Starmer's Downing St and others reportedly unconvinced that splashing the Daily Telegraph with No Compromise messages on immigration was the best first response to the Green win. (Observer)

Reform have a bigger problem than they recognise - if the question "who can stop the 30% opposition party" is a dominant theme from Caerphilly to Gorton and beyond NB: ironic LibDems have an advantage in electoral geography, as can defend 70+ local pluralities on more or less any national share

There is an artful rhetoric to how Farage pretends to have just discovered the Commonwealth francise with "I have checked this out legally and I am right"

Much stronger case for Scandi countries to learn from Britain on integration - if judge by educational outcomes for children of migrants, inclusion as a norm in professional & public life, longterm more contact & reduction in prejudice (despite 2020s polarisation) www.thetimes.com/world/europe...

Can't stop laughing at a story my friend told me yesterday about going to meet a work contact at the gates of Trinity. He went up to another waiting man and said "Are you Michael?" "Yes" "Will we go for a coffee?" "Sure." Over a coffee he realises it's not the Michael he's meant to be meeting.

I think the logical and likely response is that bourgeois supporters (who make up most Labour MPs, members and voters) will sacrifice Mahmood over migration.

Lucy Powell says the government's proposals om settlement proposals - doubling + tripling how long it takes those on a visa to be permanent or get citizenship - were unpopular, saying that ethnic minority voters who think border control does matter don't think the government's changes are fair

Yes, it will increase long-term. Very roughly 100,000 by 2030 and 150,000 by 2035 I think as EU national emigration falls and fewer graduate visas expire. Higher if asylum seeker numbers remain at current highs (I expect them to fall sharply, they usually follow EU trends but a few years later).

Net migration in 2025 was about 160,000. That headline 2025 net migration figure will come out in May: it will clearly be significantly below the 205k for the year to June 2025 (est range: 130-180k) as 2025 visa data is now published. But the 2026 figure is likely to show negative net migration.

The Observer reports that cohesion minister Miatta Fahnbulleh, and health secretary Wes Streeting among those ministers who think settlement reforms need rethink. Neither comment publicly. Home Office keep conflating the asylum + the settlement changes observer.co.uk/news/politic...

I asked Reform this last night, and was told Irish nationals would not be disenfranchised as part of this policy.

"Under a Reform UK government, only British citizens will be able to vote". Nigel Farage has proposed this morning made a call which obvs entails disenfranchising Irish nationals as well as Commonwealth nationals. I have asked him if that is his intention and his policy now. x.com/Nigel_Farage...

Inference of Farage's language will be to disenfranchise Irish nationals as well as Commonwealth nationals But he may say he sees Irish + Asian voters differently Farage/Yusuf's policy is to strip non-Europeans of permanent settled status, retrospectively, but let Europeans keep settled status.

Having considered for 48 hours the best way to protect the autonomy, the equal voice and the equal right to cast a secret ballot of south Asian women at the polling station, Nigel Farage has concluded it is important to "go further" and to disenfranchise as many Asian women [+ men] as possible

That whole "we can rebuild our ties with the Commonwealth to be stronger after Brexit" disappeared quickly, didn't it?

Reform lost heavily (by 5000)+would have lost (more narrowly - 1000-1500) if no voters born abroad Reform would have won if disenfranchised all ethnic minority voters, or disenfranchised all voters aged under 45, or all uni graduates. But Farage only calling to disenfranchise Commonwealth voters

Nigel Farage is saying the by-election - which Reform was defeated 41% to 29% by Green Party (14,980 to 10,578) was "stolen". Not "fraud" but on Reform calculating the % of eligible voters born abroad: Farage says it is "shattering news" that naturalised citizens + Commonwealth nationals can vote

I spoke to the Independent about the Home Secretary's strident insistence that it would be a mistake to change anything in this government's voice or policies about immigration, asylum or settlement after a by-election defeat to the Green Party www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

Can Labour get past vibes-based triangulation [not same as Reform or Greens, don't lurch left or right] to substance of centre-left content on key issues? Somewhere betw Greens & Reform contains at least a dozen varieties of social democracy, democratic socialism, most of liberalism & centreright

The Iranian FA president reported to have said on television that the county's participation in the World Cup is "unlikely'. Iran are due to play New Zealand, Belgium and Egypt in Los Angeles and Seattle in June. FIFA say they are monitoring the situation. www.sportbible.com/football/foo...

US president Trump says Iran's Khamani was killed in air strikes today. No confirmation yet from inside Iran, the BBC reports. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Labour Minister Josh Simons has resigned from the government today www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

There were over 1500 signatories from Gorton and Denton among the 350,000 signatures on the two parliamentary petitions against the new 10+ year settlement rules committees.parliament.uk/committee/32...

Can anybody give any coherent account of what Kemi Badenoch means in her first sentence: in what way did Labour’s "mass harvesting of Muslim community votes""come back to bite them" and so help the Green Party to win the Gorton and Denton by-election?

10 years would be mainly people doing high-skilled jobs and earning under £50,270 (and not in a public sector payscale job in healthcare or education). Mainly scientists and engineers, some accountants, vets, graphics designers.

It's 15 years for most medium-skilled workers. Only those who earn over £50,270 would qualify in 10 years I believe. Which isn't very many. Just really ship and hovercraft officers, and I guess sportspeople. Sales accounts and business development managers if that occupation gets downgraded.

The DV report of three dozen cases of contact inside polling stations has been turned into an absurd narrative of "fraud" Is the idea that Asian women are shy Goodwin/Yusuf deportation fans coerced to vote Green? Or were young people pushed Green by community elders despire identifying as Labour?

Greens had clear majority of 4400 because split the white British voters pretty evenly with Reform (a third each, Reform slightly ahead, with big contrast by age & education, Labour down to 1/4) then won over half but under 2/3 Asian voters (a local swing from Lab in July 2024, another one now)

This is a reasonable criticism of Labour and Reform and media language. The Green local canoaign had elements of community politics that parties should eschew & avoid, like Tory local campaigns in Harrow & Leicester & Dudley, and Labour local canpaigns in Yorkshire and Lancashire, Midlands & beyond

Also reality: the Greens won because of a wholesale transfer of large numbers of basically, every type of Labour voter imaginable, for both ideological and practical reasons.

Reality: clear to the dogs in the street that parts of the Green campaign were grubby in, frankly, the typical way that Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative campaigns in multi-ethnic contests often are.

Very clear that for Starmer, 'sectarian voting' is when British Muslims don't vote Labour, and for many others, it is just when British Muslims vote.

'Isn't really that much evidence' is very kind indeed. The maths just ain't mathing, as they say.

How many people on a 5 year route now could the settlement reforms affect? Up to 2.2 million - but some people will get 3 or 5 year routes. Others don't want to stay. Several hundred thousand won't be able to settle. Oxford briefing on those impacted migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/co...

About 16-25% of minority voters consistently vote for right of centre parties (though minority Tories more loyal to Cons, more Reform-sceptic). To claim Lab/Green switchers in Gtr Manchester prioritise cutting immig over challenging racism is v implausible, for Muslim Green & white Green voters

When 232,000 people and 107,000 people signed two petitions about the settlement reforms - against principle of retrospective application- and over 150,000 people responded to the consultation, it came up on the Denton & Gorton doorstep because its obvs a big issue in a hundred constituencies

This is partly the result of a media culture that has a) tended to treat migration policy as though there is one button marked ‘get tough’ and the only question is how hard a government will press it and b) failed to understand how far immigrants and Brits are not always discrete groups.

Tom Baldwin's "Let Keir be Keir" piece for what to do in March + April to try to survive in May says the Prime Minister, having experienced the downsides of overcompensating in a pitch to the populist right, is aware of the danger of overcompensating to the left www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

As I understand it, the answer is Yes - because their parents are economic migrants, So working-class children aged 7 should face hurdles & barriers to secure status, family security & educational opportunity that affluent classmates & those in private schools will not

Yes, anyone moving back to the UK with a foreign spouse in future will be affected by these proposals too. They gave family visas a 5 year discount but still applied every other change to them.

The actual details will never make it through the *perception* that my own, or my own relatives' status is at risk. I got my winter fuel payment, but I wont forget that it might be withdrawn next year (and im one of those who does not need it)

Hate to be a pedant, but there's no way the Conservatives haven't done worse in a Northern Ireland election where they regularly get one percent

Kemi Badenoch reflects on the worst Westminster constituency result in the history of the Conservative Party

Matthew Goodwin pledges to run in the 2029 general election. While Manchester is "in his blood" - reflecting a focus on prioritising ancestry over birthplace - he is more likely to stand in the East Midlands or south of England than to choose a Manchester constituency again

Plans to make refugee a status of perpetual limbo will do nothing to stop people who need help seeking it nor make it possible for them to rebuild their lives and contribute. I call for humane and effective asylum reforms because I am true Labour, not blue Labour. www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Triangulating "open borders" of Greens & mass deportations of Zia Yisuf is a standard if banal rhetorical device of every immig speech since 2001 but that is a v wide space! This Stamer/Mahmood administration (to May 2026? Beyond?) and/or contenders to lead next Labour govt face some key questions

Since its the unpopularity of her immigration reforms with party opinion that mean Shabana Mahmood is almost certainly unable to run in any leadership contest, would those who do want to be leader stick to the current approsch, more quietly, or change course? bsky.app/profile/sund...

Several canvassers say the *settlement* reforms (make over a million voters wait 10-15 years for settlement, not 5, is a top of mind concern for those affected & friends, family A basic fallacy in Home Office citing more in common polling on asylum reform - a different issue - and net migration

Naz Shah has been a fierce critic of Biraderi clan networks & fought Galloway in Bradford There are important distinctions to be made about what is "sectarian", what is improper influence, and what is voter dissatisfaction - & indeed more split views by generation bylinetimes.com/2026/02/27/n...

I think it fails to understand the coalition of voters that just voted Green, and why. And as usual you won’t get very far by implicitly slagging off the voters. The Green voter coalition was your coalition five minutes ago.