5 ms·

> There has been no violence at any of the previous marches iirc. His last protest was in september, it was pretty violent. 26 police officers were injured. T

> There has been no violence at any of the previous marches iirc. His last protest was in september, it was pretty violent. 26 police officers were injured. Tommy robison has the advantage here in that its not illegal to express public support for him and his march, unlike palestine action where its very much illegal to do so (hence why there are >2000 arrests) > they have banned 11 people from getting visas because they were "agitators" if this is a march for uniting the british realm why would he need foreigners to speak? Last time Musk incited violent overthrow of the UK government. Which is rich coming from a fucking Afrikaner. > we have people turning up illegally who are carrying out terrorist attacks in the UK regularly...it is a very odd situation. Nice I see what you did there. Everyone immigrant is a terrorist. Look, if people turn up illegally, then its fair to process them fairly and return. There is nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is changing the law so its impossible to do that, unless we pay £300k a year to send 4000 people to an african country. yes, just 4k people, not a year, total. The biggest issue facing the UK is that we have not had a working government since 2007. We also have foreigners people paying people £300 to fire bomb ambulance stations. Its almost like theres a vested interest in fomenting unrest...

graemep 5mo ago
> His last protest was in september, it was pretty violent. 26 police officers were injured. Given the number of people involved, that is a pretty low level of violence. > unlike palestine action where its very much illegal to do so (hence why there are >2000 arrests) Specifically the arrests were for supporting a group banned as a terrorist group. I am opposed to that law, but its important to be clear why they were arrested. > if this is a march for uniting the british realm why would he need foreigners to speak More fundamentally, visas are issued at the discretion of the government. I can think of people with far better cases for entering the country who have been refused visas - for example, academics attending conferences. I wonder how many of the people protesting about these 11 people getting visas were upset about those? > unless we pay £300k a year to send 4000 people to an african country. yes, just 4k people, not a year, total. That is just £75 a year per person. it is a LOT cheaper than keeping them in the UK. I think they get something like £50/week if not in catered accommodation. > Look, if people turn up illegally, then its fair to process them fairly and return. There is nothing wrong with that What is wrong with the current process is that it is slow and inefficient. There is also a problem with what to do with those who do not have documents as its hard to return them without evidence of where they should be returned to. It is also grossly unfair as it actually lets in a lot of people who have no real claim while a lot of people who are genuine refugees cannot get here: look at the ratio of people belonging to religious minorities vs majority from Iraq or Syria. In 2025 there were over 2k asylum claims from Sri Lankans, a safe country (the civil war is long over). There are a lot of other countries I am sceptical about but do not have the same direct knowledge of. Why not send people who are clearly from a safe country back immediately? > The biggest issue facing the UK is that we have not had a working government since 2007 I think that is optimistic. I would put the date a lot earlier!
- KaiserPro 5mo ago
  > That is just £75 a year per person I was of that opinion, alas it was not £300k for 4000, it was £300k _per_ person. double checking again to make sure I am not talking bollocks the spread is 100k-450k per person depending on how you calculate (ie total cost or ignoring upper bounds on people being processed) the NAO says it was expensive: https://www.nao.org.uk/press-releases/the-costs-of-the-uk-rwanda-partnership/ https://www.nao.org.uk/press-releases/the-costs-of-the-uk-rw... Migrant observatory says more expensive: https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries/qa-the-uks-policy-to-send-asylum-seekers-to-rwanda/ https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries... Its was an exceedingly badly designed policy, that meant that it was illegal to process any asylum claims outside of sending people to rwanda. So the actual cost is even higher, because we had to find a fuck tonne of temporary accommodation. Even worse was that we were sending people who were granted asylum to rwanda, not people who failed. It prioritised optics over solving the problem. hence my anger. > Why not send people who are clearly from a safe country back immediately? because it was illegal to process any claims until the Rwanda scheme was up and running. At its height, there could only be 4000 people processed. My friend, I think we both want the same thing, We want fair and legal processing of migrants. We want to make sure that those in need are offered compassion and care, those that take the piss, sent packing. An entire class of commentator and politician decided that performance was more important than delivery, and we end up where we are. The _most_ annoying thing is that it drives a wedge between people who would otherwise normally agree.
  - graemep 5mo ago
    Ok, £300k per person is ridiculously expensive. With regard to sending people back to safe countries immediately, I do not mean as part of the Rwanda scheme, but in general. i.e. if someone from a country that is known to be safe claims asylum why not just immediately refuse them? I agree what the vast majority of people want is a fair and efficient system. I think there are two things going on as well as the focus on optics rather than reality. One is that politicians contempt for the hoi polloi is such that they interpret any opposition to immigration as racist. The reality is that it is a lot more nuanced and most people are opposed to some immigration, not all immigration (e.g. skilled vs unskilled, legal vs illegal, etc.). The current government is very proud of having reduced immigration by reducing the number of skilled workers and students entering the country! The other thing is that it is a useful distraction from other issues and a scapegoat.
skippyboxedhero 5mo ago
...but it obviously wasn't. 150k people attended, and a lot of the issues with police are because the police come to this stuff tooled up. The same thing happened with the student loan protests 15 years ago. When almost all of the incidents involve police, that is usually an indication. People outside the UK have been banned from attending because they are "agitators". The reason why Palestine Action is illegal is because they organized terrorist attacks, this protest is not illegal and one of the pro-Palestine groups attending is the largest donor to Labour. Why would foreigners not be allowed to speak? Britain is a diverse melting pot where all peoples can discuss ideas freely. Petty nationalism and xenophobia isn't welcome here. I didn't mention anything about every immigrant. I am saying that undocumented people have entered the country and carried our terrorist attacks. It isn't impossible to fix this, Labour changed the laws to push people back aggressively in 2004 (iirc, it was before the GE). What has changed is the electoral makeup of the UK, there is a massive constituency for as many illegal immigrants as possible. That is fomenting unrest because it involves massive social and cultural change in order to make up for the fact that Labour's support collapsed amongst their core vote. This isn't a complex or unusual situation: these things are happening because people are heavily incentivised. Changing the law is "wrong"...of course, you wonder why we have't had a working government at the same time? Lol. If any of this stuff was actually fixed, it would be very bad for political parties.

graemep 5mo ago

> His last protest was in september, it was pretty violent. 26 police officers were injured. Given the number of people involved, that is a pretty low level of violence. > unlike palestine action where its very much illegal to do so (hence why there are >2000 arrests) Specifically the arrests were for supporting a group banned as a terrorist group. I am opposed to that law, but its important to be clear why they were arrested. > if this is a march for uniting the british realm why would he need foreigners to speak More fundamentally, visas are issued at the discretion of the government. I can think of people with far better cases for entering the country who have been refused visas - for example, academics attending conferences. I wonder how many of the people protesting about these 11 people getting visas were upset about those? > unless we pay £300k a year to send 4000 people to an african country. yes, just 4k people, not a year, total. That is just £75 a year per person. it is a LOT cheaper than keeping them in the UK. I think they get something like £50/week if not in catered accommodation. > Look, if people turn up illegally, then its fair to process them fairly and return. There is nothing wrong with that What is wrong with the current process is that it is slow and inefficient. There is also a problem with what to do with those who do not have documents as its hard to return them without evidence of where they should be returned to. It is also grossly unfair as it actually lets in a lot of people who have no real claim while a lot of people who are genuine refugees cannot get here: look at the ratio of people belonging to religious minorities vs majority from Iraq or Syria. In 2025 there were over 2k asylum claims from Sri Lankans, a safe country (the civil war is long over). There are a lot of other countries I am sceptical about but do not have the same direct knowledge of. Why not send people who are clearly from a safe country back immediately? > The biggest issue facing the UK is that we have not had a working government since 2007 I think that is optimistic. I would put the date a lot earlier!

KaiserPro 5mo ago
> That is just £75 a year per person I was of that opinion, alas it was not £300k for 4000, it was £300k _per_ person. double checking again to make sure I am not talking bollocks the spread is 100k-450k per person depending on how you calculate (ie total cost or ignoring upper bounds on people being processed) the NAO says it was expensive: https://www.nao.org.uk/press-releases/the-costs-of-the-uk-rwanda-partnership/ https://www.nao.org.uk/press-releases/the-costs-of-the-uk-rw... Migrant observatory says more expensive: https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries/qa-the-uks-policy-to-send-asylum-seekers-to-rwanda/ https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries... Its was an exceedingly badly designed policy, that meant that it was illegal to process any asylum claims outside of sending people to rwanda. So the actual cost is even higher, because we had to find a fuck tonne of temporary accommodation. Even worse was that we were sending people who were granted asylum to rwanda, not people who failed. It prioritised optics over solving the problem. hence my anger. > Why not send people who are clearly from a safe country back immediately? because it was illegal to process any claims until the Rwanda scheme was up and running. At its height, there could only be 4000 people processed. My friend, I think we both want the same thing, We want fair and legal processing of migrants. We want to make sure that those in need are offered compassion and care, those that take the piss, sent packing. An entire class of commentator and politician decided that performance was more important than delivery, and we end up where we are. The _most_ annoying thing is that it drives a wedge between people who would otherwise normally agree.
- graemep 5mo ago
  Ok, £300k per person is ridiculously expensive. With regard to sending people back to safe countries immediately, I do not mean as part of the Rwanda scheme, but in general. i.e. if someone from a country that is known to be safe claims asylum why not just immediately refuse them? I agree what the vast majority of people want is a fair and efficient system. I think there are two things going on as well as the focus on optics rather than reality. One is that politicians contempt for the hoi polloi is such that they interpret any opposition to immigration as racist. The reality is that it is a lot more nuanced and most people are opposed to some immigration, not all immigration (e.g. skilled vs unskilled, legal vs illegal, etc.). The current government is very proud of having reduced immigration by reducing the number of skilled workers and students entering the country! The other thing is that it is a useful distraction from other issues and a scapegoat.

skippyboxedhero 5mo ago

...but it obviously wasn't. 150k people attended, and a lot of the issues with police are because the police come to this stuff tooled up. The same thing happened with the student loan protests 15 years ago. When almost all of the incidents involve police, that is usually an indication. People outside the UK have been banned from attending because they are "agitators". The reason why Palestine Action is illegal is because they organized terrorist attacks, this protest is not illegal and one of the pro-Palestine groups attending is the largest donor to Labour. Why would foreigners not be allowed to speak? Britain is a diverse melting pot where all peoples can discuss ideas freely. Petty nationalism and xenophobia isn't welcome here. I didn't mention anything about every immigrant. I am saying that undocumented people have entered the country and carried our terrorist attacks. It isn't impossible to fix this, Labour changed the laws to push people back aggressively in 2004 (iirc, it was before the GE). What has changed is the electoral makeup of the UK, there is a massive constituency for as many illegal immigrants as possible. That is fomenting unrest because it involves massive social and cultural change in order to make up for the fact that Labour's support collapsed amongst their core vote. This isn't a complex or unusual situation: these things are happening because people are heavily incentivised. Changing the law is "wrong"...of course, you wonder why we have't had a working government at the same time? Lol. If any of this stuff was actually fixed, it would be very bad for political parties.