The problem with the rhetoric, as far as I've read, is not that it's directly calling for the people coming over to be killed or maltreated. The repeated rhetoric is using language which dehumanises people travelling to the UK. And this rhetoric has been coming directly from the top of government.

As soon as you refer to it as a collective and use labels such as "an invasion", and somehow get it across that they are moving as an orchestrated group with mal-intent then it's easier as a government to swing opinion that you are dealing with "a thing" rather than a diverse and disjointed group of people from different places.

Other, darker corners of the UK press have been using terms such as "rats" and other even less palatable collective terms.

This is where the undeniable comparison with the 1930s Germany comes in because that's how the seed was sown about the Jewish population.

For the avoidance of doubt, it was a tweet that criticised the language of the Home Secretary at the dispatch box in the House of Commons. He didn't "spew this crap on his BBC show". To be fair, it wouldn't really fit on MOTD...

I just don't see how they're "dehumanised", at all. This is one of the favourite words of the woke left, along with "erasing" and "denying my humanity", when it's just a simple disagreement.

They're not "travelling to the UK", they're illegally attempting to move to the UK, there's a world of difference there.

Being against this particular process has nothing to do with the "humanity" of these people. The government isn't denying it or calling them "rats".

It's a question of not wanting open borders and more immigration, particularly 3rd world immigration, generally because of cultural divergence, which is a widely popular opinion held in the UK (and pretty much everywhere else in Europe/US/Japan/South Koreea etc).

I never said otherwise. In my opinion, his tweet was stupid, one can disagree with the government's position without accusing them of being Nazis, but since he didn't say it on his BBC show, I personally don't think this should affect his employment.

Whichever way you chop it, the similarities are there: Don't refer to them as people, use the word "invasion" instead.

Flapping about whether it's "leftie" or "woke" is all a bit pointless. It is what it is, and it's having the desired effect. People get hysterical when immigration is mentioned. Job done.

Seeking asylum is not illegal, neither is seeking it in a different country to the first safe one you enter. The Tories are currently trying to make asylum seeking illegal unless you are invited and arrive by plane with all your documents filled out nicely in triplicate and your passport, birth certificate, etc., even if it's a bit charred or blood spattered.

Correct. That's why I said "Other, darker corners of the UK press have been using terms such as "rats" and other even less palatable collective terms."

Really? Perhaps the UK should have thought about that in the 50s and 60s when the UK was crying out for immigration from all the corners of the globe.

The real reason for the shouty government angle is two-fold. Firstly, they have squeezed the budgets for immigration so much that there are now 160,000 people awaiting processing whereas the real numbers of incoming immigrants have only increased relatively slightly since the mid 2000s (see my graph that I posted a few pages back). Secondly, the government is crashing on every. single. policy. and its popularity is through the floor. This tantrum over immigration is a last-ditch attempt to win over votes. Unfortunately it would seem that even this bill is making all but the most ardent xenophobe balk at it.


I get that, however he didn't accuse anyone of anything, Nazi or otherwise. His tweet just drew comparisons with 1930s Germany, which, if you read the Bill and listen to Braveman at the dispatch box, the 1930s mood music is definitely on point.

Nonsense. Learn some history, the Nazis weren't complaining about invasions.

Woke, not leftie. Wokeism deals with imaginary oppression, in this case, imaginary "dehumanising", which of course, nobody's actually doing. "Dehumanising" means depriving someone of all positive human qualities.

Asylum? From Albania? Traveling from France?

I remember a time when asylum had a meaning, it was for rare cases, political dissidents like Rushdie, someone personally persecuted by some regime.

Now it appears that Western Europe is ripe for any claim whatsoever of "asylum". In reality virtually all these people are economic migrants, so much is clear.

Legal migration for many meant enduring years of visas and work permits and point systems and 4am queues around some office and bureaucrats making up new criteria on the fly.

But now apparently you can waltz in, sorry, boat in, and Bob's your uncle, the government will put you up in a hotel. No shortage of dummies defending the practice and calling everyone who opposes this clearly hare-brained, unsustainable scheme, a hysterical Nazi.

Sorry, I didn't realise they were forever bound by the 50s policy. My bad. You win this one.

'Asylum? From Albania? Traveling from France?'

well yes, there is a problem there. But the new rules will affect everyone coming to UK, from Syria, Afghanistan, and parts of Africa, etc. And that is including children and non.accompanied children. ALL, not 'just' Albanians.

I remember you being very concerned about 'generalised Swiss xenophobia'.

You wrote "I remember a time when asylum had a meaning, it was for rare cases," so how old are you? There were 1.8 million looking for a home in another country in 1951.



Edit: If you want to go further back there was the 1845 potato famine in Ireland that caused about a million asylum seekers, most of whom found a new home in America. That was before Castle Garden and Ellis Island, so those that survived the journey just had to disembark in a US port, usually in Manhatten; happier times.