Of course we don’t yet know whether to take the Home Office’s latest idea any more seriously than wave machines or Ascension Island, but what seems likely it involves performative viciousness against some of the world’s most vulnerable people 1/ ImageImage
Inhuman & degrading treatment is banned by Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which also bans torture, but the controversial aspect (for the Tories) is the way it prevents people being expelled to die or suffer intensely from physical/ mental illness 2/
The principle that it’s inhuman to send seriously ill people to die or suffer great anguish was upheld recently by our Supreme Court, following a decision of the European Court of Human Rights called Paposhvili 3/
supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-201…
But this has been a frustration to politicians & the Home Office for years because it applies even the person concerned happens to have committed offences, and it’s absolute, ie you don’t balance the harm to the person against any supposed public interest in deportation 4/
So could the Home Office succeed in redefining inhuman treatment? As @SydBolton11 has pointed out, they’ve previously had considerable success in imposing a harsh approach to the right to private & family life on the courts, but 5/
>since there’s no “public interest” get-out or excuse for torture or inhuman/ degrading treatment, there’s less scope for the govt/ parliament to impose their own approach to these questions. And the UK would also be constrained by the views of the European Court, so 6/
>there’s potential for a clash between the UK’s approach and that in Europe - and yes, that may be the whole point.

Either way, the govt seems to have decided to have picked as a potential political battleground the lives & deaths of desperately, even terminally ill people.
7/7
*it* seems likely, sorry

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More from @AlasdairMack66

19 Oct
We regret once again to inform you that your taxes are being spent on misleading propaganda.

It’s important to appreciate just what’s going on here. >
This stat from the video is correct but out of context, bc a) most refugees in Europe don’t arrive via resettlement programmes but “spontaneously” ie independently of govt measures & b) the number taken by 🇬🇧 is a pinprick next to over 26 million refugees in the world in 2019> Image
But this is the real problem: the UK’s focus *isn’t* currently on resettlement - the 5600 accepted under that route compares to more than 13k accepted after arriving independently. So why does the Home Office want you to think this? > Image
Read 5 tweets
15 Oct
Seems reasonable to assume that if @uklabour’s stated reasons for supporting the CHIS (“Spycops”) Bill are as evasive as this piece by @ConorMcGinn (shadow security minister), either they’ve got no proper reasons or don’t want to admit what they are >
labourlist.org/2020/10/voting…
Ok, so starting with this, the behaviour of the security services is already subject to the Human Rights Act, as are all actions by public authorities. The CHIS Bill won’t affect that at all. >
Does this mean undercover sources will cease to be in the shadows? If so, they’re not really undercover, are they? Is that really what the CHIS Bill is trying to achieve? What does Conor McGinn even think he means by this?
Read 9 tweets
20 Aug
Remarkable how this crisis has brought out people whose confidence in commenting isn’t obviously matched by any expertise

This guy for e.g has got 100s of likes & RTs for a vast thread mixing sympathetic on-the-ground reporting with obnoxious generalisations & flat-out untruths
For instance this is flatly false. There is no queue for asylum claims outside the UK which is being jumped.

It is just not true that most people can claim asylum in the UK from abroad (Afghan British Army interpreters had a v specific programme which didn’t even help all of them). That fact (& the difficulty in solving it) is part of the problem

Read 12 tweets
20 Jan
So here’s what happened to my client (let’s call her S) when the Home Office accused her of lying and put her through four years of hell.

S came to the UK to be with her husband. She isn’t a native English speaker & had to do an English language test, which she passed. 1/
A huge row arose in 2014 when the BBC broadcast allegations of fraud in English language testing centres. It seems likely that fraud was happening, but it’s the Home Office’s panicky response which has been criticised & which forms the background to S’s troubles. 2/
In 2012 S took an English test as part of an application to extend her stay. The people at the test centre tried to persuade her they’d do the test for her & she cd pass it off as her own. She refused & did the test properly. In 2015 after the scandal blew up… 3/
Read 14 tweets
3 Dec 19
So, Home Office fees. Labour have announced👇that they’ll reduce the fees for applying to the Home Office to the actual cost of processing the application. Just a quick thread to explain why that’s important, even life-changing, for many people, including kids born in the UK. 1/
2/ In the case @DLPubliclaw tweeted about earlier, we represent a family of 5 (parents + 3 children btw 5 & 9 born in UK). They face a bill of £7665 to stay in the UK (£1033 fee + £500 NHS surcharge per person).
3/ They have no income, about £300 in the bank and are living off the charity of friends.
Read 9 tweets
21 Nov 19
1/13 So, a quick(ish) thread on what Labour have announced on asylum and immigration. Short version: there’s some really good and important stuff in the manifesto. But a bit woolly on detail and some unfortunate omissions.
2/13 Labour will scrap the 2014 Act - that’s the one bringing in the worst parts of the Hostile Environment, including checks by landlords or banks. This is course good and important. They make sure to remind us that the LibDems were responsible for it as well as the Tories
3/13 There’s talk abt strengthening borders & criticisms of Tory staffing cuts - will be controversial to many - but IMHO it’s vital to realise how far the Hostile Environment was a way of outsourcing immigration control, to substitute for a properly resourced system
Read 15 tweets

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