The banker loving, baby-eating Tory party thread (regenerated)

[snowychap]

Home Office data exemption sparks fears of further Windrush scandals

Quote

The Home Office is to be given sweeping data protection exemptions that will prevent anyone seeking information about their immigration status in future, campaigners for the Windrush generation are warning.

The changes due to be brought in by the data protection bill will deprive applicants of a reliable means of obtaining files about themselves from the department through what are known as subject access requests.

Challenging the Home Office’s notoriously poor decision-making in immigration cases will become far more difficult and result in miscarriages of justice, civil rights groups, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), lawyers and political opponents allege.

The legislation will also lower data protection standards for the Home Office, according to campaigners, so it no longer needs to handle data transparently, fairly and lawfully. It would not prevent the destruction of vital records such as Windrush-generation landing cards, for example.

Data will be able to be shared secretly between public services, such as the NHS, and the Home Office, more easily under the bill, it has been claimed.

Labour’s shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, said: “One of the government’s version of events is that they destroyed the landing card records of the Windrush generation for reasons of data protection. This is highly doubtful.

“But their latest data protection bill shows that the Windrush scandal is not a mistake. The bill exempts immigration matters from data protection. This can be for anyone who is a migrant, or suspected of being one, as in the Windrush cases.

“They should amend this bill. It is unacceptable that the government should be pressing ahead with legislation that allows agencies to breach data protection rights for anyone who is suspected of being a migrant. Otherwise they will show they have learned nothing, and are determined to maintain the hostile environment at whatever human cost.”

Gracie Bradley, advocacy officer for the human rights organisation Liberty, said: “The Windrush scandal would be a new low anywhere else – but thanks to Theresa May’s hostile environment, it’s just another day at the Home Office for us.

“If the data protection bill’s ‘immigration exemption’ becomes law, it will be near-impossible to challenge poor decision-making in immigration cases, or prevent the Home Office destroying evidence that could help people prove their right to be here.

“And immigration enforcement teams will find it even easier to secretly access confidential information collected by trusted public services like schools and hospitals.”

Both main legal professional bodies, the Law Society, which represents solcitors across England and Wales, as well as the Bar Council, which represents barristers, have backed the warnings.

Joe Egan, the president of the Law Society, said: “Recent events have shown how important it is to be able to scrutinise Home Office decision-making.

“The [EU’s General Data Protection Regulation] GDPR and data protection bill are based on accountability and transparency and the proposed [Home Office] exemption completely flies in the face of these principles.

“Anyone seeking their own personal data from the Home Office could be denied access without justification and with no avenue to appeal.

“With serious flaws in the immigration system being exposed on a daily basis, there is deep concern about the potential for miscarriages of justice if the proposed exemptions were to be included in the final bill.”

Andrew Walker QC, the chair of the Bar Council, said: “It seems that the government is determined to press ahead with changes in the law that could make it even more difficult for people, including those of the Windrush generation, to demonstrate that they have the right to live in the UK.

“If the new law is brought into force in the form the government wants, then those Commonwealth citizens – and many others – who are lawfully living and working in the UK will be denied the right to know what information the Home Office holds about them, which could make the difference between success and failure in a legal challenge to their wrongful detention or removal.

“The Home Office has a notoriously bad track record for unlawful decision-making, which can have catastrophic consequences for people who are detained indefinitely in removal centres or wrongfully deported.

“Giving the Home Office the right to decide not to share the data it holds about those it is trying to deport or detain will be to give it more power than it has shown it is competent to use. The legal profession’s concerns about the bill were first raised many months ago, and we would urge the government to listen to them, even at this late stage.”

The Law Society and Bar Council are calling for the Home Office’s proposed exemptions to be removed.

The JCWI has highlighted the case of Michael Braithwaite, a special needs teaching assistant who lost his job after being wrongly classified as an illegal immigrant.

The only way his lawyer was able to prove his status was to ask for his case file to be handed over by the Home Office through a subject access request – a common practice in challenging immigration decisions.

 

[Awol]

So after being outed as a closet racist Theresa May fights back by announcing national ‘Stephen Lawrence Day’, every 22nd of April. 

Do they just sit in No.10 watching box sets of The Thick of It? 

Incredible. 

 

[ml1dch]

15 minutes ago, Awol said:

So after being outed as a closet racist ...

About as convincing a closet as Liberace's.

[bobzy]

Hard to watch ‘Hospital’ and not think “what the **** is this Government playing at?”. Pretty shocking underfunding. 

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

10 hours ago, bobzy said:

Hard to watch ‘Hospital’ and not think “what the **** is this Government playing at?”. Pretty shocking underfunding. 

Horrific to be fair.  Could have been filmed in 1970's,  some of the thinking is amazing in the meetings.

Surely it's obvious that the problem needs to be moved along and outside of the hospital environment,  there seems to be no jeopardy for the council in all of this,  very much shrug and say "we got no money".  Once an elderly person is ready for discharge from hospital the council is notified,  once 7 days pass with no care package available the hospital flips the bed to been that of a hotel bed and starts invoices the council per nights stay.  Having people who need care sitting in chairs for a month when they are well (So effectively robbing them of living that month also on the outside).  They were close to cancelling Cancer operations as well.  The bird with the red hair,  she didn't give a toss to be honest.

Where they had all the beds in the corridor,  like 10-15 of them.  Jeremy Hunt should be made to sit in the middle of that for 24 hours instead of buying up houses but I am 99% sure he would not even watch it, why would he?

 

 

[Davkaus]

4 hours ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

Jeremy Hunt should be made to sit in the middle of that for 24 hours instead of buying up houses but I am 99% sure he would not even watch it, why would he?

 

 

I assumed he'd be watching with an industrial size pack of Kleenex.

Mission on track. 

[HanoiVillan]

TIL that Amelia Gentleman, the Guardian journalist who appears to be about the only journalist in the country actively trying to find people affected by the government's immigration policies, is in fact married to Jo Johnson, younger brother of Boris and former Head of Policy Implementation in Downing Street during the period the 'hostile environment' policy was created. 

[bobzy]

4 hours ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

Horrific to be fair.  Could have been filmed in 1970's,  some of the thinking is amazing in the meetings.

Surely it's obvious that the problem needs to be moved along and outside of the hospital environment,  there seems to be no jeopardy for the council in all of this,  very much shrug and say "we got no money".  Once an elderly person is ready for discharge from hospital the council is notified,  once 7 days pass with no care package available the hospital flips the bed to been that of a hotel bed and starts invoices the council per nights stay.  Having people who need care sitting in chairs for a month when they are well (So effectively robbing them of living that month also on the outside).  They were close to cancelling Cancer operations as well.  The bird with the red hair,  she didn't give a toss to be honest.

Where they had all the beds in the corridor,  like 10-15 of them.  Jeremy Hunt should be made to sit in the middle of that for 24 hours instead of buying up houses but I am 99% sure he would not even watch it, why would he?

Didn't the program state that NUH are paying private healthcare providers £500,000 (not sure of time period) just to be able to discharge patients?  It's ridiculous.

I find it all massively upsetting and genuinely can't understand why a government wouldn't invest properly in healthcare (and education, but that's another story).  Look at the **** state of it and do something about it.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

TIL that Amelia Gentleman, the Guardian journalist who appears to be about the only journalist in the country actively trying to find people affected by the government's immigration policies, is in fact married to Jo Johnson, younger brother of Boris and former Head of Policy Implementation in Downing Street during the period the 'hostile environment' policy was created. 

I learnt two things - obviously what you just told us, and also that TIL means today I learned/learnt.

[HanoiVillan]

7 minutes ago, blandy said:

I learnt two things - obviously what you just told us, and also that TIL means today I learned/learnt.

It's one of those Twitter abbreviations that I have managed to learn, unlike 'smh' which I forget every time after looking it up (turns out it means 'shaking my head' but I always read it as 'suck my hole'). 

[Jon]

Small to Medium Household 

[bickster]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

It's one of those Twitter abbreviations that I have managed to learn, unlike 'smh' which I forget every time after looking it up (turns out it means 'shaking my head' but I always read it as 'suck my hole'). 

I always assumed those tweets were about Hartlepool

[tonyh29]

35 minutes ago, bickster said:

I always assumed those tweets were about Hartlepool

I'm still amazed in 2018 that this myth hasn't been put to bed  ...  tis a great story though so maybe nobody wants to accept the truth

[bickster]

1 hour ago, tonyh29 said:

I'm still amazed in 2018 that this myth hasn't been put to bed  ...  tis a great story though so maybe nobody wants to accept the truth

The fact that its a myth is irrelevant, everyones knows them as the monkey hangers regardless. Its not refusing to accept the truth, its just a stick to beat a really small town in Scotland with 

[tonyh29]

29 minutes ago, bickster said:

The fact that its a myth is irrelevant, everyones knows them as the monkey hangers regardless. Its not refusing to accept the truth, its just a stick to beat a really small town in Scotland with 

They have a statue of a minkey  and  everything , it’s hard to beat them with something they are proud of   

[bickster]

38 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

They have a statue of a minkey  and  everything , it’s hard to beat them with something they are proud of   

Bit like you and shandy 

[tonyh29]

30 minutes ago, bickster said:

Bit like you and shandy 

It ain’t drinkable if it’s warm and flat

 

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

On 20/04/2018 at 00:07, bickster said:

On 19/04/2018 at 23:00, snowychap said:

Calling @HanoiVillan: Liz Truss on QT, tonight.

Damn I was hoping it would be Septic Minge

Good or bad week for Septic overall do you think on balance ? 

Just guessing,  I bet she forgets where she has parked her car a lot at supermarkets or even if she had a car to begin.

[bickster]

2 hours ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

Good or bad week for Septic overall do you think on balance ? 

Just guessing,  I bet she forgets where she has parked her car a lot at supermarkets or even if she had a car to begin.

Tbh Septic Minge clearly can't remember where the yogurt is 

And to tell the truth she is stuck between a rock and a hard place, she's getting all the flack for something that is intrinsically Theresa May's fault. She's also displaying a level of incompetence herself but she's also been left babysitting May's racist policies. Can you imagine her (or anyone) telling the PM that the policies the PM was responsible for before she became PM were dreadful and racist. Not saying I think she ever would have because she more than likely supports them anyway but even if she didn't approve of them she'd still be in exactly the same position, She wouldn't have a clue because she's incompetent and she'd still have been stuck defending the same policy regardless.

For me the telling thing is that Labour have failed to capitalise yet again, they've been hammering away at Minge to resign etc when its May they should have been attacking over the policy all along. Yes they've mentioned May but that's it, they've gone for Minge full throttle, so Minge has absolutely done her job, she's taken one for the team. Yet another example of Labour's ineptitude imo. If they can't pick the right target in opposition , how can anyone expect them to do the right thing if they actually got into power.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

11 minutes ago, bickster said:

Tbh Septic Minge clearly can't remember where the yogurt is

 That took a while to settle in,  very good.  It's stopped stinging now my all accounts.