Alasdair Mackenzie

@alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social

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Immigration and asylum law. All views my own. Also left politics, climate, cats. 🧡💚@AlasdairMack66 on the bird app. He/him. "Lawyers have hitherto only interpreted the law. The point however is to change it."

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A catastrophe explicable only by a fundamental lack of belief that migrants are actually people with rights that require respecting. Also, Labour’s response to this report will tell us a whole lot about their approach generally www.theguardian.com/uk-news/arti...

Conditions at UK immigration removal centre ‘worst inspectors have seen’www.theguardian.com Report found ligature points previously used in suicide attempts at Harmondsworth had not been removed

Think you’ll find the Rwandans have spent it all on military hardware and phone-tapping equipment www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

UK looking at what money can be recouped from Rwanda schemewww.bbc.co.uk The Tory government had already sent £220m to Rwanda as part of the deportation scheme, which is now being scrapped.

So to sum up: if you can’t prove your identity, you can’t vote, but you can stand for election www.theguardian.com/politics/art...

Reform UK under pressure to prove all its candidates were real peoplewww.theguardian.com Doubt raised about election hopefuls who stood without providing photos, biographies or contact details

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Alasdair Mackenzie

Listening to James Timpson's interview, it is clear that he would like to see a sea-change in sentencing policy. That will not be his remit, but if the new PM supports such a change, I think it would have very significant ramifications for our political culture. Let me explain. /1

And they’re off! Here go the Tories already trying to make next five years about exactly how vile we can be to migrants. (“Whatever it takes” in this context of course meaning “set fire to the ECHR and Refugee Convention”.)

This is very good on the challenges facing the government, its prospects of meeting them and the possibilities if/when it doesn’t www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

James Butler · What’s a majority for?www.lrb.co.uk The holding pattern is over: Starmer now has the opportunity to ‘roll up his sleeves’, as he has so often said he...

Not feeling much atm. Glad the Tories have gone ofc. Happy that (barring the mother of all u-turns) the Rwanda scheme is toast. Worried what Labour will do instead. Don’t think Labour have solutions for the crises we face more broadly. Apprehensive generally for the future.

Theresa May rewarded with a job for life, for Windrush, go-home vans and lying about cats www.theguardian.com/politics/art...

Sunak’s chief of staff and Theresa May among Tory peerages in dissolution honourswww.theguardian.com Close Sunak ally Liam Booth-Smith elevated to Lords while Keir Starmer nominates eight retiring MPs

Hard to tell, isn’t it, but what if there was a class of highly paid professionals able to determine what appears in the news and pressurise politicians over it

Fantastic news, now do everyone else

Given that the most basic scrutiny has revealed Farage to be brittle, sulky, conspiracy-minded and determined to insult everyone’s intelligence, you have to wonder why no-one tried it before

Shady globalist forces are undermining Nigel by paying an actor to speak in exactly the same way as his actual candidates, and forcing him to appear on Question Time every week www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Nigel Farage challenged over canvasser's racist slurswww.bbc.co.uk The Reform UK leader defended his party after footage appeared to show an activist making racial slurs.

“If we want even a modicum of democracy, equality, fairness and a functioning state, we need not the accommodation with economic power that Starmer seeks, but the mother of all battles with it.”

Timid measures of the kind Labour proposes won't stop the rise of a new oligarchy. Instead we need a political and economic programme of the kind that General MacArthur oversaw in Japan. This week's column. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Things are not going to get better as long as oligarchs rule the roost in our democracies | George Monbiotwww.theguardian.com If we want the kind of fair, functioning state Britain saw post-1945, we need to take on the economic powers that wrecked it, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

“Do with them”, “process them”, “put them on planes” - judging by the language, it doesn’t seem to have entered anyone’s head that they are talking about human beings rather than packages www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cq...

BBC election leaders debate live: Sunak and Starmer clash over borders, tax and genderwww.bbc.co.uk There were heated exchanges between the Conservative and Labour leaders in one of the last set-piece events of the election campaign.

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Alasdair Mackenzie

‘Bristol is a deeply divided city, socially, ethnically and culturally. The leafy villas of Clifton look down on much poorer zones below, with areas marked by extreme poverty, drug use and homelessness.’ John Foot on Bristol’s Green wave: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/ju...

John Foot | Bristol’s Green Wavewww.lrb.co.uk Under the UK’s grotesque electoral system, a national breakthrough by a small party is more or less impossible. But in...

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Alasdair Mackenzie

State-organized murder. And make no mistake, those who advocate pushbacks to France mean something very like this.

Greek coastguard threw migrants overboard to their deaths, witnesses saywww.bbc.co.uk More than 40 people are alleged to have died as a result of Greek coastguard actions, BBC analysis reveals.

Excellent stuff in the Labour manifesto about ending indefinite detention, reducing Home Office fees, scrapping minimum income requir oh no that’s the 2019 one

Treating migration as a “problem” to be “solved” by “decisive” government action, all choreographed for the benefit of the S*n, is the exact same motivation as led to the Rwanda plan. These proposals legitimise far more malign measures in future. This is the true Tory enabling.

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Alasdair Mackenzie

‘The popular early support for the war in Italy was not to be mentioned; the areas of Italian society that supported fascism, or at least did not oppose it, were largely ignored.’ John Foot on the surprising persistence of the ‘good Italian’ stereotype: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

John Foot · Captain Corelli’s Machine-Gun: Italian Counterfactualswww.lrb.co.uk The unmistakable – and powerful – stereotype of the ‘good Italian’ permeates the perception of Italian behaviour...

Safe country update Rwanda’s top UK diplomat oversaw use of Interpol to target regime opponents

Rwanda’s top UK diplomat oversaw use of Interpol to target regime opponentswww.theguardian.com Exclusive: Johnston Busingye formally appointed days after UK agreed Rwanda asylum deal with Paul Kagame in 2022

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Alasdair Mackenzie

the soft pivots have begun. that's fine, nobody gets everything right. but for the record: you didn't need clairvoyance or irrational pessimism to worry that a campaign beginning with a defense minister promising to engineer a famine might end somewhere bleak from Oct 9: www.pbs.org/newshour/wor...

Israeli defense minister orders 'complete siege' on Gaza after Hamas surprise attackwww.pbs.org Israel’s vaunted military and intelligence apparatus was caught completely off guard, bringing heavy battles to its streets for the first time in decades. Israel formally declared war on Sunday, porte...

The next few weeks is just going to be endless idiotic babble from the main parties, aimed at racist pensioners, while anyone wanting policies addressing the real issues we face as a country/ species is scolded as unrealistic or divisive by people who wanted a second referendum

A further thought on this case - this child *did what the Home Office say they want him to do* - he didn’t travel clandestinely or take a small boat, he made an official visa application to come here - and the HO’s response is refusal, delay while his appeal's heard, & then these miserable excuses

The Home Office just told an Immigration Judge that a traumatised Afghan 13-yr-old, living by himself in a Middle East country, doesn’t need to come to the UK to be reunited with what’s left of his family, because he can enjoy family life with them via WhatsApp

OK it’s great Labour say they won’t do Rwanda, but there are so, so many things they could do - on safe routes, legal aid, right to work, culture of disbelief etc - to make the asylum system better, rather than just expanding police powers & banging people up for the approval of the right wing press

Starmer pledges to rip up Rwanda scheme and tackle people smugglingwww.theguardian.com Labour leader to promise to divert £75m to fund specialist force against smugglers using counter-terror powers

“The lives of hundreds of thousands of people were already in jeopardy – and now, with the current fighting, even more are at risk.“ www.msf.org/sudan-msf-wa...

Sudan: MSF warns of catastrophic malnutrition crisis in Zamzam camp amidst escalating violence in North Darfur | MSFwww.msf.org As fighting escalates around El Fasher in North Darfur, Sudan, MSF warns of a catastrophic malnutrition crisis in Zamzam camp.

Very interesting that the Rwandans are confirming they only have space to receive 200 refugees atm, with vague plans to expand capacity in future - lots of numbers have floated around but never been concrete www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-poli...

Rwanda won't guarantee how many migrants it will take from UKwww.bbc.co.uk Government spokesperson Yolande Maloko also feels Rwanda has been

Braverman is a key reason why the Tories are so utterly toxic and unpopular, and the only reason Sunak is pressing ahead with eg Rwanda is to try to keep people like her on his side. The idea she doesn’t need to own these defeats herself is laughable. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-poli...

Sunak needs to own Tory defeats and change course, says Bravermanwww.bbc.co.uk Tories lost nearly 500 councillors, 10 councils and the West Midlands mayoralty in the elections.

If true that people are to be detained well ahead of any flights, for electoral advantage, it is, let’s say, not immediately obvious how that would be a proper purpose or therefore a lawful use of the Home Office’s powers

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Alasdair Mackenzie

Exclusive: Home Office civil servants are “running away” from roles linked to the Rwanda scheme, insiders have said There is internal frustration over attempts to implement the government’s plans, which civil servants called "unworkable" and "a shit show" inews.co.uk/news/politic...

Inside the Home Office Rwanda revolt as officials run from Sunak’s ‘s**t show’inews.co.uk 'This law is unworkable, not just inhumane'. Insiders say there is 'a lot of discontent' in the Department over the scheme