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by scott_w 1470 days ago
Our Home Secretary has just instituted an illegal policy of deporting African and Asian refugees to Rwanda.

Irrespective of the colour of her skin, her actions are those of the far right.

5 comments

"Illegal"? There is no right to settlement of anyone in any sovereign country of which they have no citizenship in. It's entirely dependent on the laws of that sovereign country, and those laws are (usually) in place because of the preferences of the voting constituents, ie, actual citizens of the sovereign nation.

You are throwing around "far right" as a slur in this discussion and that doesn't address facts or the truth of the matter.

The policy addresses refugees which are covered under a number of UN conventions. Deporting them is illegal.

I’ve already explained why it’s far right policy but let me explain in simpler words:

Only black and brown people are sent to Rwanda under this scheme. White Ukrainians are not. That’s why it’s a far right scheme. One might even call it racist.

Her views on immigration are indistinguishable from those of most people in India or Bangladesh. They’d do the same thing if the shoe were on the other foot. And those are definitely not “far right” countries.
There's plenty who think India has drifted to the far-right in the past decade.
What’s happening in India is merely the westernized elite losing their grip on culture: https://unherd.com/2021/04/the-culture-wars-of-post-colonial.... But the desire of Indians to have their country without other people in it goes back to independence from Britain.

Calling it “nativism” would be inappropriate because that would make it seem like a thing that needs a label. To the contrary, that’s just how most societies are. What we need a label for are the small minority of folks who feel the opposite way.

> What’s happening in India is merely the westernized elite losing their grip on culture

It can be both simultaneously.

> the desire of Indians to have their country without other people in it

It's a bit more than that though. I don't think you know enough, sorry.

Feel free to educate me. I’m from neighboring Bangladesh, and the situation with pluralism in India seems like the situation with secularism in Bangladesh. Western educated elites trying to impose it on a larger population that doesn’t want it. Or at least has a vastly narrower conception of it than the elites do.

At the end of the day, Bangladesh exists because Bangladeshis wanted a country for Bangali Muslims. Most Bangladeshis subscribe to that core premise. So it’s bizarre to me when people attack Britons upset about immigration from Bangladesh using accusations of “racism.” The Brexiter and the average Bangladeshi are ideologically on the same ground. Their differences arise due to conflicting interests, not conflicting ideologies.

> The Brexiter and the average Bangladeshi are ideologically on the same ground.

Except you forgot to include the part where Greater Pakistan military overturned the democratically elected Bengali prime minister, so that Bhutto could hold onto power as Bengalis are unfit to lead. You also forgot to mention that Pakistani military killed a million plus Bangladeshis.

Please point out where the EU sent in an army to kill a million Brits.

You make so many bad faith arguments, its really nauseating to sit around correcting all of your Gish Gallops.

Waiting to hear from you how the independence of African nations and the overturning of Apartheid was an act of racism/ethnocentrism by black people against white people.

He knows enough. Trust me. Here is a crazy conversation I had with him. Most of his arguments are in bad faith.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31348078

Rayiner is an ex Muslim, currently Christian, brown Bangladeshi immigrant to USA who wants the brown people to leave the United States - so that white people can have a white United states - just like "Indians/Bangladeshis want a country for themselves" a need that Rayiner made up on behalf of the citizens of India and Bangladesh.

Significantly, Rayiner excludes himself from the list of brown people who need to leave USA. I have heard of Jewish Nazis and watched the Clayton Bigsby comedy sketch- but it is surreal to interact with someone like this online.

Instead of white, he uses the word "culture" which is the hip dog whistle in urban circles.

This is such a wrong summary of the thread you linked that you are obviously just trying to stir up a flame war. Flagged.
India is definitely becoming a far right country. Once you attack republicanism not to add more democracy but to remove transparency and to add imbalance within the legislative power, you are far right.

In fact, it is easy to distinguish political far right from political far left. Both wants to remove/weaken the institutions. One will push for more personal power(aka: strengthen executive, weaken judicial and legislative power (you can add push media concentration). The other will push towards revocative referendums, random selection for public committee, and overall a weakening of the executive power (refund/divide the police and stuff). As long as with stay within economic center (basically modern capitalism shades).

If you don't think moving toward a less republican government is enough, we can go historically: a marker of far right is treating/talking about the country like a living organism.

I'm talking myself into believing that India is already far right, i should stop arguing :/

I thouroughly disagree with the practice and it’s morally repugnant, but hasn’t it just been court-tested and declared legal?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/10/uk-deportati...

No, it hasn’t. The court ruled that there’s nothing in U.K. law that bars specific flights but they didn’t rule on the legality of the policy itself.

This will be challenged at the court of appeal and will, eventually, be found a breach of international law.

So it’s illegal in your opinion but not in actual fact?
It’s normal for the high court to side with the government in these cases only for them to be overturned on appeal. That’s not my opinion, that’s the experience of immigration lawyers.

So yes, the policy is unlawful _in fact_ but the legal process needs to catch up to that.

Except the Supreme Court have said they will not consider an appeal.

So it is not illegal.

They’re not ruling on legality, they’re refusing to grant injunctions on the flights.

This doesn’t mean they’re legal, it means the courts won’t stop those individuals from being deported while the legal case for the policy is being argued. The decision to grant, or not, an injunction is not in itself a judgement on the underlying policy. The court did the former, not the latter.

The...legal policy?
The policy so legal, everyone is now pulled from the flight and it was cancelled after a challenge to the ECHR.
Since when is dealing with illegal migration under coverage of refugees „far right“?
As I understand it — IANAL — the asylum seekers which the UK is sending to Rwanda, are actually allowed under international law (i.e. treaties the UK has signed) to seek asylum in the UK.

Rwanda in particular is an odd choice if you are genuinely concerned about the well-being of people who are fleeing persecution, given the UK government travel advice for its own citizens.

It is also a very expensive choice (about the cost of giving them free food and accommodation in an average bit of Hull for over 2 years); but even in its own terms, it does not appear to have changed, nor is it likely in the future to change, the minds of the extremely small number of asylum seekers who have not been put off the UK by virtue of it being a damp sheep-filled rock in the North Atlantic where they will be banned by law from seeking employment.

It's not expensive if it stops people from faking refugee.

What percentage of asylum seekers in the UK were eligible for asylum?

> eligible

Even using “granted” as a proxy for “eligible”, hard to tell as every source I found contradicts all the others, somewhere between 25 and 75 percent.

However, this isn’t the right question, for two reasons.

First: The number you want to compare against is the people whose minds were changed by the latest policy. Given how few people were seeking asylum in the UK even before this, the maximum is already low.

Second: this policy does not improve the expected accuracy of government judgement regarding the legitimacy of any given claim.

When it’s refugees legally seeking help? This policy has nothing to do with illegal immigration.
Because nowadays vast majoritie of „refugees“ are not refugees in a classic sense.

E.g. my country had thousands of „refugees“ hoping over border from Belarus last year. Last time I saw statistics, not even 1% was eligible for „refugee“ status. Even skipping the part that, according to international law, refugee is legit for the first safe country.

That last sentence is completely incorrect and is enough for me to safely disregard everything else you just said on the basis you don’t actually know what you’re talking about.
Even if some people try to challenge it and enable refugee shopping, calling it „incorrect“ shows that you don't know much about this topic.
It’s easy to prove me wrong: point me to the relevant lines in the relevant treaties or conventions that state this.

You can’t because they don’t exist. There is no obligation to seek asylum in the “first safe country.” This is a common trope trotted out by right-wing mouthpieces which is where I’m assuming you got the rest of your “facts.”