Starmer’s anti-asylum policies show how utterly clueless he is about the right-wing media’s role in politics. He’s trying to fix a “problem” contrived by Farage, GB News and The Telegraph. He’ll never win, because ultimately he’s fighting a ghost – he’s fighting something that doesn’t really exist

The Home Secretary says "we have become the destination of choice in Europe, clearly visible to every people smuggler and would-be illegal migrant across the world" That is a factually untrue claim: the Home Office shows that the UK is fifth, getting 1/10 claims, while Germany gets 1/5 claims

This statement not acceptable and I suspect not sustainable. Large majority of public support principle of asylum, support letting people stay permanently. Majority for that among Labour and other progressive parties’ voters is overwhelming. The Reform voters this is aimed at will never vote Labour

Reeves should risk it all on one last roll of the dice. Raise income tax, break the triple lock, slay the deficit, spend the money on the things she believes in. It may not work - but better than waiting for doom to overtake her. open.substack.com/pub/edrith/p...

"The era of permanent protection is over" Is this Labour government really saying it was wrong in principle to let these refugees of the last 75 years to stay, settle and become British - and they believe that should NEVER happen again in principle or practice? www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiuR...

Someone should ask Starmer and Mahmood whether they think the Kindertransport, for example, should have been a return ticket. Whether Alf Dubs, rather than becoming a Labour MP and now Lord, ought to have been sent back with his family to Czechoslovakia once it was liberated from German rule.

Articles from @europeanlawopen.bsky.social have been downloaded over 100,000 times in 2025 🥳 Read innovative research in this #openaccess journal: 🔗 cup.org/43yEjxM #EuropeanLaw #LawSky

“People are blaming republicans for food prices and flight cancellations and health insurance costs and are furious about gilded ballrooms and Gatsby parties and the president is falling asleep on tv and is the most deeply unpopular president in history, time to cave” is a hell of an argument

Panorama made a stupid editing mistake. But compare this to the deliberate and systemic attempt, sustained across years, to ensure that BBC output aligns ever more closely to the demands of economic power. Against your straw of bias, I raise you a haystack.

Absolutely. I would love to be able to listen again to BBC News without despairing at how craven it is to a right wing agenda and language. For instance, persistently mis-describing asylum seekers as ‘illegal migrants’

Which one is more English?

An entire segment of the population is being repeatedly told that ’illegal immigration‘ - which is in fact barely 5% of immigration - is the dominant problem in this country. This is a media-driven phenomenon.

A case study in far right propaganda success. Tory governments run down public services over decades & then the the populist right breeds in ruined communities by scapegoating Black & brown immigrants. Why one small town with very little immigration turned to Reform UK www.bbc.com/news/article...

Farage: epic grifter

It's a very, very large number of people who've just been told to "go home" by HM's opposition. Add their friends, relatives and supporters and you have an enormous chunk of the voting population. Without those people's votes, the Labour Party is finished. It needs to be made to understand that.

To be clear: deportations to increase cultural homogeneity is the text book definition of ethnic cleansing. Demands that come even close to this are so far outside any democratic norm and the rule of law. What has happened to a country when this is not condemned in the strongest possible terms?

“You need to vote for us to stop Reform” is hardly going to work as a campaign slogan when you won’t even criticize a Tory MP proposing things more extreme than Reform (or Enoch Powell, or the BNP), and won’t stand up for the families such proposals threaten.

If Labour cannot denounce mass deportation of permanent residents, Idi Amin style, what is the point of them?

Ah! Good morning, reality. And welcome. We’ve been expecting you…

The key question for broadcast interviews is Has any government done anything like this since Idi Amin? [No] Has any democratic government ever done this? [No] bsky.app/profile/sund...

There is generally a lack of understanding among the UK media and the UK political class as to just how novel [extreme] these policy proposals are in any major democracy (when extend beyond the terms of settlement for legal migrants onto the threat to strip permanent residents of permanent status)

The speed with which fifty years plus of building and enforcing anti-prejudice norms is unravelling at the moment among politics elites is shocking to me. But it is not inevitable: public don’t back this stuff. Because it is wrong. Oppose it. Every time. Whoever says it, wherever they say it.

The politics of the far right does not magically become acceptable when delivered by a young Home counties woman with the right accent and friends.

Apropos of nothing, I really do think UK journalists and politicians need some reminding that mass deportation of LEGAL immigrants, particularly those with permanent status, is far more extreme than even Trump's America and would basically place Britain completely on its own among democracies.

A better answer: replace stamp duty with a smarter tax, that's fairer, doesn't discourage people from moving, and can't be avoided. I'll be writing more about that at the weekend.

On Yom Kippur many Jewish people in Britain have their phones off to mark the holy day. As it ends at 723pm, some will hear the tragic Manchester news for the first time. At that time, please join many of us to send a message of solidarity to British Jews.Thanks Together coalition for proposing.

If you don’t like being called a racist, maybe don’t make a career of saying things that appeal to racists, don’t create a political party that keeps attracting racist candidates, don’t fawn over racist world leaders, and don’t make a convicted racist the guest of honour at your party conference.

Starmer's speech at Labour conference hit the right notes, it definitely upset Farage, but it takes more than words. Labour needs a serious change of direction to combat Reform. So long as he allows Labour's policy agenda to be dictated by Farage he emboldens Reform.👇 www.lbc.co.uk/article/keir...

Such an important corrective to the anti-welfare, anti-disability benefit rhetoric

Krishnan Guru Murthy, "Isn't it a bit insulting to say to an Indian doctor who is working 60-70 hours a week that in order to get settled status he's got to volunteer?" Rachel Reeves, "We want people to contribute if they come to our country" Labour have gone utterly bonkers

Introducing slightly less cruel/damaging version of Farage's plans would not "outmanoeuvre Reform";would be an economic/ political own goal Far better to attack Reform/Tories for Powellite ethnonationalism & say migrants who come here, contribute & *choose* to stay are welcome -and become British.

"You don’t fight the politics of violence by quibbling with the details. You stamp it into a million pieces! You draw a f*cking line!" If Keir Starmer won’t even make a moral case against deporting our friends and neighbours, then what is the point of him?

What on Earth is this? An "in depth" BBC article about free speech in the UK that only cites examples of right-wing/ 'anti-woke' speech being suppressed. How can you mention Lucy Connolly but completely ignore Palestine Action / Just Stop Oil? Gob-smacking. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

So Reform / Farage want to deport hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of UK residents, turning the country into an effective police state, breaking treaties, and impoverishing the economy and health service? Just focus on all that. The moral gutter of politics.

Retrospectively removing indefinite leave to remain would be immoral and economically damaging. It would tear families apart. Attacking it as ‘potentially illegal’ is completely beside the point. Argue with the (awful) idea. Don’t try ’well, actually you can’t do that’.

If Labour and other parties can't find a way to scrutinise, criticise and condemn a policy like this, they give Reform a free ride and make the future less safe & certain for those who come here, work hard and contribute.

This should be an opportunity for the other parties - Reform's proposal is extreme, violates basic fairness norms, and would threaten millions of people who have made their lives here and played by the rules. This approach should be condemned as nasty, unworkable and contrary to British fair play.

A growing number of Labour voices now demanding Keir Starmer start taking on Elon Musk and the far-right. Here Labour MP Noah Law writes for Byline Times on why it's time for the Government to quit Twitter and start treating Musk as the 'foreign extremist' he now is bylinetimes.com/2025/09/15/m...

Such an important insight to hold on to

A rally organised by Tommy Robinson should be a slam dunk for a Labour government. Most people will recognise it as being led by the far right (and will not identify themselves as such). Violence is predictable too. The PMs and ministers should have been ready to respond immediately.

This must be a watershed moment. The government's continued use of X is no longer simply negligent. It is an act of conscious assistance to violent extremism.

plenty of things going against the right globally: Bolsonaro's conviction in Brazil, the defeat of the right wing in Norway's election, the student strikes and Saba Saba protests in Kenya (brutal as the repression there was), the EU's von der Leyen pursuing sanctions and trade suspension for Israel

Radical right accommodation really does not work. New paper out with this exceptionally talented team @katharinalawall.bsky.social @robjohns75.bsky.social @drjennings.bsky.social @sarahobolt.bsky.social @zachdickson.bsky.social @danjdevine.bsky.social & @jack-bailey.co.uk doi.org/10.31235/osf...

Sunder single-handedly outperforming most of the media establishment in his spare time here

3/3 Begin the reclamation of moral authority with a statement condemning the hounding of people seeking asylum and objecting to expressions of patriotism directed against vulnerable people. Set out this government’s more positive vision of Britishness. Before it’s too late.

New symposium out now🎉 Edited by @pashukanist.bsky.social, @nanoboss.bsky.social + me in @europeanlawopen.bsky.social seeks to introduce Marxist approaches to EU law scholarship. Read now 👉 www.cambridge.org/core/journal... 🧵 (1/9) A thread on the symposium (please share!)

If I have to explain to you why it's a bad idea to use a machine that makes shit up 15-80% of the time AND destroys the environment AND contributes to rising fascism and genocide AND puts brilliant skillful creatives out of work by stealing their work, then we're already speaking different languages

Can't fault the clarity of Labour's message on protest. There are BAD protesters who must be punished (Irish musicians, anti-genocide vicars) and there are GOOD protesters whose views deserve respect (masked thugs with petrol bombs trying to start a pogrom)

The 'Joerges issue' just dropped- Law, Conflict and Transformation. Thank you @annabeckers.bsky.social, @vbogoesky.bsky.social, @stevenklein.bsky.social, @annapeychev.bsky.social, @mariaweimer.bsky.social, and others for brilliance and patience. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...