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

[HanoiVillan]

19 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

Same clearings in the woods cheer on Tommy Robinson when he seeks asylum in Spain because of being 'targeted' by Arsonists. 

I think it's a bit different, and worse, because of the role of the media. Too many people in this country like Yaxley-Lennon, but for all he's had one or two outings on Newsnight most people in the media understand that he's a fascist street fighter and a third rail. However, on migrants and bombing, it is absolutely the mainstream opinion in this country that there is no connection worth exploring between bombing middle eastern countries and then abusing refugees as they flee, and I know that because nobody is making that connection at all. I'm the weird one for thinking or talking about it.

[StefanAVFC]

4 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I think it's a bit different, and worse, because of the role of the media. Too many people in this country like Yaxley-Lennon, but for all he's had one or two outings on Newsnight most people in the media understand that he's a fascist street fighter and a third rail. However, on migrants and bombing, it is absolutely the mainstream opinion in this country that there is no connection worth exploring between bombing middle eastern countries and then abusing refugees as they flee, and I know that because nobody is making that connection at all. I'm the weird one for thinking or talking about it.

It's too uncomfortable for people to think about. It's much easier to just blame people who are different. 

[HanoiVillan]

4 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

It's too uncomfortable for people to think about. It's much easier to just blame people who are different. 

I agree completely, and it makes me very depressed sometimes.

[Xann]

The witless bought it.

 

Edited August 12, 2020 by Xann
Sweary!

[bickster]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

 

 

Wasn't that Boris proves he can't make tea day?

[NurembergVillan]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

I would love to live in a country where we neither **** up countries in the middle east nor run hate campaigns against migrants, but it really would be better if we could choose not to do at least one of them.

Sounds like Canada.  I miss it dreadfully.

[cyrusr]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

 

 

Even when he made this comment, we knew it was going to be a bad year. However, it’s just kept getting worse! 

[HanoiVillan]

23 minutes ago, NurembergVillan said:

Sounds like Canada.  I miss it dreadfully.

Like every country, it has its problems, but they definitely are a bit better on this stuff. Maybe one day we'll go there permanently.

[blandy]

2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

We have been, and presumably still are 'on the down-low', providing bombs and weapons to parties to the conflict in Syria

I'm not sure that's actually the case at all.

I mean who knows what (if anything) goes on "off the books". But in terms of recorded sales of military kit to Syria, it's an extremely small amount, and almost entirely protective equipment. - Helmets, body armour, Detectors, Analysers, parts for armoured Land-rover type vehicles - in the last decade, all that together came to about half a million quid's worth. 

Or as even the CAAT says

Quote

The majority of weapons, mostly supplied by Russia, remain in the hands of the Assad regime. Anti-government militias have weapons captured from or handed over by government forces or supplied through various routes by other countries.

While attempts to secure an arms embargo and other sanctions through the United Nations have failed, European Union sanctions, including an arms embargo, came into force on 10 May 2011. The current UK trade sanctions incorporate those of the EU.

The UK supplies non-lethal military equipment to some of the opposition forces, as well as providing training.

No "bombs and weapons".

[NurembergVillan]

32 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Like every country, it has its problems, but they definitely are a bit better on this stuff. Maybe one day we'll go there permanently.

Me and you?!

[chrisp65]

I maybe took it more generally as meaning we complain about people coming here to flee conflict we’ve had a considerable hand in, either directly with Iraq and Yemen and Libya, or more generally with things like promising the Kurds support and then changing our minds.

Plus then, all the other chaos around that, caused by the general clusterfudge that is the Middle East and our choice of active friendships with various countries such as Saudi and Israel (the political entity including minority party political support for the current regime, not meaning every individual Israeli ever).

The guys on the boat saying they were from Syria. I wouldn’t pay that too much attention. They’ll potentially have been told what country to claim. Don’t want to name one you could be sent back to.

if it’s actual bombs, then yes, it reduces down to just 6 or 7 countries. 

[blandy]

3 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I maybe took it more generally as meaning we complain about people coming here to flee conflict we’ve had a considerable hand in, either directly with Iraq and Yemen and Libya, or more generally with things like promising the Kurds support and then changing our minds.

Aye, that's fair comment and a view I share.

I was just, perhaps, being pedantic. We're not quite as awful in every regard as we sometimes presume we are.

[chrisp65]

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

Aye, that's fair comment and a view I share.

I was just, perhaps, being pedantic. We're not quite as awful in every regard as we sometimes presume we are.

If we had zero involvement, we would still get refugees.

It’s just that once upon a time, we’d have taken in the kinder transport kids, or the 4,000 Basque kids that came here in 1937.

Can you imagine if 4,000 Yemeni kids were sailed in to a British Port now? We have markedly diminished as a nation, and it appears to be many of the people that so admire our military history and prowess that are the main culprits.

[darrenm]

2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

In that terrible BBC clip, I noticed that the people on the boats said they came from Syria. We have been, and presumably still are 'on the down-low', providing bombs and weapons to parties to the conflict in Syria. It's an incredible indictment on our country that we can help destroy a country thousands of miles away and then be outraged when a few dozen of their citizens dare to make it here to claim asylum.

I would love to live in a country where we neither **** up countries in the middle east nor run hate campaigns against migrants, but it really would be better if we could choose not to do at least one of them.

I really do hate this country sometimes.

I've been learning Norwegian every day since the election 2019 so I have a better chance of moving there when this place finally reaches outright totalitarian fascism.

[Follyfoot]

6 minutes ago, darrenm said:

I've been learning Norwegian every day since the election 2019 so I have a better chance of moving there when this place finally reaches outright totalitarian fascism.

Virtually the same language - hope this helps

[darrenm]

1 minute ago, Follyfoot said:

Virtually the same language - hope this helps

Tusen takk!

[Follyfoot]

1 minute ago, darrenm said:

Tusen takk!

vær så god

[HanoiVillan]

42 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I maybe took it more generally as meaning we complain about people coming here to flee conflict we’ve had a considerable hand in, either directly with Iraq and Yemen and Libya, or more generally with things like promising the Kurds support and then changing our minds.

Plus then, all the other chaos around that, caused by the general clusterfudge that is the Middle East and our choice of active friendships with various countries such as Saudi and Israel (the political entity including minority party political support for the current regime, not meaning every individual Israeli ever).

The guys on the boat saying they were from Syria. I wouldn’t pay that too much attention. They’ll potentially have been told what country to claim. Don’t want to name one you could be sent back to.

if it’s actual bombs, then yes, it reduces down to just 6 or 7 countries. 

 

38 minutes ago, blandy said:

Aye, that's fair comment and a view I share.

I was just, perhaps, being pedantic. We're not quite as awful in every regard as we sometimes presume we are.

Fair enough to say I was speaking too broadly. The government deny that we support the Free Syrian Army or other rebel groups with weapons, but we certainly have been involved militarily. Firstly, we have sold huge quantities of arms to Turkey, which is absolutely a party to the conflict. Between the 2017 and 2019 elections, we sold £700m of military equipment to Turkey (source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/government-arms-sales-weapons-turkey-saudi-arabia-syria-caat-tory-ministers-a9186181.html). Secondly, we have directly bombed Syria on more than one occasion (December 2015 and April 2018 at least). We know that the SAS have been operating in Syria, because nobody would answer a question as to why one of them died there on duty (answer in Parliament here: https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Lords/2018-04-16/HL6880), and from further questions that 'UK military personnel are present in Coalition HQs which support counter-Daesh operations, of which post-conflict stabilisation is a vital part' (source: https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Lords/2018-02-08/HL5529), which I found an interesting phrasing personally. I am also very doubtful that we mere members of the public are fully appraised of everything that we are up to, but the nature of that suspicion is that it is impossible to prove.

I should be fair and note that our involvement could certainly be much more direct and that lots and lots of people wanted exactly that, and it would have been if not for Ed Miliband, so thanks Ed.

In addition, @chrisp65 is right that you can apply this more broadly, beyond the Syrian conflict, to Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond.

[blandy]

23 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Fair enough to say I was speaking too broadly.

It's a side conversation, but I'd say you were speaking too narrowly 

It was the "Bombs and Weapons to parties..." that surprised me, because essentially we don't. True, some rifles to Turkey (from your link), but beyond that, not really anything. But yeah, widen it out to Helicopter parts, body armour, CW detection kits, radios, and all that paraphernalia - equipment that comes under control but isn't actually weapons and your comment is valid. And yeah the UK has dropped a handful of bombs on some naughty people in Syria, as a sort of token involvement.

But there's no arguing that the UK is one of the more active arms trade nations. We're somewhere around 7th I think, in the world -  though I've heard people say anywhere between 2nd and 10th, depending how and what you measure and what year it is.

Me personally - no problem at all with selling to close, democratic, allies - EU nations, Scandi nations, Aus, NZ, USA.Japan.. Beyond that I go from various degrees of discomfort or disapproval to outright "WTAF are we doing". And it's all government decisions.

[LondonLax]

There is surely a clear distinction to be made between Iraq, where the ‘coalition of the willing’ were directly responsible for the breakdown of the country and Syria which was more a result of the ‘Arab Spring’ being successful enough to destabilise the government there?

I mean the UK is likely to have had some influence in the region but it is probable there would have been refugees fleeing from their regardless of what action the UK took.