1/ Another thread on the awful #NationalityandBordersBill: a lot of commentators are saying that the Bill "creates second-class citizens of millions of Britain’s dual nationals" or allows "the Home Secretary" to strip citizenship without warning". As usual the reality's worse...
2/ As is true of left commentators' rhetoric on the "Tory #HealthAndCareBill", the idea that the #NationalityandBordersBill makes "second class citizens of dual nationals", overlooks the problems brought in by #Labour legislation: the 2006 Immigration Asylum and Citizenship Act.
3/ The truth is that the Home Secretary has had the power to withdraw citizenship since 2006. The new legislation "just" ensures that citizenship can be withdrawn without telling them first. This will obviously make it harder for people to challenge. #NationalityandBordersBill
4/ One of the scariest things about the new legislation is not simply that it gives the Home Secretary the power to remove the citizenship of people of dual nationality - this power has been in place since 2006 - Rather...
5/... it gives the Home Secretary to revoke British citizenship who do not have another nationality, rendering them stateless. The key point here is that discretion on whether or not a person has a right to citizenship outside of the UK is placed in the hands of the Home Sec...
6/ To emphasise, it will be possible for the Home Sec to withdraw British citizenship before a person has acquired citizenship in another state, leaving them stateless...
7/ Furthermore, even if the Home Sec believes that a person has a right to citizenship in another state, there's no guarantee that the state in question will agree. This could lead to a person becoming stateless in perpetuity due to the withdrawal of their British citizenship...
8/ More ominous still is what we get when we combine the provisions of the new Bill, with the detail in the 2006 Act, which arguably allows the Secretary of State to withdraw citizenship on political grounds. Here too, the discretion lies with the Secretary of State...
9/ Previously this was balanced by the stipulation of the 1981 Act that a person could not be made stateless, now being removed. So now it is theoretically possible for the Secretary of State to withdraw a person's citizenship on political grounds even if it makes them stateless.
10/10 Once again, thanks to Governments by all mainstream UK parties working in relay, our rights have been steadily removed. And if you think a #Starmer#Labour Government would repeal this, remember Yvette Cooper, Labour's present Shadow Home Secretary voted for the 2006 Act.
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1/ Final long thread for this week. Many people believe the attempt to extradite #Assange to be morally repugnant & based upon legally dubious arguments. Less well understood are the details of the “enabling act” that facilitated it & reduced all of our rights. #FreeAssange
2/ The offending legislation is the 2003 Extradition Act. This was designed to pave the way for new extradition treaties, including, most controversially, the “unequal” extradition treaty with the United States: dumptheguardian.com/politics/2006/….
3/ Somewhat ironically, although it was much criticised at the time, the 2006 Extradition Treaty, under which Assange is being threatened with extradition but the “enabling act” of 2003.
1/ The tide turning against #johnson over #DowningStParty is odd. Yes, it was terrible behaviour but we've come to expect it & his gov. has done much worse without the same scrutiny. So, why now and why over this? #DowningStreetChristmasParty
2/ #Johnson the populist was a useful means of defeating #JeremyCorbyn in 2019. A more obviously "respectable" establishment figure would have struggled* (*see Theresa May). But as Ken Clarke explained in 2019, Johnson is not the establishment's ideal PM telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/…
3/ This isn't because he is unusually venal & corrupt* (*see, for example, most British Govs.) but he doesn't participate in the parliamentary theatre in the correct way: a way that would disguise the fundamental corruption of Britain's ruling class...
1/ Thread: disagree with this. Seems details of the No.10 party have been known by many for a long time. If MSM wanted to pursue it when it was more timely, they could have... voxpoliticalonline.com/2021/12/08/is-… via @MidWalesMike
2/ Plus, the "Johnson is a corrupt liar" narrative is useful as it plays on the "1 bad apple" trope, as does the idea that "the Johnson Government is uniquely bad" and that once normality is restored our problems will go away... #Number10Party
3/ By contrast the horrific Nationality and Borders Bill and #NHSprivatisation legislation making its way through Parliament, exposes the truth about the less-than benevolent intentions of the British state. The #HealthAndCareBill is built upon years of cross-party legislation...
@UrbaneSlave@AhoFrank@Rachael_Swindon 1/ #Starmer's positive personal approval ratings were the cause of a huge amount of complacency when he first became leader. What was overlooked was that, even at the start, they were in decline. There was a collision between expectations and reality...
@UrbaneSlave@AhoFrank@Rachael_Swindon 2/The more he supported the Tories, the lower is ratings got until they tanked completely. I was clear in 2020 that Labour was not benefitting from Tory errors over #Covid_19 due to #Starmer's position of support for the Government. This was ignored to #Labour's detriment.
@UrbaneSlave@AhoFrank@Rachael_Swindon 3/ Bear in mind that the "20 points ahead" argument that advocated #Starmer as leader was based on a real trend of oppositions - particularly Labour - results are worse in real elections than mid term polling. Historically, Government's that are slightly behind go on to win.
1/ Friday morning polling analysis: A lot of people are getting excited about this poll because they think it means Labour may have a chance of winning under #Starmer. Actually, it's a bad poll for the Tories and #Labour. Here's why...
2/ 35% is on the high end of #Labour's polling range under #Starmer this past year but it does not represent a significant uptick in support from what we've come to expect. The really interesting figure is that the Tories are on 33%...
3/ over the past year, Tory polling has been bottoming out around the high 30s and previously reached as far as the high 40s. But the decline in support is real and more recently, they have been polling at the lower end of this range...
1/ This article is everything wrong with @BBCNews and shows why much of its output is propaganda, not journalism. Awful. Going to use this thread to pick it apart piece by piece. It will take a while, so sorry for the gap between posts bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politi…#JeremyCorbyn.
2/ The article - as is usual for the BBC - centres entirely around opinion in the "Westminster village", assuming what a small circle of MPs think is representative of the party and country as a whole. It's the world according to whoever @bbclaurak chose to have coffee with.
3/ This statement goes uncontested: "We're now getting to a position where on the polls we're about even, so that's a step in the right direction." This is false. In the past months, Labour had at points been level with the Tories but it is now consistently 3-4pts behind