Agree completely with all your points. As a naturalised migrant to the UK (who thankfully rushed to get citizenship a couple of years before all the current shit, as I could smell it in the breeze), I find these new measures absolutely shameful and sickening, and it's disgusted me with Labour, likely permanently.
A bit of pedantry - when you say "all other major democracies are between three to six years", it's not quite true. For Canada, it's a bit complicated and depends on the path you take and where in the country you go, but it's generally around 2 years, and can even be around 1 year for certain paths. New Zealand is also around 2 years. I tried to look up Australia, who are generally much more friendly to immigration than the UK, but I gave up finding out because it was too complicated. Coming to the UK from Canada, I found the minimum 5 years already pretty draconian, but I sucked it up, paid my circa £12K in fees, filled out all the barely comprehensible paperwork, read all the Home Office letters addressing me like a minor criminal, and finally got my reward: being considered by the current government (and most of the newspapers) as a threat and a leech - all the while paying more in income tax in 5 years than the average gammon does in its entire miserable life.
Brilliantly well said 👍🏻. As for Australia , this government appears to be becoming extremely choosy about immigration , and who it decides are acceptable . We have our own version now , of the Reform Party , known as “One Nation”. A collection of bigots who shame any notion of a multicultural society , and are in fact rabidly against such a concept .
Hugely depressing, but got me thinking about my own political journey - and how my understanding of politics has changed over the years.
For most of my life I've been a Labour supporter. I was actually a big Blair fan, (until Iraq), because he gave us an electable Labour Party. But back then, I paid little attention to the actual policies being enacted. Basically, it was better than Thatcher, and that's all I needed to know. It took me quite a while to realise that "New Labour" really was very different to the Labour Party of old. And even when this became obvious, I still didn't consider, that in distancing themselves from the unions, they sold their souls to the rich.
When I first supported the Labour Party - over forty years ago - it felt like class warfare. Probably was class warfare. But, without me noticing, that evaporated. The ousting of Corbyn was when it hit me... the Labour Party is no longer a left-wing party; it's not in the business of class warfare any more. And I have given up on them. [Note. Yeah, I know Corbyn was unelectable.]
Two GEs ago I voted Green for the first time. Mainly out of concern for the planet. In 2024 I voted Green again. This time because The Green Party stands for the political values of my youth. Class warfare is back. And I love it.
Exactly the same is happening in Australia , as in the present excuse for a Labor Party , especially re the selling of their souls to corporate donors , both domestic and foreign . The well nigh vacuum of any significant domestic policies to support Public Education , Public Health , victims of domestic violence , homelessness , there is a long list ! This is a far cry from the Labor Party of Gough Whitlam , a statesman who championed THIS country and its people , not kneeling to the orders of foreign states . How interesting that it was the Governor General in consultation with the Crown and the Liberal Party here , who
worked to be rid of such a leader . Whitlam’s famous quote , “Well may God save the Queen , but NOTHING will save the Governor General “ proved to be accurate . Karma caught up with him .
Honestly, as a British Citizen with a foreign spouse, I feel extorted by my own government who know that couples and parents will endure and pay literally anything they have to to be together. £15,000 in fees is already too much - to make it indefinitely long a route, which specifically punishes people with children, who get pregnant, who have care responsibilities, who are disabled on a FAMILY route where the spouse has already demonstrated full financial responsibility for the spouse/children is as redundant as it is cruel.
But it is, clearly, very profitable to effectively place these people on a rolling contract of £5k renewal fees every 2.5 years under threat of family separation.
"There is, of course, no mention of the idea that you would make things equal by removing the hardship from the British cohort. Everything must always degrade towards the most draconian possible solution. "
This is one of the things I find most puzzling and extremely sad.
Why insist on dragging everyone down instead of insisting you are uplifted instead?
Do these people think that being fellow British should not be with their family because that is just the natural the order of things?
In most other countries this would simply not be allowed. The liberal party would consider it immoral, the conservative party would consider it an attack on their precious family values.
It seems widely unpopular with MPs of the left and the family issue indeed not popular either with much of the right. The debates are a flood of opposition from MPs and various orgs; and the previous, legally mandated MAC review raised concerns over child welfare and equalities regarding the family route visas en whole. And they just ignore it.
Given he's just appointed the HO "action orientated" Perm Sec as cabinet secretary, I guess we'll soon find out whether she's progressed by "speaking truth to power"
Never stop the “proof reading out loud” option. I love it. I want merch - a mug “just call me One take Pretty Cunt Dunt” to go with my Dunt is a four letter word mug from the other place
I a bit conflicted about the ads thing - having said previously that I didn't sign up to join an exclusive club, I also didn't sign up to read ads which help subsidise the substack for everyone else. A bit like I object to paying £5.99 for ITVX without ads and then having them tell me that certain shows have to have promotions in them due to 'the terms of their contract'. But I know that in this case it makes me sound like a priviledged twat, so maybe make the ads easy to spot and scroll past or write them in a way that is so funny and/or beautiful that I enjoy reading them.
Agree completely about the immigration content - as a Labour party member who voted for Starmer as leader, I can't believe how far he has moved from the pitch he stood on regarding the 'culture wars' stuff while successfully hiding the progressive things that they are actually achieving.
Thank goodness I decided to dump socialism in the Labour mould as soon as I heard both Corbyn and then Starmer that a second Brexit referendum was out of the question. Only to find that in that case there was no alternative party to Labour snd Tories who had the power to do anything about it.
Being a Netherlands national who lived half his life in England and worked here earning a good income, I sincerely wonder about the holes the past and present governments have been digging for themselves since 2008 with absurdly incompetent decisions about how to govern a nation that is as inherently complicated as the UK. Where as good as nothing is properly set in law but depends on a self-professed elite made up of blunderers, who time and again appear to pick-up on the need to show they have ‘it’. A pity, because so far executing virtually every one of their creative farts has led to notably England getting poorer and losing status as a nation of reason on the world stage. Now, don’t demand I get a British passport, because in a suprising amount of area it is looked at as a pissport that leads to standing in lines waiting for a uniformed person to check it out. Besides, I like being Dutch and living in the quieter landscapes of the UK. Hardly any Briton would change his/her passport; would they? So, perhaps we all together could demand from those elected to rule this place that they get their act together and tell us about their objective, to include which improvements in what way and in what time!
As one of your broke but happy subscribers who clicks on the link to listen to you proofreading, I am all in favour of you being paid by advertisers, in lieu of my paying you.
Especially the unethical, but exceedingly lucrative, which would be funny.
On the ads thing, recommend you put them at the end, or at least be consistent about where you put them, to make them easy to skip past should we wish to.
I should have said - I think absolutely fair enough to do them provided you don’t compromise your journalistic integrity. That seems vanishingly unlikely to me, as a fan of your output for a long time.
I was happy with the lack of popping/crackles thanks to said mic and enjoyed the episode (thanks). I suspect most enjoy the ‘extras’ (including the inevitable/unavoidable guttural
Ingestion of liquid) it’s still a thumbs up from me!
Agree completely with all your points. As a naturalised migrant to the UK (who thankfully rushed to get citizenship a couple of years before all the current shit, as I could smell it in the breeze), I find these new measures absolutely shameful and sickening, and it's disgusted me with Labour, likely permanently.
A bit of pedantry - when you say "all other major democracies are between three to six years", it's not quite true. For Canada, it's a bit complicated and depends on the path you take and where in the country you go, but it's generally around 2 years, and can even be around 1 year for certain paths. New Zealand is also around 2 years. I tried to look up Australia, who are generally much more friendly to immigration than the UK, but I gave up finding out because it was too complicated. Coming to the UK from Canada, I found the minimum 5 years already pretty draconian, but I sucked it up, paid my circa £12K in fees, filled out all the barely comprehensible paperwork, read all the Home Office letters addressing me like a minor criminal, and finally got my reward: being considered by the current government (and most of the newspapers) as a threat and a leech - all the while paying more in income tax in 5 years than the average gammon does in its entire miserable life.
Brilliantly well said 👍🏻. As for Australia , this government appears to be becoming extremely choosy about immigration , and who it decides are acceptable . We have our own version now , of the Reform Party , known as “One Nation”. A collection of bigots who shame any notion of a multicultural society , and are in fact rabidly against such a concept .
Hugely depressing, but got me thinking about my own political journey - and how my understanding of politics has changed over the years.
For most of my life I've been a Labour supporter. I was actually a big Blair fan, (until Iraq), because he gave us an electable Labour Party. But back then, I paid little attention to the actual policies being enacted. Basically, it was better than Thatcher, and that's all I needed to know. It took me quite a while to realise that "New Labour" really was very different to the Labour Party of old. And even when this became obvious, I still didn't consider, that in distancing themselves from the unions, they sold their souls to the rich.
When I first supported the Labour Party - over forty years ago - it felt like class warfare. Probably was class warfare. But, without me noticing, that evaporated. The ousting of Corbyn was when it hit me... the Labour Party is no longer a left-wing party; it's not in the business of class warfare any more. And I have given up on them. [Note. Yeah, I know Corbyn was unelectable.]
Two GEs ago I voted Green for the first time. Mainly out of concern for the planet. In 2024 I voted Green again. This time because The Green Party stands for the political values of my youth. Class warfare is back. And I love it.
#VoteGreen
P.S. Excellent article. I will forward to my MP, but I'm not hopeful. I regularly send emails to her, and very seldom even get an acknowledgement.
Exactly the same is happening in Australia , as in the present excuse for a Labor Party , especially re the selling of their souls to corporate donors , both domestic and foreign . The well nigh vacuum of any significant domestic policies to support Public Education , Public Health , victims of domestic violence , homelessness , there is a long list ! This is a far cry from the Labor Party of Gough Whitlam , a statesman who championed THIS country and its people , not kneeling to the orders of foreign states . How interesting that it was the Governor General in consultation with the Crown and the Liberal Party here , who
worked to be rid of such a leader . Whitlam’s famous quote , “Well may God save the Queen , but NOTHING will save the Governor General “ proved to be accurate . Karma caught up with him .
Agree totally on the immigration thing - it’s cruel & immoral re their family members. These policies are disgusting, imho.
Honestly, as a British Citizen with a foreign spouse, I feel extorted by my own government who know that couples and parents will endure and pay literally anything they have to to be together. £15,000 in fees is already too much - to make it indefinitely long a route, which specifically punishes people with children, who get pregnant, who have care responsibilities, who are disabled on a FAMILY route where the spouse has already demonstrated full financial responsibility for the spouse/children is as redundant as it is cruel.
But it is, clearly, very profitable to effectively place these people on a rolling contract of £5k renewal fees every 2.5 years under threat of family separation.
Callous , conscience-free inhumanity . Should rightfully be criminalised .
I’m so sorry 😢
"There is, of course, no mention of the idea that you would make things equal by removing the hardship from the British cohort. Everything must always degrade towards the most draconian possible solution. "
This is one of the things I find most puzzling and extremely sad.
Why insist on dragging everyone down instead of insisting you are uplifted instead?
Do these people think that being fellow British should not be with their family because that is just the natural the order of things?
In most other countries this would simply not be allowed. The liberal party would consider it immoral, the conservative party would consider it an attack on their precious family values.
It seems widely unpopular with MPs of the left and the family issue indeed not popular either with much of the right. The debates are a flood of opposition from MPs and various orgs; and the previous, legally mandated MAC review raised concerns over child welfare and equalities regarding the family route visas en whole. And they just ignore it.
Given he's just appointed the HO "action orientated" Perm Sec as cabinet secretary, I guess we'll soon find out whether she's progressed by "speaking truth to power"
Never stop the “proof reading out loud” option. I love it. I want merch - a mug “just call me One take Pretty Cunt Dunt” to go with my Dunt is a four letter word mug from the other place
I a bit conflicted about the ads thing - having said previously that I didn't sign up to join an exclusive club, I also didn't sign up to read ads which help subsidise the substack for everyone else. A bit like I object to paying £5.99 for ITVX without ads and then having them tell me that certain shows have to have promotions in them due to 'the terms of their contract'. But I know that in this case it makes me sound like a priviledged twat, so maybe make the ads easy to spot and scroll past or write them in a way that is so funny and/or beautiful that I enjoy reading them.
Agree completely about the immigration content - as a Labour party member who voted for Starmer as leader, I can't believe how far he has moved from the pitch he stood on regarding the 'culture wars' stuff while successfully hiding the progressive things that they are actually achieving.
Cheers Janet
Thank goodness I decided to dump socialism in the Labour mould as soon as I heard both Corbyn and then Starmer that a second Brexit referendum was out of the question. Only to find that in that case there was no alternative party to Labour snd Tories who had the power to do anything about it.
Excellent column as usual and massively improved podcast with the new microphone
Being a Netherlands national who lived half his life in England and worked here earning a good income, I sincerely wonder about the holes the past and present governments have been digging for themselves since 2008 with absurdly incompetent decisions about how to govern a nation that is as inherently complicated as the UK. Where as good as nothing is properly set in law but depends on a self-professed elite made up of blunderers, who time and again appear to pick-up on the need to show they have ‘it’. A pity, because so far executing virtually every one of their creative farts has led to notably England getting poorer and losing status as a nation of reason on the world stage. Now, don’t demand I get a British passport, because in a suprising amount of area it is looked at as a pissport that leads to standing in lines waiting for a uniformed person to check it out. Besides, I like being Dutch and living in the quieter landscapes of the UK. Hardly any Briton would change his/her passport; would they? So, perhaps we all together could demand from those elected to rule this place that they get their act together and tell us about their objective, to include which improvements in what way and in what time!
A Man vs Water battle of wills was a nail biting drama I didn't realise I needed until it happened.
Get whatever money you can damnwell get. It's a jungle out here.
As one of your broke but happy subscribers who clicks on the link to listen to you proofreading, I am all in favour of you being paid by advertisers, in lieu of my paying you.
Especially the unethical, but exceedingly lucrative, which would be funny.
On the ads thing, recommend you put them at the end, or at least be consistent about where you put them, to make them easy to skip past should we wish to.
I should have said - I think absolutely fair enough to do them provided you don’t compromise your journalistic integrity. That seems vanishingly unlikely to me, as a fan of your output for a long time.
How fucking loud can the sound of Ian typing get (very)
That's due to the new microphone i expect. Every silver lining brings a cloud
I was happy with the lack of popping/crackles thanks to said mic and enjoyed the episode (thanks). I suspect most enjoy the ‘extras’ (including the inevitable/unavoidable guttural
Ingestion of liquid) it’s still a thumbs up from me!
The sound is now fine. I was as desperate for you to take that drink as you were by the time you cracked! Thanks for persevering with the audio.
I've just forwarded that to my MP - a first for me. Who knows if he will bother to read it.
On the Ads, not that bothered by them, really. I'm sure you will be careful and respond well if folks object strongly to any one type.