5 ms·

In all fairness, the “immigration” story is likely just a convenient spin on a more realistic goal of state surveillance on it’s own citizens.

Nursie 1y ago
While there is almost guaranteed to be an aspect of this, the UK is going through a period where immigration is in the news constantly and the populist party "Reform UK" are on the rise. The Labour government has realised that whatever their own feelings are about people coming to the UK by irregular means and claiming asylum, they need to be seen to recognise the popular narrative right now that the boats must be stopped, and be seen to be taking action. So I don't think the immediate state goal right here is likely to be anything deeper than desperately trying to head off Nigel Farage, who is capturing a lot of public discourse about this 'crisis'.
- pixxel 1y ago
  [dead]
- gmac 1y ago
  … except that trying to out-Farage Farage (by being bastards to asylum seekers) will lose them many of their traditional supporters (who are not big on being bastards to asylum seekers) and seems unlikely to gain them many Farage supporters (why would they take some half-hearted populist bastardry when they can have the real deal?). The ‘small boats’ narrative is ludicrously over-reported here. It’s such a clear case of those with most of the resources scapegoating those with none of the resources as the cause of everyone else’s problems.
  - Nursie 1y ago
    I don't think any of that matters any more, the issue is so firmly in the public eye that Labour need to show that they've solved it whether it's a 'real' problem or not. > unlikely to gain them many Farage supporters Farage is polling ahead of both major parties at the moment. That support came from somewhere. To characterise all of those supporters as only interested in populist bastardry seems a bit of a surface take on the issue. Why have they turned to someone like that? Most likely they feel their own lives and prospects getting worse and in their dissatisfaction have turned to an easy answer, someone who promises to change everything and blame the outsider. To put it starkly, reductively even, you don't get nazis when everyone feels like their life is on the up and up. Well not many anyway. The mainstream of UK politics needs to get to grips with (perceived?) worsening standards of living and failing services, and actually take action that makes people's lives better. Instead for decades now it has just tinkered at the edges, seemingly run by ambitionless accountants. Shuffling half a percent here, half a percent there, not really achieving very much but spewing vast volumes of hot air. It's not really a wonder to me that a sizeable minority are looking outside of that, or are getting frustrated that they can't get a doctor's appointment or the roads are falling apart. It's all too easy for Fartrage to say - look over there!
    - ryandrake 1y ago
      > Instead for decades now it has just tinkered at the edges, seemingly run by ambitionless accountants. Shuffling half a percent here, half a percent there, not really achieving very much but spewing vast volumes of hot air Speaking from the other side of the pond, we can say quite confidently that the solution is not electing someone who will make reckless, bold moves. The brain trust here voted against “ambitionless, measured improvements” and for that, we got a chaotic circus.
      - Nursie 1y ago
        Agreed, but unfortunately at times when things seem not to be going so well in general, people are prone to electing the person that promises them large positive changes by throwing out the stale old rulebook. Even if it’s not credible. Even when large parts of what’s apparently going wrong have been invented by that same bad actor… I think this is part of why Brexit got through as well, some people felt it was a way to shake up a crusty, unresponsive establishment. That didn’t go so great!
      - ratelimitsteve 1y ago
        we spent decades dying to "measured improvements". I don't like what my peers did about the fact that they're angry or what in particular they demanded but I don't begrudge them being angry or demanding something. You can only bullshit people about their basic living conditions for so long and long ago our political class gave up on the idea of working for people as their raison d'etre and decided instead that their job was to give us as little as it takes in order to get our votes and then use the power we give them to funnel money back to their donors. The mistake wasn't in realzing that the "left" wasn't on their side, it was in thinking that the right was just because they were the ones who pointed out how feckless, entitled and self-absorbed the center-right elitists that pass themselves off as the left had become.
    - jodrellblank 1y ago
      Any ideas how leaving the european convention on human rights, deporting some barbers, takeaway owners and illegal construction workers, and stopping small boats in the English channel will reinvigorate Sunderland, fix South Wales after coal mining stopped, restart British Steel, bring life back to coastal holiday towns in the aftermath of cheap flights to warmer places, fire up the tired overworked Londoner on the crowded tube, bring European finance investment back into The City, tempt foreign industries to open factories in the UK, cause more doctors and nurses to be trained and paid better, and give little Sally and Timmy something to look forward to in life? "Freeze Non-Essential Immigration. Essential skills, mainly around healthcare, must be the only exception" - Reform manifesto page 5. The main thing Farage supporters are voting for is to see fewer Muslims and brown people and Pakistanis and Africans, and the main thing Farage is doing is stirring up is racist hate and division; Reform's own manifesto tells their supporters that they will still be seeing an awful lot of foreigners under a Reform government.
  - padjo 1y ago
    It’s amazing to see Labour fall for the same trick that the Tories did with Brexit, and also incredible that Farage is still a political force after all the Brexit lies.
    - card_zero 1y ago
      That's not a trick, it's how third parties have influence in a two-party system: the two main parties are compelled to steal any popular policy from a third party before it becomes a credible threat.
    - whackernews 1y ago
      What Brexit lies?
      - padjo 1y ago
        350m for the NHS.
  - Erwin 1y ago
    Because the same thing has happened successfully in most other European countries. Nationalist parties talk about scary immigrants, ordinary parties tighten immigration rules, and the nationalist parties fail to gain power. For example, Denmark created the highly criticized "Smykkelov" in 2016 which lets us confiscate any values asylum seekers have over 10.000 DKK (e.g. jewelry as the name says, but never actually used for jewelry just cash) in 2016. It has been hardly used (10 times in the first 3 years), but it had enormous press coverage. The largest left party (and the party of current PM) voted for it. The previously largest nationalist party (DF) have never been in power, despite existing for 30 years and getting 20+% of the vote in 2015 -- at most they were a support party to the right-wing government.
- crote 1y ago
  The media are (mostly) just parrotting what the politicians are saying. Having both major parties talking about "stopping the boat" isn't going to quiet down that down, is it? It'll just shift the Overton window. What's Labour's plan when the boats are stopped and Reform progresses to "round up and deport all the brown people"? They are never going to out-anti-immigrant the anti-immigrants, all they will achieve is losing the left-wing vote.
  - incone123 1y ago
    Recently the prime minister delivered a speech and then later walked the entire thing back saying that he hadn't read it before delivering it. A man who has declared that he is nothing more than a text to speech engine probably doesn't have a plan.
  - Nursie 1y ago
    I think that the boats thing stirs up ideas that migration is out of control, that the government is unable or unwilling to get a grip on the situation, that the system (even if they don't know what the system is, or even if there is a system) is being abused and somehow cheated. That's (IMHO) why it's so easy to get people riled up on irregular migration. I'm not sure if they end that route that they would need to out-anti-immigrant the anti-immigrants any further, but in the current climate they will need to be able to make the case that the country can decide who comes in, and that migration is to the benefit of everyone, migrant or not. Again, it doesn't really matter if it's an actual problem, it is an important enough perceived problem that they need to be able to show they have a grip on it and are running the show in the interests of the average Brit on the street. Then to really put the issue to bed, they'll need to do something about the failing services and general feeling of decline in the UK. As I said in response to a sister comment - you don't get many nazis when people feel their lives are going well. It's not so concerning if some out group is getting a slice of the cake if you feel you're getting yours too. It's when your slice seems to get a little smaller every day that you start looking for scapegoats. Of course the other question is - will they actually lose the left wing vote? Or would they win it back? Opinion polls in UK politics (from what I've heard on the radio) put the politics of 'Reform' voters left of centre - they're keen on renationalising rail, water and electricity for a start. All solid left-wing ideas outside of immigration policy, that you'd usually expect to hear from Labour supporters.
octo888 1y ago
Never waste a good crisis
- hn_throw2025 1y ago
  You are correct. The Identity Cards Act of 2006 was brought in by Blair’s Labour Government under the guise of preventing terrorism, the hot topic at the time. It was repealed by the incoming Tory/Liberal coalition under the Identity Documents Act 2010. Lobbying for Digital ID cards continued by the “Tony Blair Institute for Global Change” amongst others.
sunshine-o 1y ago
Yes and keep in mind that while the common law abiding citizen feels like he is living in the 1984 novel, most governments have no idea who is actually walking around, a resident or citizen in their countries. It is now anywhere between a 5% to 20% error margin in "the west". Worst I knew for sure of a specific country which had no databases of who was currently imprisoned, with inmates just walking out. Yes, it is that bad. At the end it can just be viewed as an IT problem, the same way most corporations have multiple CRM and have been working on "a 360 view of their customers" for decades. Even most licensed, audited banks have those types of error margins if you really asked them to provide a clean list of their clients. So all we hear about Digital IDs is a marketing term for the new version of that database they are working on. A lot of countries were already collecting fingerprints when issuing IDs decades ago. But those projects fails like most CRMs. So now the UK and others are arresting people for Facebook posts because it is actually a good database. Probably way better than their actual fingerprints or criminals databases. I am not sure if you should be terrified or just not care about those announcements.

Nursie 1y ago

While there is almost guaranteed to be an aspect of this, the UK is going through a period where immigration is in the news constantly and the populist party "Reform UK" are on the rise. The Labour government has realised that whatever their own feelings are about people coming to the UK by irregular means and claiming asylum, they need to be seen to recognise the popular narrative right now that the boats must be stopped, and be seen to be taking action. So I don't think the immediate state goal right here is likely to be anything deeper than desperately trying to head off Nigel Farage, who is capturing a lot of public discourse about this 'crisis'.

pixxel 1y ago
[dead]
gmac 1y ago
… except that trying to out-Farage Farage (by being bastards to asylum seekers) will lose them many of their traditional supporters (who are not big on being bastards to asylum seekers) and seems unlikely to gain them many Farage supporters (why would they take some half-hearted populist bastardry when they can have the real deal?). The ‘small boats’ narrative is ludicrously over-reported here. It’s such a clear case of those with most of the resources scapegoating those with none of the resources as the cause of everyone else’s problems.
- Nursie 1y ago
  I don't think any of that matters any more, the issue is so firmly in the public eye that Labour need to show that they've solved it whether it's a 'real' problem or not. > unlikely to gain them many Farage supporters Farage is polling ahead of both major parties at the moment. That support came from somewhere. To characterise all of those supporters as only interested in populist bastardry seems a bit of a surface take on the issue. Why have they turned to someone like that? Most likely they feel their own lives and prospects getting worse and in their dissatisfaction have turned to an easy answer, someone who promises to change everything and blame the outsider. To put it starkly, reductively even, you don't get nazis when everyone feels like their life is on the up and up. Well not many anyway. The mainstream of UK politics needs to get to grips with (perceived?) worsening standards of living and failing services, and actually take action that makes people's lives better. Instead for decades now it has just tinkered at the edges, seemingly run by ambitionless accountants. Shuffling half a percent here, half a percent there, not really achieving very much but spewing vast volumes of hot air. It's not really a wonder to me that a sizeable minority are looking outside of that, or are getting frustrated that they can't get a doctor's appointment or the roads are falling apart. It's all too easy for Fartrage to say - look over there!
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    > Instead for decades now it has just tinkered at the edges, seemingly run by ambitionless accountants. Shuffling half a percent here, half a percent there, not really achieving very much but spewing vast volumes of hot air Speaking from the other side of the pond, we can say quite confidently that the solution is not electing someone who will make reckless, bold moves. The brain trust here voted against “ambitionless, measured improvements” and for that, we got a chaotic circus.
    - Nursie 1y ago
      Agreed, but unfortunately at times when things seem not to be going so well in general, people are prone to electing the person that promises them large positive changes by throwing out the stale old rulebook. Even if it’s not credible. Even when large parts of what’s apparently going wrong have been invented by that same bad actor… I think this is part of why Brexit got through as well, some people felt it was a way to shake up a crusty, unresponsive establishment. That didn’t go so great!
    - ratelimitsteve 1y ago
      we spent decades dying to "measured improvements". I don't like what my peers did about the fact that they're angry or what in particular they demanded but I don't begrudge them being angry or demanding something. You can only bullshit people about their basic living conditions for so long and long ago our political class gave up on the idea of working for people as their raison d'etre and decided instead that their job was to give us as little as it takes in order to get our votes and then use the power we give them to funnel money back to their donors. The mistake wasn't in realzing that the "left" wasn't on their side, it was in thinking that the right was just because they were the ones who pointed out how feckless, entitled and self-absorbed the center-right elitists that pass themselves off as the left had become.
  - jodrellblank 1y ago
    Any ideas how leaving the european convention on human rights, deporting some barbers, takeaway owners and illegal construction workers, and stopping small boats in the English channel will reinvigorate Sunderland, fix South Wales after coal mining stopped, restart British Steel, bring life back to coastal holiday towns in the aftermath of cheap flights to warmer places, fire up the tired overworked Londoner on the crowded tube, bring European finance investment back into The City, tempt foreign industries to open factories in the UK, cause more doctors and nurses to be trained and paid better, and give little Sally and Timmy something to look forward to in life? "Freeze Non-Essential Immigration. Essential skills, mainly around healthcare, must be the only exception" - Reform manifesto page 5. The main thing Farage supporters are voting for is to see fewer Muslims and brown people and Pakistanis and Africans, and the main thing Farage is doing is stirring up is racist hate and division; Reform's own manifesto tells their supporters that they will still be seeing an awful lot of foreigners under a Reform government.
- padjo 1y ago
  It’s amazing to see Labour fall for the same trick that the Tories did with Brexit, and also incredible that Farage is still a political force after all the Brexit lies.
  - card_zero 1y ago
    That's not a trick, it's how third parties have influence in a two-party system: the two main parties are compelled to steal any popular policy from a third party before it becomes a credible threat.
  - whackernews 1y ago
    What Brexit lies?
    - padjo 1y ago
      350m for the NHS.
- Erwin 1y ago
  Because the same thing has happened successfully in most other European countries. Nationalist parties talk about scary immigrants, ordinary parties tighten immigration rules, and the nationalist parties fail to gain power. For example, Denmark created the highly criticized "Smykkelov" in 2016 which lets us confiscate any values asylum seekers have over 10.000 DKK (e.g. jewelry as the name says, but never actually used for jewelry just cash) in 2016. It has been hardly used (10 times in the first 3 years), but it had enormous press coverage. The largest left party (and the party of current PM) voted for it. The previously largest nationalist party (DF) have never been in power, despite existing for 30 years and getting 20+% of the vote in 2015 -- at most they were a support party to the right-wing government.
crote 1y ago
The media are (mostly) just parrotting what the politicians are saying. Having both major parties talking about "stopping the boat" isn't going to quiet down that down, is it? It'll just shift the Overton window. What's Labour's plan when the boats are stopped and Reform progresses to "round up and deport all the brown people"? They are never going to out-anti-immigrant the anti-immigrants, all they will achieve is losing the left-wing vote.
- incone123 1y ago
  Recently the prime minister delivered a speech and then later walked the entire thing back saying that he hadn't read it before delivering it. A man who has declared that he is nothing more than a text to speech engine probably doesn't have a plan.
- Nursie 1y ago
  I think that the boats thing stirs up ideas that migration is out of control, that the government is unable or unwilling to get a grip on the situation, that the system (even if they don't know what the system is, or even if there is a system) is being abused and somehow cheated. That's (IMHO) why it's so easy to get people riled up on irregular migration. I'm not sure if they end that route that they would need to out-anti-immigrant the anti-immigrants any further, but in the current climate they will need to be able to make the case that the country can decide who comes in, and that migration is to the benefit of everyone, migrant or not. Again, it doesn't really matter if it's an actual problem, it is an important enough perceived problem that they need to be able to show they have a grip on it and are running the show in the interests of the average Brit on the street. Then to really put the issue to bed, they'll need to do something about the failing services and general feeling of decline in the UK. As I said in response to a sister comment - you don't get many nazis when people feel their lives are going well. It's not so concerning if some out group is getting a slice of the cake if you feel you're getting yours too. It's when your slice seems to get a little smaller every day that you start looking for scapegoats. Of course the other question is - will they actually lose the left wing vote? Or would they win it back? Opinion polls in UK politics (from what I've heard on the radio) put the politics of 'Reform' voters left of centre - they're keen on renationalising rail, water and electricity for a start. All solid left-wing ideas outside of immigration policy, that you'd usually expect to hear from Labour supporters.

octo888 1y ago

Never waste a good crisis

hn_throw2025 1y ago
You are correct. The Identity Cards Act of 2006 was brought in by Blair’s Labour Government under the guise of preventing terrorism, the hot topic at the time. It was repealed by the incoming Tory/Liberal coalition under the Identity Documents Act 2010. Lobbying for Digital ID cards continued by the “Tony Blair Institute for Global Change” amongst others.

sunshine-o 1y ago

Yes and keep in mind that while the common law abiding citizen feels like he is living in the 1984 novel, most governments have no idea who is actually walking around, a resident or citizen in their countries. It is now anywhere between a 5% to 20% error margin in "the west". Worst I knew for sure of a specific country which had no databases of who was currently imprisoned, with inmates just walking out. Yes, it is that bad. At the end it can just be viewed as an IT problem, the same way most corporations have multiple CRM and have been working on "a 360 view of their customers" for decades. Even most licensed, audited banks have those types of error margins if you really asked them to provide a clean list of their clients. So all we hear about Digital IDs is a marketing term for the new version of that database they are working on. A lot of countries were already collecting fingerprints when issuing IDs decades ago. But those projects fails like most CRMs. So now the UK and others are arresting people for Facebook posts because it is actually a good database. Probably way better than their actual fingerprints or criminals databases. I am not sure if you should be terrified or just not care about those announcements.