Puja wrote: ↑Wed Aug 13, 2025 10:48 am
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... omen-girls
Meanwhile, the Conservatives and Reform UK are increasingly confident in linking immigration to crime. On Sunday, shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said asylum seekers with “medieval attitudes” coming to Britain mean he is afraid for the safety of his three young daughters. Last month, Nigel Farage explicitly claimed increased migration was responsible for a rise in the number of rapes and sexual assaults in the UK, pointing to arrivals from – as he put it – “countries in which women aren’t even second-class citizens”. It seems those so-called legitimate concerns now include the fear that asylum seekers are coming over here to rape our women and girls.
It would be easy for the government to dispel such myths by making the facts around sexual violence clear. But when I asked the Home Office if it collects data on criminal offences by asylum seekers, it declined to provide any formal comment. When I asked the Home Office if it would like to put on record that – as was confirmed to me by several refugee and women’s charities – there are no official figures that show asylum seekers are more likely to commit sexual offences than British nationals, it did not respond. It was, however, keen to stress it has just released data about foreign nationals (a term that includes many others who are not asylum seekers) in prisons.
This ambiguity – and outright radio silence – is unhelpful to say the least, but it is also a choice. Tim Naor Hilton, the chief executive of Refugee Action, outlined the facts in black and white. “There is no clear or credible evidence that people seeking asylum commit more crimes, and any data suggesting that must be viewed in the context of systemic bias, including in policing.”
https://goodlawproject.org/gb-news-the- ... a-factory/
But the data that does exist – published by the Child Sexual Exploitation taskforce – shows that 83% of suspects involved with group-based child sexual exploitation called themselves white, with 7% Asian – 2% less than the proportion of Asian ethnic groups in the 2021 census.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5ypgg28nvpo
Police have been encouraged to consider disclosing the ethnicity and nationality of suspects charged in high-profile cases, after facing mounting pressure over the details they make public.
Policing Minister Dame Diana Johnson said the government will want police to release these details in "most cases" in what she welcomed as a positive step.
FIND. THE. MINERALS. TO. CONTRADICT. REFORM. OR. THE. NEXT. ELECTION. WILL. BE. A. REFERENDUM. ON. THE. FICTIONAL. BROKEN-BRITAIN. THEY. ARE. INVENTING.
Or, you know, blame Corbyn for your imminent defeat. Whichevs.
Puja
Crazy and depressing. Starmer and McSweeney's strategy is both:
1) Unethical. Obviously, to lie and blame all the ills of society on a scapegoat, weak minority is an appalling thing to do. A clue for the ethically challenged is that Hitler employed the same strategy, as is Trump and all of the rising far-right in Europe.
2) A suicidal strategy for Labour. As has been seen in multiple countries including our own (re the Tories v Reform), this strategy only profits (and generously so) far-right parties, because voters aren't completely stupid and know the real anti-immigrant parties from those who are following a script. It was a disaster for the Tories and it is exactly the same for Labour.
I don't expect Starmer and McSweeney to be troubled by ethics, so let's skip point 1).
Re 2), it seems strange that they just don't seem to get this despite all the evidence, from what is actually affecting them
right now. If S & McS were pure pragmatists they would have got this by now. My guess is that a) they are genuinely far-right-leaning, so this strategy is much more natural to them than the liberal approach Starmer espoused when lying to the Labour membership in 2020 and/or b) they are in the pay of the far-right.
McSweeney is the strategist - so he sinks or swims with this - he won't change course.
There is a small chance that a glimmer of pragmatism will get through to Starmer (probably too late) and make him change course. Far more likely will be a token softening of his line in order to try to fool the lefties again. I think he would actually prefer to lose the election than to allow the left of the party back into power.
The only significant hope, therefore, is that the deeply unpopular Starmer is forced out by the Labour MPs AND replaced with a genuinely more left-wing leader.
).
), despite this making us reliant on the whims of Trump and any future POTUS who could therefore shut down our air force. Brilliant strategic work from the Grima Wormtongue of the world stage.