General British politics discussion thread

I would say they probably either have family in the UK or dont speak other European languages apart from English. I think you'll find the UK has quite a number of underdeveloped regions too- the word ghettos should have gone out of fashion in the 1960s. You are right about the unemployment rate has consistently been better in the UK than continently Europe, though after Brexit the labour shortages has contributed to the higher inflation there.

80% of refugees stay in a neighbouring country. Those that transit on do so for several reasons. One they might have friends or family in the country of choice. Or they might have the language as their second choice. Either way it's their choice where they seek asylum, there's nothing saying they have to go to the nearest country.

The UK is not in any way receiving a higher percentage than East European countries. Its just their gutter press make a meal out of it.

I remember about 4 years ago there were loads of cartoons showing what the EU thought the UK would be like after Brexit : they showed photoshopped pictures of large inflatable dinghies carrying lots of refugees from the UK in to the EU.

Interesting that the Refugees still want to go the other way, and are willing to risk and pay with their livres sometimes to do so. Also interesting that unemployment, which was double in the EU compared with the UK, is still considerably higher in the EU than in the UK.

It will take a long time to see if Brexit was a success or not, but one thing for sure, the EU is not the be all and end all. I suppose part of the reason for Brexit, as many in the UK saw it, was to control their own borders more. (the way some in Britain - rightly or wrongly - see it, London, Leeds , Bradford etc are minority British cities now, certainly minority white British but they cannot say that). However, after leaving the EU, the UK has agreed to give France stg £500m over three years to try to get France to control the amount of people leaving there for the UK in small boats. You would think for humanitarian reasons alone the French would be trying harder to prevent people taking to sea in dangerous small inflatable boats for the Channel crossing, without the UK having to pay them stg €500,000,000 to do so.

 You say "The EU's GDP currently stands at 17177bn USD; the UK's GDP currently stands at 3131bn USD"

Thank you for that.

If we take the population of the UK as 67 million approx, and the EU as 447 million approx, then the UK is still doing pretty well, certainly better than the EU per head of population.

You are intentionally being misleading and got called out on it. EU employment rate includes countries that have historically had high unemployment rates. If you want to brag about the UK having a stronger economy than Greece then have at it. Not sure that would have counted as an achievement for the UK in 2012 but standards have lowered I guess.

The refugee argument is always interesting, they want refugees looked after as long as it is someone else's problem! Yes we are in favour of good treatment of the less fortunate as long as someone else takes care of it. The cartoons were a mock of UK citizens travelling to the EU in dinghies, we don't have EU citizens travelling to the UK in dinghies. Many refugees (the vast majority I would guess) stay in France but refugees will naturally spread out to try and find a home. Providing a legal route to the UK for them will stop the dinghies but obviously the important bit is if someone else takes care of it.

Brexit is a failure. The only reason you don't want judgement on it yet is because it is a failure. If people wanted control over immigration from non white countries (since you mention white British specifically) then they shouldn't have voted for less control with Brexit. They had control and have lost a lot of leverage in encouraging France from stopping those people from reaching the UK. Other countries will also leverage immigration laws in return for trade now that the UK is in a weak position.

Given that the UK is having to give France stg €500,000,000 to help try to stem the amount of people fleeing the EU in little rubber boats for the UK, it would appear the UK wants to control the amount of refugees it gets, and to have those refugees it does receive come by car ferry or ship or plane rather than by the much more dangerous means of little rubber dinghies. if you look at London for example, in the 2021 census, London had a population of 8,799,720. Around 37% of the population were born outside the UK. Only 36.8% of the population of London is white British.

Those cartoons of inflatable boats full of refugees leaving the UK for the EU did not turn out to be the case. The rubber boats are still going the other way.

Isn't that just lazy people who don't know how to conserve cheap pasta.

According to the Tories at least.

and

She really is appalling - were they capable of being embarrassed, she would be an embarrassment to her party. But, she's in a constituency that's been Tory for the past sixty years, so she'll stay an MP for as long as she wants to.

Indeed, but it seems that an MP would need to be involved in a fairly bad financial or criminal scandal to be deselected. Simply being an incompetent embarrassment isn't enough (I was going to list all who qualify on that score, but it would be easier to list those who don't). And once you keep being selected in the safe seats, you're guaranteed a job for life - if you want it.

Your assumption would be correct. Someone with knowledge of them was wondering today what Truss was doing giving a speech to a bunch of "far right lunatics".

Was she ever really a Remainer? Seems hard to believe.

The only requirement is that you should toady to the constituency selection committee, and tell them the lies they want to hear. But since that's a requirement for getting selected in the first place, MPs who sit for safe seats generally have these skills in spades.