The dawn raid in Glasgow looks a lot like a deliberate provocation from the Westminster government and the Home Office. It was in the First Minister's constituency; it was as the new MSPs (Members of the Scottish Parliament) were being sworn in; it's in the constituency that the leader of Scottish Labour, Anas Sarwar, contested in the May election; and it was the first day of Eid Al-Fitr. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-57100259

> This is government policy and it is popular

Be very careful with such a statement.

Regardless of where you sit on the issue, the Brexit referendum was roughly 50:50. The UK is fiercely split [1] and such issues are not going to be resolved anytime soon. It is incorrect to state such a policy is popular..... roughly half the population voted against it.

[1] And dare I say it... looks in danger of splitting up.

Brexit was, apparently, very popular with uniformed services such as armed forces, police etc, presumably border control too. I can imagine such disproportionate action is one way to feel good about your job and justify extra funding: just look at how many people we detained! Also, I’m not a paper pusher who waves people through, I regularly catch enemies of the state and put them where their place is.

In that respect, I suspect it is a popular policy among those who enforce it.

OK then, it's fair to state that the policy is not unpopular. It commands a good deal of support from the electorate.

Populations usually split one third reactionary, one third progressive, and one third will-vote-how-they're told.

If the policy is "popular" - which it isn't, except among the reactionaries - it's in no small measure because the UK media have normalised this kind of abuse.

This kind of thing is almost a predictable syndrome associated with post-colonialism. Other countries have been through it, now it's the UK's turn.

When countries lose their empires/influence, racism and fascism provide a compensation that can temporarily restore childish fantasies of omnipotence.

It's associated with a death wish, so things generally get worse - sometimes much worse - before they get better.

The referendum vote is not the best point of reference. The Conservatives won comfortably in 2019, and recently won a by election, again comfortably, all on a platform of implementing brexit.

They had the biggest vote share but this was still under 50% in 2019. It's only due to FPTP that this translates to a majority of seats.

They had the biggest vote share. Just like Leave did in the referendum. It's fair enough if you want to campaign to change the electoral system, but both of these things legitimately came from the present one.

Sure, but that's irrelevant for the message you were replying to:

> The UK is fiercely split [1] and such issues are not going to be resolved anytime soon. It is incorrect to state such a policy is popular..... roughly half the population voted against it.

You tried to dispute that by pointing out that the Conservatives won comfortably in 2019. I don't think it does given that the vote share in 2019 still suggested a roughly 50:50 split of the population.

Won comfortably in the UK does not mean too much in the UK. Easily 30-40% of the votes get just disregarded in the UK system. (I did not check the actual figures for the recent elections.)

In the 2019 election, more people voted for the parties opposed to Brexit or advocating a second referendum than for pro Brexit parties.

CON, DUP: 44.4%

LAB, LIB, SNP, GRN, CYM: 50.7%

Brexit is now done so last week's local elections can't be used as a point of reference on that subject.

Labour neither opposed Brexit nor advocated for a second referendum during the 2019 GE campaign though. We cannot be sure what their voters' position on Brexit was. My assumption is that the majority of them were opposed, but a significant minority were still in favour, and we do not know how big that significant minority was, we do not know whether it would have been enough for the outcome of a new referendum to be different from the previous one.

> Labour neither opposed Brexit nor advocated for a second referendum during the 2019 GE campaign though.

Yes they did. From their party manifesto[1]:

> Within three months of coming to power, a Labour government will secure a sensible deal. And within six months, we will put that deal to a public vote alongside the option to remain.

Large numbers of voters switched from Labour to Conservative because of Brexit. It's probably fair to count all Labour voters from that election as "not in favour of Brexit".

1. https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Real-Change...

That "sensible deal" is still Brexit, it's just not a no-deal Brexit or hard Brexit. I had missed the bit about putting that new different deal to a public vote though.

> all on a platform of implementing brexit

Nope. They won exclusively due to targeted "hidden" campaigns via Facebook and other directed means, sending messages designed to sway the voters in a number of very narrowly decided constituencies. This is how they got 56.2% of the parliament seats despite winning only 43.6% of the votes.

Europeans and the EU are the ideal scapegoat in the UK. I always felt that Europeans were blamed for immigration policies as it is politically correct to shame them. Shaming non european immigration is a social minefield, very few people would dare to say it aloud as they would categorised as racists.

You will find that non-European immigrants, especially from Commonwealth and ex-Commonwealth countries, also have a negative opinion of the previous preferential EU immigration rules. I have met many South African and Nigerian immigrants who found the disparity between their right to immigrate and that of EU citizens deeply unfair, and many who were eligible to vote in the Brexit referrendum chose to leave the EU for precicely that reason. They can hardly be accused of racism.

Besides which, the conflation of a desire for immigration control with racism is a lazy canard.

What you say doesn't make any sense. As part of the EU, European citizens had the right to move to any countries of their choice. This was the very definition of being part of the EU. British nationals could move to any European countries, which they did in flock, and European nationals could also move to UK. South Africa was a third country, to which EU laws did not apply, hence their difference in treatment by the UK. The UK was part of a huge ensemble in which people could feely move from one place to another, it is no longer the case.

I agree that it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but its a real thing:

>One second generation immigrant I spoke to said some Pakistani people campaigned for Brexit because they wanted to “control immigration in a way that was favourable to the Indian subcontinent”.

>“One of their arguments was that, if we leave, we’d be better able to accept people from the Indian subcontinent, professionals such as doctors, rather than taking them from Europe,” he said. “There was that strand that we’d lost control of immigration, that lots of people from eastern Europe were coming over, but, therefore, people from the Indian subcontinent weren’t getting a fair crack at the whip and it was that disparity. They felt the immigration system was unfair.”

>While EU migrants generally benefit from freedom of movement, those from countries such as India and Pakistan are subject to visa and work restrictions – a distinction that was played on by Vote Leave’s Michael Gove during the referendum campaign when he suggested that Britain’s immigration system was “racist”.

https://bylinetimes.com/2019/04/08/the-story-of-brexit-is-th...

This is something that actually really frustrated me about the Brexit referendum. I remember reading an opinion piece in the NZ herald from a women who explained why she was voting in favour of Brexit. What it basically boiled down to was that she was jealous that EU citizens had freedom of movement with the UK and she didn't.

But conversely during the time that she was allowed to be in the UK, she had the right to vote while EU citizens didn't.

Like you I don't think commonwealth citizens who voted for Brexit were being racist, I do think it was sometimes vindictive though which doesn't really make it much better.

i find such logic hard to understand: UK was part of the EU, hence the open labour market. That's the whole point of EU. What did they find unfair exactly -- that Nigeria was not part of the EU? Or that countries can agree to have an open labour market?

Long before the UK joined the EU it was a member of the Commonwealth of Nations and had close relationships to countries that once were part of the Empire. Before the EU, most UK immigration came from Commonwealth countries. Freedom of movement allowed easy immigration from Europe and greater restrictions on Commonwealth immigration. People from those countries believe that the UK has prior obligations to members of the Commonwealth, and that it should prioritize those obligations (and often that privileging EU immigration is racist.) You can see the post-Brexit shift to previous obligations with the easing of immigration rules for Hong Kong citizens.

how did joining the EU restrict Commonwealth immigration?

It doesn't. The policy of restricting Commonwealth immigration was brought in after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Asians_from_Ugand... in response to complaints that there were "too many" immigrants.

Voters felt levels of immigration in general were too high and leading to strained public services. EU law forbids restrictions on intra-EU immigration, so the only legal path to making voters happier was to heavily restrict immigration from everywhere else. It didn't work: the numbers from the EU were far too high to be offset via such a tactic, but it was at least something.

The numbers are still viewed as being too high though post-lockdowns who knows what will happen. But the limits can at least now be spread around all countries equally, and people can be prioritised based on e.g. demand for their skills. This was previously forbidden.

This has nothing to do with logic. It's a knee-jerk reaction, and the pro-Brexit propaganda played it hard (alongside other similar arguments).

My conclusion on this whole debacle is: Do not allow uncontrolled migration with countries that are much poorer with much lower wages than you.

This may or may not sound common sense but to me that is the root cause of it all.

Before 2004, when the first and main batch of Eastern European countries joined the EU no one really cared about free movement: It was all within Western Europe and did not create problems.

Then, literally millions of Eastern Europeans moved to the UK and that created social, cultural, and economical problems and the people impacted were shocked to be told that there was absolutely nothing the government could do. The rest, as they say, is history.

Oh well I am an EU immigrant in the UK and I have always been treated better than at home in Spain. Fast administration, same legal treatment as UK citizens, I could get the passport if I needed. And UK people are fantastic.

It will be a lot less popular once British people arriving in the EU receive the same treatment and get told that this is what they voted for.

British people wanting to live and work in Europe will have to apply under Europe's rules. Seems fair. British people who have been evading existing rules and now have no basis to stay in Europe are being told to leave. Also fair.

Are they politely asked to leave? Or are they thrown into detention centers and humiliated, despite willing to pay for the ticket to leave?

The first one. The second Spanish police throws a British immigrant into a detention centre for staying illegally you will see every tabloid in the UK crying about it.

But yes, British visitors to the EU who cannot enter for whatever reason are just sent back on the same flight or wait at the airport for the next one.

Even if that happens, the people with whom anti-immigration policies are popular and job solicitors in the EU are likely two non-overlapping groups.

There was a genre of Daily Mail comment where Brits who'd immigrated to Spain complained about the number of immigrants in the UK.

Why don't they already? Seems 100% unfair. It's almost impossible for non EU citizens to enter Europe and look for a job if they come from Africa for instance. Why should it be easier for UK citizens?

Because we/they decided it, probably based on the relative economies of different countries, chance of illegal overstaying etc.

I think EU and UK people can visit the USA for a job interview under the visa waiver programme. A Nigerian can't. It's the same difference.

Not all EU people. Some still need visas for the US.

Bare in mind that eu citizens still don't need a visa to travel to the uk.

"Bear in mind". "Bare in mind" sounds like you're thinking about the people naked.

:-)

Depends on the purpose. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/visiting-the-uk-as-an-eu-eea-or-...

I know that, and it's of course a good point.

I was trying to convey the fact that citizens from eu countries are not at the level of other third countries yet. For example you can still travel using just a national id card until October.

I wholeheartedly agree with the rest of your comment though.

Brutal and nasty are emotive terms. If someone has no lawful basis to be in a country, what is wrong with expecting them to leave?

In the press articles the Home Office is quoted as saying, "suspected offences". A dawn raid is completely abhorrent for anything other than serious crimes. Note that Immigration Enforcement isn't even the police, this is a Home Office unit.

A dawn raid is designed to catch someone who is expected to try to evade arrest. Would you prefer a chase through the streets?

Immigration Enforcement have power of arrest for this circumstance. The Information Commissioner has uniformed officers with limited police-type powers for their area of work too.

"Power of arrest" for which circumstance, exactly? Someone visiting perfectly legally for an interview which may lead to a job offer?

And I'd prefer no speculative high-drama arrests of people who are following the rules and not breaking the law.

Visiting for an interview means having a letter of invitation for an interview from a company, not this (from article):

> María, 25, from Valencia, said that like many of those detained, she thought she was free to explore the job market at least until October

This sounds like coming to the UK for work without a visa, in which case it is correct in law to be detained.

I think the practice of detention for up to 7 days before being deported is a way to inflict a punishment to deter people trying. Indeed, if the only thing you risk if caught is being turned away at the airport then people would just try and try, why not?

There are articles from sources a bit more balanced than The Guardian: https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-citizens-detained-uk-work...

The Scottish Government has asked the Westminster government to stop dawn raids. You are, perhaps, through mis-placed authoritarianism, missing the bigger picture.

The ways you are "expecting them to leave" is really interesting. Seems more like you hold them for random amount of time in detaintion centers.

They are not given ability to contact their embassy for held getting out of the country.

Some cases they say they could pay for a plane home again but got detained anyway.

Furthermore the reason they are detained are rather undefined. It says that they can go to UK for interview for example, but they are still detained. They tried to enter legally but the rules does not seem to be followed.

Some in the article were held for two days, which in my eyes are not a speedy return. This is waste of UK money and a bad system.

Exactly, citizens demand a government that enforces laws.

Unlike the EU, where about 30% of illegal immigrants are expelled, while no one no one is interested in changing that legal status.

Did you actually read the article?

People are offering to buy their own ticket, but no they're sent to detention for no reason, at taxpayer expense.

People are offering to stay private, but no they're sent to detention at taxpayer expense.

A Czech woman is being sent to Mexico instead of allowing her to pay herself to fly home to Prague.

All this spending of UK taxpayer funds for what? Out of spite?

> A Czech woman is being sent to Mexico instead of allowing her to pay herself to fly home to Prague.

It's annoying and slightly weird, but isn't that just how it works? You go 'back where you came from', not wherever you want or claim to live?

Say the woman in your example was refused by Czech customs, and sent back to the UK, then what? Dig through records (would they have them?) to find she came to the UK from Mexico, and then send her there?

Correct me if I'm wrong, I just don't think that would be different in any other country. (That particular aspect I mean, assuming they've decided you're not allowed in, and will be deported to somewhere.)

> Say the woman in your example was refused by Czech customs, and sent back to the UK, then what?

Considering she is Czech, she is far more likely to be rejected by Mexican customs rather than Czech customs.

Sure, there's always the tyrrany of the need to follow rules even when they make no sense, and if it were this in isolation then it would not raise eyebrows.

> This nastiness is what the public demands.

So you're saying democracy is bad?

People who want unrestricted immigration for "looking for work" are completely clueless. They only think they want it because they don't know how many people will come if it's open borders with the 3rd world and what the economic and social consequences of that will be. Those unemployed people can't be allowed to starve so they must be supported by social welfare. It's easy to feel sorry for a handful of rejected migrants but only by ignoring the millions who never even tried to enter, knowing they couldn't.

> People who want unrestricted immigration for "looking for work"

sounds like a weird strawman. Do you know of any larger group seriously fighting for that at the moment?

(People coming for a scheduled interview are not "unrestricted immigration for looking for work")

The article mentions a person coming "looking for work" being detained.

The article also mentions a French woman who was detained for attending an interview for an internship, so I think there's that too.

Imo, it's obviously very unclear as to why they're being detained, but in the case of Eugenia (Spanish woman arriving to "look for work"), it was clearly illegal per the new law.

Very very few people want unrestricted immigration, however ~50% of people want unrestricted immigration from the EU on a reciprocal basis. We had that for years, with the economic and social consequences being largely positive.

That said, I don't take it as a given that unrestricted immigration would cause problems; it has never been tried, there is no data to go on.

Support for unlimited EU immigration is not 50%, it's much lower. You're thinking of people who voted to Remain, but a significant fraction of those people were motivated by the fear of "punishment" either from Cameron/Osborne's huge tax rises or the supposed EU allies, not actual firm support of EU policies.

A breakdown is available here:

https://dominiccummings.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screensh...

You are not entitled to any welfare as merely an immigrant. If you are a visa holder, it will usually be stamped with "no recourse to public funds". If you are undocumented, obviously you have no means to claim anything.

Asylum seekers get £40 a week. https://www.gov.uk/asylum-support/what-youll-get

People complaining about immigrants claiming welfare have usually been lied to by the press about the applicable situation.

Migrants won't be allowed to die in the streets from starvation in large numbers. People just won't tolerate it and will insist on either keeping them out or paying to support them.

>>People who want unrestricted immigration for "looking for work" are completely clueless

You're entitled to feel this way, but it's completely irrelevant to this discussion. It's a matter of fact that the Home Office says it's legal to enter without a visa to look for a job, and yet that's not what's enforced at the border.

> unrestricted immigration

I'm in the USA and this polemical strawman is standard fare on Murdoch's Fox News. It's just a lazy way of dismissing the issue without real discussion.

I was referring to the GP's statement "The brutal policy that was applied to non-Europeans".

Brutal? It's not brutal - it's positively tame. Take a look at the Australian system under Abott if you want 'brutal'. This is simply a Sovereign State softly removing those with zero right to remain.

>>This is simply a Sovereign State softly removing those with zero right to remain.

Except that the official guidance by the Home Office clearly states that EU citizens can still enter visa-free to look for jobs. But of course as it always happens border force knows better than the Home Office. The fact that people are being actually sent to detention centres is beyond idiotic.

They can't enter visa free to "look for jobs" though. Per the guidelines, unless I'm missing something, they are allowed "to attend meetings, conferences and interviews". Interviewing is a very different status from looking for employment, and one that is documented too.

>This is simply a Sovereign State softly removing those with zero right to remain.

Nothing simple about that given that merely a year or two ago there effectively was no border, and now ordinary people who want to go look for a job sit in detention cells? Who does this help and how is it tame?

The UK more than any other European country should know the devastation borders can wreak.

Why do you resort to emotive language? This is a very simple policy. If the law changes, and you break the new law, you are still breaking the law.

Borders are determined by the desires of those within them. The right to self-determination is a key principle of international law (unless you're Spain, apparently).

It might be a simple policy but your border guards seem to have misunderstood it. It says EU citizens are allowed to enter UK for interviews but they are still being detained.

It is perfectly OK if you want to have inefficient system (wasting UK money on holding people who does not need to be held) but we as EU countries just ask that you give our citizens the possibility to call our embassies before you detain them to let us help them out of your country. Until then we will continue to calling you douchebags for how you treat our citizens that are trying to enter your country legally, sorry for the emotionally loaded words.

> It says EU citizens are allowed to enter UK for interviews but they are still being detained.

They are being detained because they do not enter the UK to attend interviews: The 2 women used as examples in the article did not have an interview scheduled and, as a consequence, did not have an invitation letter. They wanted to enter the UK to look for work. That's very different and, I expect, the reason they were detained as that is indeed illegal without a visa.

If it is allowed to enter visa-free to attend an interview and you have the necessary evidence (i.e. I expect, invitation letter and return ticket within 24-48 hours) I highly doubt that you will be detained.

There are always people who try to break the rules or who do not do their homework. This sort of thing happens everyday. The difference is that EU citizens are not used to this happening to them.

For instance, even before Brexit the UK was not in Schengen and I witnessed several times, both in UK and France, non-EU citizens being stopped on arrival despite being residents in UK/EU because they thought they didn't need a visa to visit Paris from London or London from Paris.

Please target your anger to at most half of the British people. (I will gladly join in.)

With the UK's horrifically undemocratic voting system, the leading party often wins a strong majority of the power in Parliament with significantly less than half the national vote.

In the 2019 election, the Conservative party won 56.2% of the seats in Parliament with 43.6% of the vote.[0]

In 2017, 48.8% of seats came from 42.4% of the vote.

In 2015, 50.8% of seats came from 36.8% of the vote.

In 2010, 47.1% of seats came from 36.1% of the vote.

In 2005, 55.2% of seats came from 35.2% of the vote.

In 2001, 62.5% of seats came from 40.7% of the vote.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_general_el... and links to other elections at the bottom.

The person in the article was planning to spend months looking for work. That's not entering for an interview. Interviews last hours, not months.

Yes, once the European Union stop ruining the Oceans and screwing over the third world, I promise to stop calling you all douchebags too.

>Why do you resort to emotive language?

because this border issue is an emotional and symbolic issue at heart and it's important to recognize that, there is no rational case here why there should be any restriction to freedom of movement. Are you going to be that calm if Scotland attempts to exercise it or if Irish violence flares up again? Erecting borders after decades of freedom of movement is no 'simple policy'. Detaining neighbors just because you can is a sort of behavior that indicates there's something going deeply wrong in the UK.

Tens of thousands of migrants have died trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe. How many have died trying to reach Australia since their strict immigration policies were put in place? It might seem counterintuitive, but that "brutal" system saves thousands of lives each year.

The Home Office said, "suspected offences". Funny that the "Sovreign State" tried this in Scotland, isn't it?

What's the fact that it was in Scotland got to do with it?

It's baseless to believe that the home office would target something in Sturgeons constituency on some particular day, especially when there's no political advantage to be drawn by said act.

Immigration law applies to Scotland too; until there's a nice border there (but that's another topic).

I see your jingoistic sensibilities are clouding your thinking. Your political nous is also somewhat lacking, perhaps, if you can't see the power play here.

So instead of making your point, my thinking is too clouded to come to the same unexplained conclusion as you?

this is a bad-faith argument:

> It's baseless to believe that the home office would target something in Sturgeons constituency on some particular day, especially when there's no political advantage to be drawn by said act.

Judging by #10's behavior as a predictor for future behavior there is every reason to believe it was very much on purpose (and far from "baseless"). And even it wasn't on purpose it would now be on them to apologize and try to straighten things out - which ofc they don't.

If you were trying to argue your point in good faith you would have provided some examples of the behaviour you are talking about, of which I know of no examples.

To be specific I can't think of a time that #10 have gone out of their way to do something like this, or anything else to directly antagonise Sturgeon.