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Edwin Hayward Profile picture
@edwinhayward
Feb 26, 2022 • 21 tweets • 9 min read • Read on X
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A thread to keep track of all Priti Patel's lies about the visa situation for Ukrainians.

Format: screengrab (in case she disappears the material) + link to original tweet.
Note: to provide important context for Priti Patel's lies, I am also grabbing the tweet(s) that she's falsely responding to.
Yes, there's more. Every time someone makes the same point, Priti Patel responds with the same false information.
People keep trying and trying to make Priti Patel grasp the real situation, but she's having none of it.
Looks like David Lammy really irked her... Priti Patel had a second crack at telling him his correct interpretation of the situation was wrong.
Here is the reality, straight from the Home Office.

Priti Patel shared this BEFORE her rampage of accusing other MPs of sowing disinformation.

Visa process remains THE SAME for Ukrainian nationals without British connections. Zero allowance for the war.
Before they can even subject themselves to the full Hostile Environment that is the UK visa application process (complex forms, masses of support documentation, high fees, biometrics etc.) Ukrainians have to first escape the warzone and the country.

And then apply, and hope!
It's important to be scrupulously accurate: the Home Office has made some modest concessions for 2 groups of people:

- Ukrainians already in the UK
- Ukrainians in Ukraine who have British family concessions

It has done nothing whatsover for the bulk of Ukraine's population.
Here are the rules that apply to the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians (those not in the 2 special groups in the previous tweet).

Taken from the official UK Government advice that Priti Patel linked to when accusing others of spreading disinformation.
gov.uk/guidance/suppo…
We're nearing the end of this horrible, horrible thread, but it's worth noting all the other Tory MPs who are parroting the same false information as Priti Patel (presumably because they haven't read the underlying document).

1. Tim Loughton
2. Ben Everitt

Again, zero recognition that we might want to do something DIFFERENT and SIMPLER at a time of war.

(Like Ireland, for example, which has binned its visa process and put out the welcome mat.)
3. Robert Buckland

(You'll notice he's using the same messy graphic as Ben Everitt - the one which explains that applying for a visa to come to the UK is just as hard as in normal times, only with more staff working on it.)
And finally, in case you're still not convinced and more evidence is needed, here's the official update on the visa situation from the Home Office... which says that Ukrainians can apply under EXISTING IMMIGRATION ROUTES.

In other words, no concessions.
Added: I think this is the most depressing thread I've ever had to post on Twitter, out of more than 114,000 tweets. (And yes, I'm even counting Brexit.)

It has been clear for a long, long time that the Tory government was broken. But not THIS broken. Fractured beyond repair.
IMPORTANT: All the above is based on public info, as of 24 February 2022.

If there's some sort of visa concession scheme for general applicants, it has NOT been made public via normal government channels.

Here are all the documents referencing Ukraine.
gov.uk/search/all?key…
And this is the consequence...
The final insult in this sorry affair?

Boris Johnson touting the UK's role in taking in refugees, and calling out the fake news on the web.

Notice when he starts talking about helping refugees escape using 1,000 troops? They're on the borders of Ukraine.
Added: Here's a PDF copy of the official rules for Ukrainians wanting UK visas, as they were on 24 February 2022.

It's terrible to have to be so paranoid, but it feels impossible to trust the Government not to quietly amend them and retcon reality.
drive.google.com/file/d/1g34PhM…
Added: here's more material about the UK's support for refugees, from a Home Office blog post.

Read the first point. Carefully. Notice how it doesn't make any concessions whatsoever for the fact that applicants will be coming from a country under attack.
homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2022/02/25/hom…
And if reading this thread destroys your last faith in humanity, here's a look at how a civilised country has stepped up and responded. Bravo, Ireland. Bravo.

(Note too that the countries bordering Ukraine are taking HUGE numbers of refugees, no questions asked.)
I have written all the above up as an article on Medium: "Tory Misinformation and Propaganda around UK Visas for Ukrainians"
link.medium.com/Xue2hLodZnb

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More from @edwinhayward

Edwin Hayward Profile picture
Jun 23, 2025
(1/7)

Brexit's impacts haven't vanished.

Prices are higher. NHS waiting lists are longer. Some businesses struggle to hire staff.

These aren't just "post-Covid" or "global issues".

Brexit changed how Britain trades & works. That still shapes daily life.
(2/7)

But people aren’t talking much about Brexit anymore.

Why? Not because it’s fixed. It’s because the connection got blurry.

When problems stack up (energy bills, war, inflation), it’s hard to spot which bit comes from Brexit.
(3/7)

Think of it like this: Brexit built a speed bump on Britain’s road.

Now we drive over it every day. We feel the jolt, but we call it "bad suspension" or "potholes" (cost of living, NHS delays).

We don’t always blame the bump.
Read 7 tweets
Edwin Hayward Profile picture
May 9, 2025
There is no US trade deal.

Despite the performative circus yesterday, Starmer on Zoom in Trump's Oval Office press conference, there is no deal.

All that exists is a document setting out in general terms the parameters of a possible deal.

Everything remains to be negotiated. Image
SOURCE
gov.uk/government/pub…
That explains why two senior Trump staffers talked about chlorinated chicken within minutes of Trump's press conference yesterday: despite what the document says, they know the deal's FAR from finalised.

They see it as a sticking point to be swept away before the Real Thing.
Read 6 tweets
Edwin Hayward Profile picture
May 8, 2025
THREAD: My initial take on the new US trade deal

1. It's not finalised. According to the NYT, months of negotiations lie ahead.

2. Issue of food standards isn't dead yet, according to comments made in Trump's press conference (even though the UK side believe it is!)

1/6
3. Not clear what concessions have been made to the USA on agricultural products but their deal readout suggests a "US$250 million opportunity" for US exporters that wasn't there before.

4. British car manufacturers are better off than this morning, but not than months ago.

2/6
5. UK film industry was not part of the discussion. Starmer said this afternoon at his press conference that if tariffs are imposed in the future that would have to be discussed in the same spirit as other sectors.

6. Britain has agreed to Trump's 10% baseline tariffs.

3/6
Read 7 tweets
Edwin Hayward Profile picture
Oct 21, 2024
Some more experiments with AI music generation. See what you think...

(One video per tweet. Each includes a static image with the song as soundtrack. Links to Youtube versions at end of thread, together with a rundown of the tools I used to produce them.)

1. Humanity Ascendant
Tomorrow's Tomorrow
Technological Progress
Read 5 tweets
Edwin Hayward Profile picture
Oct 20, 2024
Perhaps it's unworkable, but this feels like it would be a fair tax system...

1) Set the tax free allowance so that it is the same as annualised minimum wage, and raise it every year in line with inflation. Do the same for NI thresholds. So someone on exactly the minimum wage will never pay tax/NI. If it's really meant to be the "minimum" people need to live on, then let them keep all of it.

2) No clawbacks of the tax free allowance no matter your income level. Everyone gets the same untaxed band.

3) Eliminate all 100%+ tax situations. Work should always pay, regardless of the combination of salary and benefits you're receiving. Set a maximum (say 75% combined for tax + NI) and fiddle with the tax system so there are no cliff edges that create effective tax rates above that 75%. In other words, if your income from any source increases by £1, you should never gain less than 25p.

4) Tax every source of income exactly the same. EVERYTHING falls under the same regime - salary, dividends, capital gains, etc. - with no loopholes or exceptions. (If expensive tax lawyers are left twiddling their thumbs, you know the revised system is working.)

5) Adjust all the rest of the income tax and national insurance bands above the sacrosanct "no tax/no NI" lowest band to allow for 1) to 4). This will almost certainly require more tax bands and more granularity.

Net result:
- There's a sense of basic fairness across society: everyone earning at or over the annualised minimum wage (regardless of the source of the money) gets to keep at least the annualised minimum wage component of their total income.
- Work always pays, period.
- There's no point at all in trying to optimise how you make money or game the system because all sources of income are taxed exactly the same

Ok, over to you. What do you think? Be gentle, please. It may well be a naive plan, but it's a naive well-intentioned plan.
Added:

I also believe that NI should be eliminated and there should be just one combined tax.

But that's not necessary for anything I've outlined above - it just makes things simpler, especially when you're taxing ALL income from ALL sources the same - so I left it out.
Added: Minimum wage is about £20,500 for a 48-week year of 40-hour weeks.

Removing both the income tax and the NI from that would leave over £2,200 more in the employee's pocket.

(MSE income tax calculator below.) Image
Read 4 tweets
Edwin Hayward Profile picture
Oct 11, 2024
THREAD

As Labour are coming up to 100 days in power, it's good to ponder why their honeymoon was so short, and why they appear to be getting a torrid time from media outlets all across the political spectrum.

I've illustrated what I believe is happening. More below...

1/4 Image
The average person's expectations of the Tories was VERY low. Yet they underperformed even that low bar.

On the other hand, people had high hopes of Labour. The gap between such stellar expectations and reality is wider than on the Tory side - even though Labour are better.

2/4 Image
Dashed hopes can be a terrible thing. Especially after 14 years of despair. So it's hardly surprising that there has been a good deal of negative reaction and pushback.

Labour urgently need to improve their various stances to come much closer to what people expect of them.

3/4 Image
Read 4 tweets

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