One of the 'helping out other teams' things I did in Sudan was being on the interview panel for potential Chevening scholars. All incredibly impressive people that worked really hard to get to that point. To be on the cusp of a huge opportunity and then have it snatched away... Unconscionable.
Absolutely right
Again, as with Guardian article, Mahmood's reliance on false/deliberately misleading claims about her "earned settlement" proposals suggests that she knows she can't defend them on the merits, in principle or in practice.
The "immediate access" to social housing is particularly bad misinformation - it's a scarce resource that many people would like but can't access. They're all too ready to believe that immigrants skip the queue. In reality of course they get access only to the housing register, like everyone else.
..the fact Mahmood is using precisely the same sort of deliberately misleading language as Goodwin, Jenrick, Lam and Farage tells us all we need to know about how acceptable/fair she thinks her policies actually are to Guardian readers/the British public.
"would otherwise receive immediate access to welfare and social housing" is BS.
Correct: "after 5 years working in a care home, would be eligible to apply for welfare and social housing on the same basis as the rest of us."
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Deliberately misleading/disingenous.
It is already hard enough to contemplate returning to the UK with non-UK or Irish family members because of the minimum income requirement which so many of us could not easily meet. I may have a British passport but with a German husband I am effectively exiled now. But at least I have a vote again.
We can see the consequences of the lies told by the US and UK about Iraq in 2003 set out in The Guardian article about how EU intelligence agencies and ministers didn’t believe US and UK warnings of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine because of those lies. www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...
An economically, politically and morally bankrupt strategy.
Bad for individuals, bad for families, bad for businesses, bad for public services, bad for integration and cohesion.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
“We cannot say that the United States’ actions are against international law, but we condemn Iran’s retaliatory actions as against international law,” is neither a coherent nor a compelling position.
The acts of defiance can be big or small. Painting over a bigoted piece of graffiti. Running a youth club for refugees in an area that mostly loathes them. Wearing a rainbow flag in an anti-queer neighbourhood.
These acts all accumulate towards something better, I have seen that in action.
Really concerned to hear the Defence Secretary refuse to rule out UK's involvement in future strikes on Iran.
Iraq lessons must be learned.
Further escalation in the Middle East makes us all less safe.
Starmer must rule out UK involvement immediately.
Speaking as a private EU citizen, I am beyond embarrassed that our leaders and representatives criticise Iran while staying silent on the US and Israel. Values are supposed to be universal and if the EU has a point it has to be to defend universal values. That’s my EU.
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 settlement reforms will generate chaos and cruelty if applied in draft form to those already here.
Few people around govt understand the
extraordinary complexity of this new seven/eight track route to settlement, nor why these reforms likely to leave many legal migratnts undocumented after 2030
This looks like an unintentional consequence: that many women will never qualify. I expect the govt to drop the idea that high earners get settlement in 3 years while their dependents wait 10-15 years. But the proposals have deliberate consequences that are hard to fix
www.ft.com/content/ca14...
Obscene.
Also to note - Mahmood is essentially saying that immigration policy should be made entirely for political reasons and those reasons should be what they think their ideal type working class voter believes. Quite literally a policy of pandering.
This is not a reasoned political response. Labour has spent two years making all the voting groups who backed the Greens feel unwelcome and unheard, and now attacks them for daring to back someone else. They believe Labour isn’t listening and Starmer seems determined to prove them right
Yes, the Tories gave the diaspora its voting rights back in 2024 and that went super well for them. Now Labour is messing us around on inter alia ETA for duals, the minimum income requirement, the new immigration proposals and no access to home uni fees from 2028. Let’s see how it goes in 2029.
I think it is all related to a bigger discussion that needs to take place between the UK state, the resident population and UK emigrants about exactly what British citizenship is, could be and should be. Only then will the government and the population begin to understand the UK diaspora.
Here’s a 15-page letter sent by the3million, ILPA and British in Europe last week to the Home Office setting out the problems dual citizens will face. Not content with gaslighting immigrants and asylum seekers to the UK, the HO is now gaslighting its own citizens abroad bit.ly/4cOcZ3Q
Thanks Lisa for your articles. The gaslighting response to stories of people in genuine distress and fear of breaking the law tells us all we need to know about how the UK government views its dual citizens living abroad, many of whom only became duals because Brexit forced us to.
They didn’t care about the economic costs of Brexit & they don’t care about the economic costs of this bats**t crazy plan either (and one has to assume the same is true of Labour and its harmful and cruel immigration policy). As my Reform-leaning brother tells me, (they) are not interested in facts.
This is entirely correct.
It is *also* true of Labour's earned settlement proposals -which while not as extreme/overtly racist as Reform's, would still have precisely this effect for hundreds of thousands of people
Not too late for government to change course
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
🚨 Cabinet Office investigating Labour Together and Josh Simons over campaign to smear journalists
But...ministers overseeing inquiry have received £150,000+ from Labour think tank
Experts and MPs demand 'full independent investigation'
New on D4S: democracyforsale.substack.com/p/revealed-g... 🧵
🦋 Updated | European #PublicHealth on Bluesky:
🦋 European Heart Network @ehnheart.bsky.social
🦋 The Lancet Regional Europe @lancetrh-europe.bsky.social
🦋 European Medical Journal @emjreviews.bsky.social
🦋 EuroHealthNet @eurohealthnet.bsky.social
go.bsky.app/K2JB6CN
Anger over new Home Office rules requiring British dual nationals to use British passports when travelling into their home country from next week.
First Guardian storyon subject read by 1.3m readers, suggesting the home office communications didn't work.
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Indeed, and that can be very useful when you are British and everybody thinks Brits can't speak anything other than English. I’ve had some fun meetings in my career where the others in the room worked from that assumption.
Absolutely! I was studying Russian at uni in the UK and my Polish friends were like, why?
