The Conservatives are at war with themselves again

[andrewducker]

The Conservative Party is once again at war with itself.

This time, the "We Hate Foreigners*" part of the party, are saying that the government needs to go ahead with dumping people in Rwanda, even if it means breaking our treaty obligations. And the "Trading with our partners for maximum profit" wing would rather like it if we didn't break all of our treaty obligations and blow up our relationship with our trading partners.

And it seems ever more obvious that the UK would be better served by having at least 6 major national parties, so that people who would like "A lot of profit please, without setting up concentration camps" had someone to vote for**, and the more sensible parties could try and make things work between them. But that would mean reforming the system, and the chances of any of the major parties backing that seems terribly distant.


* Just the poor ones, of course.
** Although Labour are currently capturing that ground quite nicely

Comments

[dewline]

I think the "We HATE (Poor) Foreigners" wing considers breaking treaty obligations to be a bonus goal in itself. In Canada as in the UK.

Thankfully, Canada has at least three sensible national parties to go up against two separatist and two fascism-crazed outfits right now.

[calimac]

Rwanda? WTF?

I must have missed something here. Why would they send them to Rwanda? Is this like Ron DeSantis sending asylum seekers to Massachusetts?

[cmcmck]

As ever, the Tories are doing what it says on the tin.

When was it ever different?

[lilysea]

Which party in Britain is

"Britain should take as many refugees as it can provide suitable housing and appropriate medical care for (as decided by the relevant experts), but not more than that" ?

[andrewducker]

It's another horrific plan to avoid dealing with our international obligations: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-61782866

[andrewducker]

I'm sure that at least one is justifying their awfulness in that kind of way.

It looks like the number of asylum seekers to the UK is around 0.1% of the UK's population. Or, absolutely not worth worrying about.

[channelpenguin]

I'm not sure the UK could manage that seeing as it seems to have no desire to provide same for the existing residents, nor any party with workable (or any) plans to achieve this.

(PS, I'm for taking in people escaping horrible places, seeing as I'd like that option myself if I needed it - though I did already "escape" to Germany, where it's a little bit less awful - thus far. And as Andy says, asylum seekers are a tiny number)

[benicek]

Sadly not confined to the U.K. https://www.flickr.com/gp/26093461@N00/m52q2p9S2y

[bens_dad]

What really annoys me is that they are trying to sell this as a way to stop the migrants drowning in small boats as they try to cross the channel to get here.

If they don't want them to come by boat, let them apply for asylum at any British Embassy or Consulate.
The system is (presumably) computerised so the decision doesn't need to be made by a local official; they just issue or stamp the appropriate pieces of paper once the home office have decided (which at the current rate will be months or years).

Oh and are we advertising in the countries of origin telling them they will be sent to Rwanda ? It is supposed to be a deterrent; that wont work unless they know before they get in the boats.

[channelpenguin]

On the 1st point, presumably, because the sales pitch does not reflect reality - they really want these people NOT TO COME AT ALL. So your 2nd point becomes relevant.

But this is politics, not logic.

And the UK population, having a pretty shit life and getting poorer (and feeling it) is going to be fairly vulnerable to any suggestion that a few thousand more people in the country will make things worse. I expect the reality is that even many hundreds of thousands would make no difference at all, given the philosophies and policies and actions of the majority of the political parties and of those funding (and this largely controlling) them.

[captainsblog]

Are your Tories breaking out in fistfights on live television yet?

Because that's where our Republican dick-measuring contest has gone the past few weeks.

[andrewducker]

Not that I've noticed. We can but hope.

[danieldwilliam]

Why send them abroad? Because the current government has spent a lot of time telling folks that refugees arriving by dinghy are the same as economic migrants and that all their problems are caused by economic migrants. They haven't done anything to actually stop refugees arriving by dinghy because those things cost money or involve talking to the French (who the government has spent a lot of time telling people are the cause of all their problems.) So we have many tens of thousands of badly but expensively housed refugees and more arriving all the time and something needs to be done with them.

However, being able to point at refugees arriving and shout "Be afraid! These people will steal your jobs and eat your babies." is electorally quite useful, so the current government won't stop doing it.

Why somewhere unpleasant and in Africa? Because the the government has spent a lot of time telling people that the refugees are evil and sending them somewhere unpleasant and far away is exactly what they deserve.

Why Rwanda? I think because Rwanda was the lowest technically compliant bid.

The next government I think will solve the problem by quietly not talking about it for six months, then quiety adding a bit of extra funding to the asylum processing budget for a year and then quietly announce in about two years time that the number of unprocessed asylum seekers has fallen and we can close some of the substandard housing facilities we've been using and everyone will wonder what magic they have wrought.