Refugee Blues Pt2.

This was originally posted on facebook on the 9th Feb 2016 as a follow up to Refugee Blues

I'm going to start with an apology. I really don't want to become the sort of person people have to remove from their facebook because they rant on continually, at great length, on boring, troubling subjects. Facebook is meant to be an enjoyable experience not a lecture on global issues.

However, there is some stuff being done, in our names, by our government that is not acceptable. And frankly, if we keep quiet they will take that as a tacit green light to continue with their narrow minded little policies that will leave us greatly diminished as a nation.

So, apology over, this is a follow up to yesterday's rant, because, as we all know from our mothers, sometimes you do have to say the same thing twice...

Here is how the Guardian is reporting the fallout to the decision to abandon the Dubs Amendment

https://www.theguardian.com/…/tory-mps-join-criticism-of-am…

Not withstanding the importance of the Brexit vote last night in the House of Commons, it was disheartening to see that government tactics to bury the bad news were in danger of succeeding as the Guardian was the only paper to feature this story on its front page this morning.

Lord Dubs has today been speaking in the Lords regarding the governments decision to abandon the amendment bearing his name.
"My lords, I must confess I’m slightly puzzled because if the government says there is a specified number of children, then after that total has been reached, the scheme has been closed
It was not long ago that I remember the prime minister when she was home secretary told me that the government was prepared to accept the amendment. It was on the same day that the then immigration minister said to me that the government would accept the letter and the spirit of that amendment. I believe in arbitrarily closing down a scheme without any good reason for doing so the government is in breach of its own commitments."

Members of the Conservative party have also been speaking out against the decision. This is from David Burrowes, MP for Enfield Southgate and vice chair of the all-party parliamentary group on refugees. He said:

I am deeply disappointed that both the government and local councils have shut the door to more “Dubs” child refugees. This was not what parliament intended. It looks like they have cut and run from child refugees. Our legal and moral obligation to child refugees has not been fulfilled. The government need to keep the door open to lone child refugees in Europe particularly with family in UK, and help keep others safe from slavery. Local councils need to work with the local community who want to find ways to provide more places for vulnerable child refugees"

Sadly such compassionate concepts seem to have been abandoned by the government, however we can still stand up for them. I know people don't come on facebook to be lectured and harangued continually but this stuff is important.

If you want to be heard, like I said yesterday, you need to contact your MP. If their inboxes fill up with messages on a certain subject they very quickly start to pay attention. The links to find your MP are on my previous post on this subject.

Thank you to those who have bothered to read all the way through this...., i'm off to go and find a fluffy cat picture to post next to cheer things up.

Refugee Blues

This piece was originally written on the 8th Feb 2016

I think my views on Brexit and the type of country we are threatening to become are well known by now.
And if they aren't, why the hell aren't you lot reading my wonderful rants!

Anyway, today comes another piece of upsetting news that will almost be certainly buried even further than it would have been following the unfortunate passing of Tara Palmer Tompkinson.

In a written ministerial statement today, the government have announced the ending of the scheme, known as the Dubs Amendment, which helped child refugees with no family be settled in the UK.

You can read about it on the bbc here; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38912428

This amendment was championed by Lord Dubs, a Labour peer, who was himself a child refugee from Nazi Germany.

The government statement told us that all the places for the year were now full and that the scheme would be closed. Under this scheme we will have taken 350 child refugees.

Out of potentially 90,000.

You want a sign that we are in danger of being coming a closed off little island fortress, blindly chasing our own narrow trading interests then this is it. We are not talking about families, adults who have made a decision to chase a new life. We are talking about children who have no one, who have fled war and are now looking for a future.

And this government believes our responsibility to these fellow human beings of ours ends at 350.

Trump is attracting a lot of attention for his bigoted immigration policies this week and rightly so. He and his cabal of white supremacist chums are making a mockery of the values of the US constitution and the nation itself, one founded by immigrants if my grasp of history is correct. Petitions have been signed and protests organised.
So they bloody should be.
But equally we should look closer to home and hold our own government to account for their narrow minded lack of basic humanity.

I accept that money is tight, i agree that no nation can take on the burden of the largest refugee crisis the world has known since WWII but i'm also bloody sure that we, as a prosperous western nation, with a proud history of helping refugees can do better than 350.

So, here's what we need to do. We need to contact our MP's and tell them that we want our country to do more and we want our respective regions to play their part.
To do this simply follow this link; http://www.parliament.uk/…/contact-your…/contacting-your-mp/ which will tell you all you need to know about finding out who your MP is, if you don't know, and how to write to them.

The time for ranting is over. It's time for some action.

Christmas Cheer

This was originally written just before Christmas 2016.

Christmas.
Not a massive fan of it myself. Overpriced bollocks disguised as a half forgotten religious occasion.
However…
Even I, the man with no Christmas tree in his house, who plans to open no presents on the day, feels that it’s a touch extreme to mow down people shopping at a Christmas market. I wrote this blog in the summer shortly after the Nice attacks and what I said then about not letting terror win is a relevant today after watching what has happened in Berlin, as it was then.
However, in the summer, the world genuinely was a slightly different place. The Brexit vote hadn’t occurred and Trump hadn’t been elected as the next President of the United States. It is only when you stop and look back 6 months that you realise how quickly the tone of debate has changed. And not for the better.
Responding to news of the Berlin mowing down of innocent shoppers, Trump had this to say;
"Our hearts and prayers are with the loved ones of the victims of today's horrifying terror attack in Berlin. Innocent civilians were murdered in the streets as they prepared to celebrate the Christmas holiday.
ISIS and other Islamist terrorists continually slaughter Christians in their communities and places of worship as part of their global jihad. These terrorists and their regional and worldwide networks must be eradicated from the face of the earth, a mission we will carry out with all freedom-loving partners.”
Then for good measure he added:
“Today there were terror attacks in Turkey, Switzerland and Germany - and it is only getting worse. The civilized world must change thinking”
Where do you start with that bundle of narrow minded bigotry eh?
The civilized world? Damn you uncivilised Muslims attacking all those Christians! And I’ve got say I’m not big on The Donald and his ‘freedom loving partners’ rocking round the globe eradicating bad guys either, as much as the reflex urge to ‘bomb the shit’ out of people who do this kind of thing is almost understandable.
If you’re 12 years old and have no understanding of geopolitics.
Even Putin has managed to sound vaguely statesman like this morning:
"This crime against peaceful civilians is shocking in its savage cynicism,"
Although, to be honest, that’s a description I’d happily apply to Russian backed slaughter in Aleppo too.
But to go back to Trump and his Christian slaughtering rant. Let us just, for a moment, remember that over a third of the people killed in Nice in the summer, were Muslim, as this New York Times article makes clear. We should also bear in mind that when Trump was busy expressing his outrage, the confirmation of the perpetrator of the attack in Berlin had not been confirmed, let alone his religion or any links to networks global or otherwise.
Maybe, Donald, you should shut the fuck up until some semblance of reality has had a chance to penetrate your stupid hair and reach your teeny weeny brain.
But even more good news came quickly. Because in late 2016, where Trump goes, Nigel Farage is soon to follow. Which surely can only make the situation better can’t it? Let us quote Farage this morning. He starts of by blaming Angela Merkel for the killings in Berlin;
“Terrible news from Berlin but no surprise. Events like these will be the Merkel legacy.”
Damn you too, Christian slaughtering Angela!
But Farage didn’t stop there. No, he found new depths to plumb. Following that initial comment regarding Merkel’s culpability for the truck attack, the widow of Jo Cox, Brendan, tweeted Farage and pointed out that “blaming politicians for the actions of extremists? That’s a slippery slope Nigel”
When questioned on this, Nigel hit back. Hard.
“Yes, well he of course he would know more about extremists than me, Mr Cox. He backs organisations like Hope Not Hate who masquerade as being lovely and peaceful but actually pursue violent and very undemocratic means.”
When the interviewer pointed out the Brendan Cox had suffered more than most at the hands of extremism, Farage didn’t feel the need to row back;
“Yes, it’s a terrible thing what happened to his family, with the murder of his wife, but he continues to be active in the political arena. And given some of the organisations he supports, I can’t just stand here and say I’m not going to respond.”
No Nige, ‘cos that would involve having even a smidgen of class or common decency. Feel free to have a look at the Hope Not Hate website here and see how hate filled you find them yourselves.
It would appear we live in world where the President-elect of the US and a mainstream British politician, amongst many others no doubt (I can’t wait to hear what Marine Le Pen has to say today), are now feel free to indulge publicly in this sort of half witted, narrow minded, nonsense.
So how about this for an idea. How about this Christmas, we stop spending money on shit we don’t need, lift our eyes from the Dr Who special and actually realise what matters, which surely was the bloody point in the first place. How about we all remember that everyone who died in Berlin yesterday was human, like you and me. And everyone who died in Nice was human. And the French Father murdered in his own church, he was human too. How about we start remembering that compassion and love and understanding and tolerance are not values restricted to one religion or belief. They are the universal values that makes us human.
How about this Christmas, we stand up to the hate and the bollocks and remember what it is to love our fellow man.
Even I might find a reason to enjoy Christmas then.

P.s. Sorry for the rude language mum, but these ignorant fuckers really piss me off some days.

Stepping up to the pulpit

This was originally posted on the 3rd April 2015 in the run up to the general election.

Ok, i've ignored this idiot long enough... time to climb to the pulpit and have my say...
Nigel Farage and Ukip trade on fear. Simple, deceptive arguements designed to appeal to those who have the least positive things in their lives.
His example last night of foreign nationals with HIV is both typical and unsuprising. In a 2014 interview, when asked what sort of immigrants he would like to stop, his first reaction was to highlight those with HIV. This is scaremongering and petty. Using the example he himself gave last night, stopping immigrants with HIV gaining treatment on the NHS would save small amounts per year. In an organisation that according to its boss needs as additional £8billion.This is not an economic arguement, this is Farage appealing to peoples fears.
He is wrong and he is dangerous.
Look at our history. We have always been an outward looking nation, trading and interracting with the world and proud of our reputation on refugees. By building on the best of this we can influence organisations such as the EU and gain an outcome that is best for us.
However, now we are in a position where David Cameron is so scared of being seen to say anything positive about Europe because of Farage's scare tactics that we have lost all influence. Europe used to be about the big 3. It is now down to a big 1 and a half at best as we lose interest and clout.
That is not serving our national interest.
Look at the war in Ukraine, as a traditional big power in Europe, the UK should have been at the heart of trying to find a solution. Instead we were nowhere.
People think that doesn't matter because Ukraine is nothing to do with us.
Wrong.
When we want to renegotiate the terms of our membership of the EU what do you think will happen? No one will listen to us. We weren't there when they had problems on their doorstep so why should they help us with our internal sqaubbles.
Farage and his isolationist rubbish is bad for Britain. Trade with the commonwealth is a fraction of that with Europe. That is not the answer.
Yesterday 147 people were murdered in Kenya by Islamic terrorists and none of our politicians felt it worth mentioning in the debates last night, but it does matter. In a world full of multiple threats and uncertain futures it is vital to remain outward looking and fully engaged with our allies and partners.
Succeeding alone is not an option.
Farage is peddling an idiots utopia. Don't fall for it.