Thursday, March 18, 2021
UK to take further steps towards becoming popularist dictatorship
Having decided that they are going to legislate to restrict the right to protest, introduce prison sentences for defacing statues greater than those available for somebody convicted of rape, and bring in US-style voter suppression to help them win elections, the UK Tory government took a further step towards a Hungarian-type popularist dictatorship yesterday when they signalled that they are considering plans to send asylum seekers who arrive in the UK overseas to be processed, an idea modelled on a controversial Australian system.
The Guardian reports that Priti Patel, the home secretary, is expected to publish details next week of a scheme in which people who arrive in the UK via unofficial means, such as crossing the Channel in small boats, would be removed to a third country to have any claim dealt with.
Presumably this is an alternative to the prison camp model previously favoured by the government, which punished innocent men, women and children fleeing persecution and war by shoving them behind wire fences in unsanitary huts without any regard to their rights as human beings.
It doesn't help either that the government has cut overseas aid, a decision that will inevitably lead to more asylum seekers. In fact the only solution they appear to be willing to consider at the moment is to build more nuclear war heads. Please show me any problem where nuking somebody is the solution.
Of course it would be expecting too much to believe the Labour opposition will oppose this plan. Their record on civil liberties is as bad as the Tories.
The Guardian reports that Priti Patel, the home secretary, is expected to publish details next week of a scheme in which people who arrive in the UK via unofficial means, such as crossing the Channel in small boats, would be removed to a third country to have any claim dealt with.
Presumably this is an alternative to the prison camp model previously favoured by the government, which punished innocent men, women and children fleeing persecution and war by shoving them behind wire fences in unsanitary huts without any regard to their rights as human beings.
It doesn't help either that the government has cut overseas aid, a decision that will inevitably lead to more asylum seekers. In fact the only solution they appear to be willing to consider at the moment is to build more nuclear war heads. Please show me any problem where nuking somebody is the solution.
Of course it would be expecting too much to believe the Labour opposition will oppose this plan. Their record on civil liberties is as bad as the Tories.
Either way the government is slipping more and more into a little Englander-type mindset in which only the rich and powerful gain, while the rest of us can beg for scraps.
