Jamie Fookes

“Nightmare for Reform as entire political-media class agrees with it”

This is an inappropriate, credulous & politically biased BBC headline. The claims about savings will be sharply contested. News reports should not imclude what reads as an ediorial endorsememt in the headline www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Cambridge University should have known better, Fleet Street should have known better, the people hungrily absorbing every bit of news about it, making newsrooms feel like they had to keep going with it as a story, should have known better, horrible horrible horrible

I feared this would happen. His story was troubling but the wave of hatred and obsession in the media when he was clearly someone who was vulnerable - whatever you thought of him - was entirely disproportionate and in my view fuelled by racists. My thoughts are with his loved ones tonight.

Jason Arday’s death is an absolute stain on this country. I feel devastated for him, his family and for people of colour in this country. There’s too much to say about it but there are human consequences to the culture war. When a person becomes the culture war. He was failed.

The @theguardian.com should be ashamed over Jason Arday. They paid lip service to the fact that it was a right wing, culture war witchhunt and then happily pursued it as enthusiastically as anyone else. No concern for the safety of the human being at the centre of it it.

The tragic awfulness of this government is that it has extended a factional war against the left of the Labour Party into a war against almost all the good things we might have expected of it. It cannot respond to the crisis it faces, because its hatred of the Labour left is definitional.

Starmer: “If you don’t like our policies you can leave.” Voters:

A reflection from the leader of a migration charity. We have been told over and over again by politicians - even from “partners” and “allies” that we will not win on our policies unless we concede. Throw some migrants under the bus - they’re too unfavourable. Public doesn’t agree with us.

Sky News hearing Labour canvassers found that doubling (and tripling) the route to settlement has caused significant concern with those directly affected (Commonwealth migrants who have arrived in last 3 years) Sheer scale of changes not yet on the general media radar, though MPs hearing a lot

Bad news for Starmer- union ally Christina Mcanea loses Unison General Secretary election. Replaced by Andrea Egan, who ran from the left, and has promised to review Unison's relationship with Labour. www.politicshome.com/news/article...

Good news! Alan Milburn 67 year old career politician will review inactivity among young people. With the help of Charlie Mayfield (58), Andy Haldane (58) and Dame Casey (60). Sounds great, no notes. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Sarcastic response is obviously "Merry Christmas from the Home Office" More professional response is that, for this government's increased immigration raids in general, statistically they are targeting victims of trafficking more than the people doing the trafficking. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Innocent people end up in our criminal courts. Completely, terrifyingly innocent. And all that stands between them and losing everything is a fair trial. Politicians would do well to remember this when they tell us that justice is all about processing “criminals” swiftly.

Big jump in outstanding asylum appeals - nearly 70,000 waiting to be heard at the end of September. More than the initial decisions backlog. 60 weeks the average time to disposal. 37% of disposals now due to withdrawals - presumably as the Home Office realises how bad the decisions were.

Nearly every Take relating to this has been done except one, which is - why would the European leaders take advice from Starmer on how to beat the far right? Who among them envies his popularity or admires the sagacity of his advisors? www.theguardian.com/law/2025/dec...

I can’t help thinking that when, in future, people ask what UK political leaders said as it became undeniable that US saw European liberal democracy as its no1 strategic foe, Starmer and others will regret that the answer is “not much, shuffled awkwardly, looked at their feet”.

Reminder that the ECHR prevents people being expelled to face torture, inhuman treatment, slavery or death, and prevents splitting of families unless there's a strong enough public interest. European leaders are evidently comfortable with at least some of those things, at least for foreigners.

"If growth was actually your priority, you would not be doing this." (Me, stating the obvious) www.ft.com/content/2b60...

Ah, he has no co-written a piece with the Danish PM who is a milquetoast centrist overseeing some of the toughest immigration rules in Europe and is coincidentally losing ground to the far right and a rapid rate...

"See off the far right" by giving the fascists what they want, emboldening them and laying the ground work for them to commit vile human rights abuses more quickly and with less checks is the most brain rot desperate nonsense ever uttered by a PM www.theguardian.com/law/2025/dec...

The more you read this more insane it is. Deranged, paternalistic scientifically illiterate bile from a bigot who got elevated way above their station.

This is such an extreme and deeply segregationist view to hold it should completely discredit her from her position. Stating that a group, clearly protected in the spirit and word of the equality act, where tricked into 'thinking they have rights" is unforgivable she must resign

This is such an extreme and deeply segregationist view to hold it should completely discredit her from her position. Stating that a group, clearly protected in the spirit and word of the equality act, where tricked into 'thinking they have rights" is unforgivable she must resign

🔴I spent time getting to know the Pink Ladies, a group of 'ordinary mothers' who are funded by Restore Britain's Rupert Lowe and whose leader shared a stage with a prominent neo-Nazi. It was...eye-opening. bylinetimes.com/2025/12/05/t...

This is the guy who gave Boris Johnson £1 million and then won a big MoD contract....

Extremely grim consequence of Home Sec announcement of penalising claiming benefits claims in routes to settlement: a low-paid carer cancelling housing benefit, universal credit, and disability allowance for her autistic daughter’s personal care and mobility www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

🔴 The government's latest plans will push an already failing asylum system to new extremes of harm. The uncertainty, fear & instability the proposed changes create will only deepen the trauma faced by refugees & people seeking safety. Read our full statement ➡️ tinyurl.com/mphbj2m3

This puts those families and children at a major economic and social disadvantage. Why? To stop some coming in future? To force them to leave? No evidence either will happen. They will still come and they will still settle, but after years of scrimping compared to other families.

Yes: we'd calculated that a single parent with 2 kids who started their settlement journey in 2017 would pay >£27k in fees & IHS over 10yrs to settle (w/o citizenship & pre-2025⬆️). Now >£54k for 20yrs if they'd ever claimed benefits for >12mnths - £225/month extra in essential HH costs over 20yrs.

‘Remigration’ is a term that comes out of the European far right. Its use by the DHS account is a sign of democratic and epistemic collapse

So many of the problems with the UK asylum system - culture of disbelief, poor or nonexistent advice, endless delays, cruel accommodation policies - rolled into one awful case. @diane-writer10.bsky.social always gets the human stories others miss or don’t care about

Too little too late frankly.

‘It’s wrong’: the Labour MP speaking out against the party’s asylum policy

Shabana Mahmood's Indefinite Leave To Remain Culture War 3 years - if you're earning £125k+ 15 years - if you're e.g. a nurse, or a teacher Labour's two tier system which rewards high earners and insults those who work just as hard but don't earn as much - really sad to see Labour fall

I’m yet to digest the full detail of these proposals to make it harder for people to settle permanently, but they’re entirely an answer to a question dreamt up by the far right, as a proxy for objecting to all migration, and they should be approached in that spirit and no other

VERY funny that Labour are being pointlessly cruel and haemorrhaging support from their base and yet none of what they're offering is ever going to be enough for the people whose approval they're seeking, WHO could have predicted it

Applying this to refugees already here self-evidently can't deter them from coming. But it will make their lives harder by prolonging their temporary status, making it harder to get jobs and accommodation and settle down properly. It would be a deliberate anti-integration policy. Why?

The basic problem with the temporary refugee status policy - especially one lasting up to 20 years - is it leads to very few removals (based on Denmark's experience) but does significantly worsen integration.

Oh

The Home Secretary says "we have become the destination of choice in Europe, clearly visible to every people smuggler and would-be illegal migrant across the world" That is a factually untrue claim: the Home Office shows that the UK is fifth, getting 1/10 claims, while Germany gets 1/5 claims

The thing to understand is that there is a particular contingent within Labour who assess their own performance not based on the support they get from the right (which will always be, basically, none) but on how much they repulse the left. So they turn into Reform, without actually getting votes.