabal of people who are largely our enemies.
Did ‘the Establishment’ in 1945 attempt to stymie the Labour Government’s plans to nationalise everything?
Of course not, because socialism was the Establishment view then – the war economy having prepared the ground. Likewise, in 1963: socialism was the dominant view in the Establishment. And the civil service in 1979 resisted Mrs T until she replaced a few of them…
Yes, the Blairite legacy and its constellations are a problem, but they can be neutralised by early and decisive repeal of the relevant legislation.
And elected opponents of Reform could undue the repeals – possibly in the face of a Reform Establishment…
Either way, it is a wild overstatement to say that “there is no democracy in the UK”, because democracy admits of degree – which is why the UK is undoubtedly more democratic than Iran or Russia.
True, but that isn’t saying much.
And on that reasoning, Russia is a democracy. The President was re-elected in 2024, the Duma in 2021 (and due a new election later this year). Putin had opponents in each, who got votes and seats.
Isn’t there a point where your “degree of democracy” is so small that it isn’t?
And on that reasoning, Russia is a democracy.
Eh? Russia has a very low score on all the democracy indices – see Freedom House, EIU, etc. A score below 60% (or =) generally means a state is a failing democratic/authoritarian-democratic hybrid/authoritarian state.
So, yes, there’s a point where the degree of democracy is so small that a state isn’t a democracy. But the UK is a long way from that, though it’s slipping down the rankings.
Freedom House ranks the UK as 1 in civil liberties and personal rights.
Granted the UK is still better than most of the rest of the world but it seems a strange scale that the UK (along with a ton of other countries) gets ranked so highly – until you realize that Freedom House rankings are SURVEYS! Not someone looking at objective criteria and trying to rank a nation. Its surveys of people *feelings about the UK*. People who rarely have any experience outside of Europe.
For a lot of people, ‘one drop’ is all that is needed – because it allows them to tell a comforting lie to themselves. A lie that if they did not have it would mean that by their professed principles they would have to act. And they’re not the sort of people who take action.
So ‘managed democracy’ and ‘manufactured consensus’ are fine with them – censorship and all – because it allows them to pretend that lie is real.
“Of course not, because socialism was the Establishment view then – the war economy having prepared the ground. Likewise, in 1963: socialism was the dominant view in the Establishment. And the civil service in 1979 resisted Mrs T until she replaced a few of them…”
More proof we have no democracy, as you’ve just stated whoever we vote for, we get socialism, even 80 years ago.
…you’ve just stated whoever we vote for, we get socialism, even 80 years ago.
No, I haven’t stated that; and Mrs T (pbuh) showed we do not get socialism whoever we vote for. If we really have “no democracy”, how was Mrs T ever elected?
She was last elected 39 – 39! – years ago.
Plus we get mass immigration no matter who we vote for.
But OJ imagines the UK was not a democracy in 1945…
You’re paltering by way of a rearguard action.
No, I’m not, because, on all available metrics, the UK remains – overall – one of the c.20 most democratic nations on Earth. Duh!
And democratic failure on mass immigration does not prove that the UK is not a democracy – because democracy admits of degree! Duh!
Denial of the above is bizarre to me – and positively Spud-like in its denial of reality.
No I didn’t say that, I said precisely the opposite – despite the Labour Manifesto being a massive change to the economic management of the country, and the rights of the population, Labour voters got what they voted for. Thats democracy. I said the UK was a democracy up until Blair got in. Since then the long march through the institutions means there is now a shadow government who we don’t change just by voting for a different rosette, unless that rosette is actively wanting to upset the apple cart, which is a very hard thing to do, to convince enough voters that the system is rotten and needs total reform. However we are approaching that point.
But a system of governance that requires a vote winning non-Establishment party to have to gut the existing system of public administration in order to be allowed to enact its manifesto is not a democracy. Its a sort of oligarchy with a bit of democracy tacked on the edge.
Er…OJ…
You said:
…despite the Labour Manifesto being a massive change to the economic management of the country…Labour voters got what they voted for [in 1945]. Thats [sic] democracy.
But this is not consistent with your other statement:
…whoever we vote for, we get socialism, even 80 years ago.
So was 1945 a triumph for democracy or an Establishment ‘plot’? Do explain.
And as democratic failure on mass immigration does not prove that the UK is not a democracy, please agree that democracy admits of degree…
“So was 1945 a triumph for democracy or an Establishment ‘plot’? Do explain.”
‘You’ were the one who said the Establishment only allowed the 1945 Labour Manifesto to be enacted because the Establishment had socialist leanings, to which I replied ‘In that case you’ve just proved my point, there is a shadow ‘government’ that we get regardless of who we vote for – Vote Right, get Left. Vote Left, get Left.’
I don’t actually consider the Establishment in 1945 was as pro socialism as you suggest it was. I consider that the implementation of the 1945 Labour Manifesto was democracy in action – the country voted for a radical change of direction for the country, and the Establishment allowed that to happen, for whatever reasons. If we vote for a Reform government with a similarly radical plan of change of direction for the country, we ‘should’ (if we are in fact a democracy)get a similar response to Labour in 1945, but we won’t for the reasons I’ve outlined. Thus I conclude we are not a democracy. We can have any government we like, as long as its a Leftist one.
You seem to think this counts as a democracy. Maybe you’re a Leftist……………
Theo, 80% of the electorate didn’t vote for labour but labour was what they got, >4 Million voted Reform and they got 5 MP’s, Lib Dems got 3.2 million votes and got 72 MP’s.
As I’ve said before, whatever we have, it sure ain’t democracy.
Democracy is a complex concept. Whether a state is a democracy depends on many factors – eg electoral system, electoral process, acceptance of pluralism, rule of law, media freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of association and civil liberties generally.
All those factors admit of degree and judgement. So democracy itself admits of degree and judgement. To take one factor like the electoral system, and then declare the UK not to be a democracy given the result of the last election, is simplistic.
Leaving aside your nitpicking and salami-slicing, why do we have mass immigration when the electorate was not consulted before it and on every occasion since has voted for parties who promised to control it and never did? It isn’t a matter of delving into process and tickboxing comparitive aspects of the rules, it’s way simpler than that. ‘They’ know what ‘we’ want and they ignore it.
“When I was at the Treasury, I argued for the most open door possible to immigration…. I think it’s my job to maximise global welfare, not national welfare.”( Gus O’Donnell, former Cabinet Secretary…Quoted in David Goodhart’s book, The Road to Somewhere
So why wasn’t he fired. He clearly stated he viewed his purpose was to do something *other* than what he was employed to do. That’s misconduct in public office. It’s not even maladministration, that’s incompetence. This is outright fraud, stubbornly refusing to do what they’re employed to do.
*other* – nope
“misconduct” – nada
“maladministration” – as you say, no
“incompetence” – nooh, definitely not
“fraud” – if only
The word you’re looking for, jgh, is “treason”. The man is a traitor to his nation. And yet, he’s The Right Honourable, The Lord O’Donnell, KG GCB HonFBA FAcSS
Because our democracy.
Sounds great once from someone like G K Chesterton or Clarence Thomas, but repeatedly from someone in the arse-scratching comments section of an arse-scratching blog it sounds like wank.
The issue is that the views of the British people on a vitally important matter have been consistently and gratuitously ignored by the national establishment to the point where the people are now second class citizens in their own country. That’s not democratic, and a system by which voting is entirely detached from the levers of power is not a democracy.
But you want to dance around the issue with pissant wordplay. Once again, you’ve ever-so-cleverly painted yourself into the stupid corner.
Mass immigration is a national scandal, and I would agree that immigration policy has not been handled democratically; but those points do not mean that the UK is not a democracy. To claim that the UK is not a democracy is foolish rhetoric – on a par with Spud’s more risible claims…
You’re still paltering by way of a rear guard action.
You admit that we’ve been invaded and overrun contrary to the express will of the people.
Invaded, no less.
But you say democracy is more or less working.
Do come along, OO7.
Rush Limbaugh said the problem with Trump is that he is not an elitist.
Dems/RINOs don’t want an effective president, they want a celebrity. Like Obama. Not Trump. DJT only went to Penn, not Harvard.
That’s exactly it. Trump is not a politician by nature and he doesn’t play well with others. Those others being lobbyists, long serving congressmen/senators and the deep state. If he feels like saying “fuck you”, he’ll say it and doesn’t give a toss. It amuses me no end when he makes all the right people’s heads explode.
We have all these stupid “progressive” ideas and policies because people presenting such haven’t been told to fuck off often enough. See also medium/large companies with HR departments.
…what is it, exactly, about Trump that makes them lie about him 24/7?
He is anti-Establishment, he’s not a professional politician and he doesn’t subscribe to the current Establishment ideology. And, in its interests, every Establishment resists dis-establishment. So no conspiracy theory needed…
You describe an (arguable) conspiracy and say it’s not one. The establishment is not a monolith, it’s a number of interests acting together to frustrate the aims of others. A conspiracy, iow.
It’s not a conspiracy if “they” are operating more or less openly: it’s institutional bias with group-think. And lobbying is not anti-democratic. In a democratic (and any) society, there will be “a number of interests acting together to frustrate the aims of others”. What’s wrong with that – when the voters* ultimately decide?
* That said, I oppose the present universal franchise, because it will lead to socialism as the entitled vote for ever more handouts…
The voters don’t decide. Firstly, they are not asked, by agreement of the (albeit open) conspiracy of politicians of the uniparty, the media and the civil service. Secondly, when they make their feelings quite clear they are denigrated, demonised and thereby ignored. I need only to mention immigration. It all fails the test of democracy, that you should be able to get rid of them.
In our representative democracy, the voters delegate the making of legislation to MPs – who make their ‘individual’ decisions according to ideology, party discipline, public opinion and (lastly?) their own judgement.
Our parliamentary system certainly got immigration deeply wrong, but has (so far) prevented euthanasia (which a majority of the UK [wrongly, IMO!] supports)….Would you prefer the crude majority view on euthanasia? And on abortion? After all, that would be very democratic of you…
And more. The left is united in their objective of ending freedom in the West and implementing global communist government. They are all on the same page. They don’t need to coordinate. They are trying to destroy our culture and history and middle class prosperity.
Trump isn’t having any of it.
“ICE-style deportation police force in the UK.”
I have a pretty simple view of this. Are you an illegal immigrant? No? You can stay here. Yes? we want you out. We’ll ask you politely to get out of your house, to get on a plane. Once. Then, we handcuff you and forcibly remote you.
No, I don’t care if you cry, or your kids cry, or anything else. You had an opportunity to claim asylum and didn’t take it, so out you go.
This isn’t illegals, this is legals who are in social housing.
Still seems reasonable though; if you’re not working, or working for so little that you can’t afford somewhere to live without subsidy, then are you really contributing enough to justify us having you here?
Ah right.
Why are we subsiding foreign nationals? If George Clooney wants to come here, he’s an asset. He pays his bills.
If you come here and need a council house, you aren’t.
We have been for at least 40 years now, I know of cases in the 80s.
Going to be many grey zone cases where the head of the household is now British but others living in the house are not.
And there’s foreign nationals on visas stamped ‘No recourse to public funds’ and they’re legal, but if they’re in social housing the terms of the visa are being broken I guess.
No new grantings of asylum and no new social housing works for me until we’ve figured out what the hell has been going on.
And definitely no new grants of citizenship until we’ve got a much more robust system in place.
The head of household can buy a plane ticket and go with them if they choose. It’s not a difficult problem.
Quite. I cannot fathom how this is even controversial.
Does not work when the government is giving out leave to remain like candy.
Basically all he’s doing here is enforcing the “no recourse to public funds” that gets stamped into their passports.
It’s a good policy, because it’s calling out the hypocrisy of the Establishment.
The SJWs (including the Conservatives) keep telling us that immigrants are a benefit, not a burden on the taxpayer, and they quote “no recourse to public funds” as evidence. But they do that knowing that there are so many exceptions and so little enforcement that it’s bollocks.
So by saying this, Nigel is calling them out – if his policy is a problem, then immigrants are benefitting from taxpayers’ money.
The fashionable opinion is that you should have laws against uncontrolled immigration but that they shouldn’t be enforced. This is true on both sides of the Atlantic.
That’s not what is being reported. Farage is reported to be publishing an essay with the quoted material this evening (I can’t find it, so I’m assuming it’s not out yet).
It’s possible to be a foreign national entitled to recourse to public funds, so this new policy would not be merely enforcing current rules.
A reported quote is: “Foreign nationals who are unable to relocate to private rented accommodation after a three-month grace period will lose their right to remain and be liable for deportation under Operation Restoring Justice,” I fail to see why they should not be allowed to buy a house instead.
“I fail to see why they should not be allowed to buy a house instead.”
Presumably because if they have the money to buy a house (which at the very least requires a significant cash deposit in excess of the amount welfare claimants must be below) they shouldn’t be getting a cheap social housing rental in the first place.
So either foreign social housing tenants can’t afford to buy houses (99.999%), or they do have significant cash assets that would allow them to buy a house but have failed to declare them and have thus defrauded the welfare system and should be deported anyway.
If they have enough money to buy a house they will be able to rent a house from a private landlord.
Private landlords are a pretty diverse set of people (despite the Grauniad’s attempts to categorise them all as descendants of Count Dracula) so if they have enough money the immigrants will be able to find one who likes them.
[Mathematical logic allows for there being an illegal immigrant who is disliked by ever single private sector landlord, but since that means that he/she/they is less likeable than Jack the Ripper, I do not think that he/she/they should be given leave to remain]
Charles, I was referring to the perception, not the details of the reality (which we all know, as you say, is full of holes).
But pro-immigration groups tell us things like:
As I said, Farage’s proposal is to do what pro-immigration campaigners tell us is already the situation in “almost every” and “nearly all” cases.
try here:
https://substack.com/@nigelfarage/p-201926003
Britain is a two tier state – against white people.
British people fundamentally expect a fair deal. But there is nothing fair about the way White people have been treated by their governments.
Nigel Farage
No one is stopping them from buying a house except the people who won’t lend people who have no money or any income that doesn’t come from state handouts.
If these people have enough money to buy a house – why are they in government provided accomodations?
It would be interesting to see such a policy enforced, if only to see how many houses it freed up. After all we are constantly told that immigration is 100% definitely NOT responsible for our housing shortage, so logically there can’t possibly be any foreigners living in social housing can there?
His other problem will be who is actually living in the social housing, versus who is the tenant.
As we saw with Grefell, but hurriedly hid under the non-combustible sofa, there’s a lot of people with a social housing tenancy who are making a nice undeclared income (and breaching their tenancy) by sub-letting it, mostly to immigrants.
But proving that is going to be hard work.
But proving that is going to be hard work.
So not for the civil service to deal with.
Despite 7+ years of inquiry and enquiry costs over 100 on top of £170 million policing costs, the number of illegally sublet flats has not been reported. All we do know is that the police have zero idea about who lived in 23 of the 95 flats and if they were occupied by the people supposed to live there or sublet to others.
Council rents there are believed to have been just 20% of the going market rate. The fact that the council doesn’t know and presumably care who it is giving highly subsidized accommodation to is mind boggling. It’s hardly surprising that anyone with a flat there wouldn’t tell the council about it if they left as they could sublet it for several times more than they were paying for it.
Perhaps it’s time for the government to get out of the housing business altogether.
Why does social housing exist at all?
Think of all the useless (expensive) snivel servants we could get rid of by abolishing it in it’s entirety.
Where I live the government isn’t in housing at all. The two biggest providers are a company that bought up all the council housing, and a housing association.
But who decides how the housing is allocated?
“who decides how the housing is allocated?”
Yup, that would be the local council, mostly.
Government funding for housing associations comes with strings, that the local council gets “nomination rights”, which means they can put forward potential tenants based on their ranking of ‘need’.
I gather about two thirds of housing association properties are subject to local council nomination rights, with one third left to the association. But there aren’t any proper statistics.
However local authorities and housing associations all have to follow central government “guidance” in designing their allocation system, which lists various groups who have to be given priority.
It’s speculation but my assumption is that the sort of people who work in local government and those that work at senior levels in housing associations are from the same social and political networks. I wouldn’t be in the surprised if there wasn’t a revolving door between the two organisations.
In my experience, definitely not.
You might have been right once, but housing associations have been big operations for nearly 40 years now (after the Housing Act 1988 pushed a lot of council housing and development out into them), and their local government crossover has long been very much dissipated.
Housing associations are actually mostly pretty hard-nosed commercial organisations, and the people who run them tend to be from the commercial property sector (or, these days, from other housing associations).
They are very keen on making profits, to fund more building. And pay themselves, of course (the bigger the organisation is, the more it pays its senior management), but that’s the same in any company large enough for management to be mostly separate from ownership.
The problem is that the way they make money is mostly by sucking on the teat of the public sector. But that’s the problem of the incentives, not the people.
Thanks, I’ll take your experience and change my priors.
I am repeatedly and repeatedly gobsmacked that the Welfare State never specified anywhere that it was to provide for *CITIZENS*.
That’s because it would be obviously stupid to provide for citizens rather than residents.
Why would it be ‘obviously stupid’ to do that? If someone wants to come and work here, they’d have to earn enough to fund their own accommodation and living expenses. A very sensible barrier to cheap imported labour that is a net drain on the public purse if you ask me.
It would be “obviously stupid” to apply to citizens. Citizen could go and work abroad for 40 years, contributing nothing and then come back and wave their passports around demanding benefits they’ve never contributed toward.
It is equally obviously stupid to apply to residents: arrive illegally, tell your sob story to some gullible sap and you’re a resident.
Both residency for an extended period and citizenship should be necessary. And citizenship shouldn’t be handed out like confetti, either.
Citizen could go and work abroad for 40 years, contributing nothing and then come back and wave their passports around demanding benefits they’ve never contributed toward.
That’s where you are wrong. They have effectively contributed a significant amount by not using any public services, NHS etc which currently is probably somewhere over 10K a year. In my case I have also contributed for 21 years by my state pension being frozen at the rate it was when I was first eligible because I don’t live in somewhere like Montenegro or the Philippines
“Citizen could go and work abroad for 40 years, contributing nothing and then come back and wave their passports around demanding benefits they’ve never contributed toward.”
Yes they could, and perhaps a very few might. But the numbers would be staggeringly low. The vast majority of those who work abroad for decades on end, but decide to retire to the UK will be people of considerable assets, and more than capable of looking after themselves. After all the feckless and lazy tend not to emigrate looking for better work opportunities. They will also pay taxes when back in the UK as they will have higher than average retirement incomes.
Whereas if you allow anyone to come here and ‘earn’ entitlements to welfare, you have a virtually unlimited supply of such people. And the tendency will always be to relax the rules around entitlements, plus there will be stupendous amounts of fraud, as we see today, with the number of people who nominally have ‘no recourse to public funds’ but who are getting free everything.
Welfare for citizens only cuts off the supply of poor foreigners who might fancy their chances of getting on the UK welfare gravy train, while not putting off the wealthy and skilled ones who want to come here to invest their money or to earn a living. A total win/win situation IMO.
Yeah, having our own country is really stupid so let’s tip it over the side.
All citizens pay tax on their income earned in the UK.
Not all residents do this.
Welfare should be for people who pay their taxes.
I should have thought that a lot of those in Council Housing are illegally sub letting from the real tenant.
This of course is what happened in Grenfell.
Mandelson’s father said the quiet bit out loud: “We’ll build the Tories out of London”.
Council housing was a way to cement the loyalty of the white working class.
Now it’s a corrupt mess.
A 2/3 bed flat in London is worth between £8 and £14 thousand per year tax free compared to the open market.
A partial solution would be to allow councils to raise rents (gradually, if they like) to the open market equivalent.
And if they don’t they get a lower block grant.
Welfare should always be a temporary help, not a permanent lifestyle.
Would we need another police force to do that? We have a problem but it’s thankfully not yet at the scale of where it’s reached in the US. Perhaps all we need to do is syphon off some of those police officers currently focused on people using hurty words.
Nah, this is Nige responding to Restore’s tanks gouging up his lawn. He’s suddenly realised he has to do a lot more than just not be the Tories and Labour to win the angryandnottakingthisshitanymore vote. It seems like weak and thin gruel to me, especially combined with the suspicion that he’s relying on not being allowed to do it to make it go away.
Rupert Lowe responding to accusations of white supremacists in his ranks by saying Tommy Robinson can join too if he likes, now that was ballsy.
He has to do something otherwise the press will take note and stop referring to Reform as far right.
Idk is it? I thought it was their policy as drawn up by Zia Yusuf some time ago.
But I think you’re onto something. Why did Reform, after taking on a truckle of Tory detectors, then stall in the polls?
The lanyard class, Tim mentioned. This is a revolt against them.
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15899513/Nigel-Farage-says-Britain-two-tier-state-against-white-people-claims-toxic-ideology-diversity-taken-Whitehall.html
It might work, Nige, but you’ve left it awfully late in the race and it smells desperate. Like you’ve seen some uncomfortable internal polling.
He’s gone and got his own substack. I reckon Gawain might have had some input:
https://nigelfarage.substack.com/p/britain-is-a-two-tier-state-against
It is surprisingly punchy.
Again, someone in Reform has noticed Restore’s success (in this case with don’t-give-a-shit direct communication bypassing mainstream media) and is trying the same. But it comes three days before the by-election and is almost as convincing at “looking hard” as Starmer using the Royal Marines.
Once you’ve said on that same mainstream media that it’s impossible to deport hundreds of thousands of foreigners, it’s difficult to recover your stock.
The Unmediated WordNigel Farage has gone to Substack. The medium is the message, and the message is that the gatekeepers are out of a job
Gawain Towler
https://gawaintowler.substack.com/p/the-unmediated-word
Not that the Lanyard Classes will allow this to happen
Yes, Louis XVI and the other powerful nobles will surely put a stop to this.
these proposals would require a dept similar to ICE…
i hope i speak for the marginalised majority when i say “jolly good, crack on please”.
I see we’re back to arguing about conspiracy theories. They’re really not required. What you have is a common philosophy. It’s based on the C17th concept of “moral rights” held by those wrote the US constitution & which underlies “liberalism”. It’s something to some extent we all share because it’s the basis of modern society. It’s a belief in democracy & government by the people but that democracy cannot deny those “moral rights”.
The problem with the philosophy is when you grant a right to a minority you impose a matching obligation on the majority. And “rights” are a one way ratchet. Once granted, they cannot be democratically removed. So you’ve now got to the logical endpoint of the philosophy where the cumulative burden of all those obligations becomes intolerable.
So, if you want to look for conspiracies, you’re conspirators as much as anybody else. You feel the obligations bear more heavily on you, because like the rights, the obligations aren’t spread equally across society. And you’re getting the shitty end of the stick.
I honestly don’t know what the solution is apart from building a time machine & going back & mass murdering C17th philosophers. Sorry, but the philosophy was always a crock It was always going to end up here. You have to get rid of the concept of “rights” apart from in a very specific legal sense. The rights accruing from a specific legal contract between two consenting parties.
If you look at history, it becomes fekkin obvious.; The US Constitution was intended to limit the power of the State over the individual. But the State at the time was a handful of bewigged idiots sitting around a table in Philly. The modern State, through the democratic process, is basically all of us. With all our conflicting interests. So an idea intended to limit the power of the State has vastly increased the power of the State.
“I honestly don’t know what the solution is apart from building a time machine & going back & mass murdering C17th philosophers.”
I think we could have coped with their concept of rights. The problem came with the early 20th century (mostly) people who turned rights from “the State mustn’t do these things to people” into “the State must do these other things for people”.
(“negative rights” to “positive rights”, in modern terms)
OK, it was probably never perfect, but it was a general idea and enough to keep things manageable. But now? There’s barely even a concept of the difference any more.
The whole propaganda about “rights” was “populist” in the worst sense. “Oh, someone else will pay for everything, you don’t need to worry your pretty head about it”.
One may observe that the 10 Commandments have no mention of “Rights”, they simply tell people (generally the heads of households, but in one case their children) what their *duties* are and, as a simple consequence, all those “rights” are satisfied (except in circumstances where human action cannot do so).
Imposed ‘duties’ can be just as much a problem, because it’s basically ‘positive rights’ (X must be provided with Y), just re-written from the other end.
However most of the Ten Commandments are OK, because they aren’t duties, they’re prohibitions on doing harm to others. Don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t shag that cute goat if it isn’t yours.
The problem ones (from a philosophical point of view; you can do what you like within a voluntary religion) are:
No, they are *not* as much of a problem (at least not to someone who was required to study elementary logic), *you* have a duty, not some amorphous “they”. If no one individual has a duty to provide the so-called “right” then it is an empty promise.
That is indeed elementary logic.
But look a bit deeper and apply a bit more sophisticated analysis and it’s clear that an obligation on the State leads directly to the State imposing that obligation (or at least the obligation to pay for it) onto individuals.
Look, I said I’ve no objection to the Ten Commandments as a religious obligation; indeed it’s one that I accept myself.
But you seemed to be using them as a model for the State, and once that happens they become just another way of writing positive rights.