Last Wednesday, 21 July 2021, as I Joined with the SODEM team at the regular PMQs protest outside parliament, I was told in unequivocal terms by a Covid-denier that I didn’t represent “The People”. Just what I am to make of that? I’m sorry, “The People”, but I have never made any claim to represent […]
Thousands of EU flags are expected to pop up outside public buildings around the UK very soon. This is because the Westminster government is keen to receive eligible post Covid funding from the European Union. The Independent reports that: “Guidance issued to local authorities by the communities ministry this summer says the blue and yellow […]
One shrewd editorial policy at the outset set the tone which was that, while those involved in setting up the project shared an interest in politics, Bylines was interested in everything. No boundaries were set on the scope of its content. As a result, Bylines publishes a range of material much more diverse than any regional newspaper: poetry, international affairs, profiles of local sporting legends, it’s all in there.
I’ve now got Indefinite
Leave to Remain!
What are you
leave or remain?
I mean what do you think
Leaver or Remainer
what’s left, what remains?
In this week’s Bylines Network Podcast, Katrina Best interviews Alex Toal. Alex was involved in campaigning in the Batley and Spen by-election. He reflects on what he learned on the doorstep and analyses the Labour win and what this might mean for Labour going forward. Cross border services We also hear from Kim Sanderson whose […]
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in life is not to base my feelings and views about a person reflective of the man or woman they once WERE – but as the person they are trying to be TODAY.
Like many I wonder what planet Lord David Frost is on? Frost and his ilk live in an alternative universe bereft of the richness of 21st century cultural diversity where creative innovation will be a thing of the past due to a narrow curriculum and the wholesale trashing of our creative industries.
“When Brexit is done or undone, we all have to live together and individual friendship and experience will always triumph over politics… I hope.the right wing will always be better at playing the divide and conquer game; we need to trump that with what we’re good at. Friendship.”
I know just how important Nissan is economically to Sunderland, having grown up from just around the corner from it. It has provided decent jobs to the area for over thirty years. This is why I stood outside Nissan with other NE4EU members week after week last year often in the cold and pouring rain to stand in solidarity with its workers.
The end of June marks the deadline for EU citizens to lodge an application for settled status in the UK. The Office for National Statistics’ 2018 figure for EU citizens here was 3.66 million, yet recent reports suggest over 5.3 million applications for settled status have already been made. Unfortunately – perhaps partly because of the underestimate in numbers – there is now a backlog of around 400,000 in the processing of applications. This is likely to cause an anxious wait for many people at an already stressful time.
A case of stabbing your constituents in the back, then realising you’d shot yourself in the foot, perhaps?
The OBON song was created by school-children in Bradford and there are certainly a lot of cute children waving Union Jack flags in the official video. Whilst I love a good sing-song and I do go all dewy-eyed at the thought of primary school choirs I simply can’t get excited by the crassness of the whole thing.
“The PM is promising Britain will regain its status as a global “science superpower”, but what’s his plan to regain our status as a European science superpower? We do need a plan to build back better in Europe after Brexit and this is not something the government can ignore.”
“In a world where goods and capital are mobile, I think rights should also be mobile, this is why Italy decided not only to allow its citizens living abroad to vote but also, since 2001, to elect their own representatives in the Italian Parliament in order for them to have their own voice.”
A group of local North East residents feel so strongly about lies and broken promises from the current government that they are staging a rally in Newcastle on Saturday 26 June. The focus of the demo is #WeDemandBetter.
But we all vowed to continue to fight for our values. To never let hate win. To not allow division to be the foundation of our democracy. People campaigned for remain for many different reasons but for me, it was about values. It was a belief in international solidarity. That we genuinely are stronger together.
“Rights have been lost, that’s true. Our achievements pale into insignificance compared with what has been lost. I would like to expand the network we have created to include all British citizens who are committed to a positive debate on migration, and the protection of all rights. Somehow, we need to pave the way for the future of people mobility.”
I also consider myself to be a ‘good citizen’. I am sure no insult was intended but the inference that I am somehow a bad citizen because I am reluctant to hand over my medical data willy-nilly makes me angry. I am risk averse and try and ensure that my data is protected. I do not want, at this stage, to hand over the responsibility of protecting my data to a third party I do not trust.
There is a real passion for the community and the region which permeates everything Mayor Driscoll says. It is clear that he sees the enfranchisement of the local communities and local businesses as the key aspect of his plans for the region.
To understand how important asylum-seekers and migrants are, we need to look no further than our Cabinet Ministers! Boris Johnson is the great-grandson of a Turkish politician who sought refuge in the UK. Priti Patel’s Ugandan Indian parents migrated to the UK just years before the dictator Idi Amin ordered the expulsion of the Asians from Uganda. Dominic Raab is the son of a Jewish Czech refugee. Rishi Sunak’s Indian parents came from East Africa.
The question we should be asking is not about Hartlepudlians’ IQ, but whether their voting decisions were manipulated, and how.
If freeports were such a good solution, why we have not tried them before? Sadly, the answer is that we tried them before, but they did not work.
“People don’t care about the rights of children, they only pay lip service to it, especially when a shocking story appears in the media e.g., baby P, or Marcus Rashford and the school meals story”
I describe myself as a retired teacher. But I’ve also done work as actor; book-keeper; building labourer; ice-cream seller; interpreter; long-distance bus-driver; newsreader; paint salesman; pharmaceutical rep; proof-reader; property manager; and ski rep.
All else being equal, why would a British tiler living in the UK be your first choice for work in Switzerland, rather than a British tiler living locally in a neighbouring EU country (of which Switzerland has several)? And why should the consumer in Switzerland be denied that choice? Within the microcosm of the Cross-Border Services group alone, this means that the translator living in the UK can legitimately deliver services on-site in Switzerland, but the translator living in Rome cannot. It would seem all UK citizens are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Little account has been taken by either side of real human beings, their practical problems, level of integration and especially the impact on families. The UK’s post-Brexit Immigration Bill effectively shuts the door on its own citizens from returning to live in the UK after March 2022 if, with their EU spouses and family, they cannot meet the Minimum Income Requirement.
The popularity of the Brexit party in recent years may also provide some insight into what is happening in Hartlepool today. What UKIP, the BNP, the Veterans’ and People’s Party and other similar groups have had in common is their anti-immigrant, islamphobic, hang-‘em-and-flog-‘em agenda. The Brexit party dispensed with that, and instead set up with no policy platform at all, other than the realisation of Brexit. Now, under the name Reform UK, the party has a limited platform – most notably opposition to lockdown.
Leaving the EU always had the potential to be incredibly disruptive to the food industry. There were many concerns around the impact on the supply chain, sourcing ingredients and labour shortages.
AEIP’s report is an agenda for change. It suggests a basic level of cooperation so that we can respond to the major crises of this century: from runaway economic inequality, environmental destruction to the threat of nationalism and authoritarianism.
If Brexit had to happen, the most sensible way would have been to remain in the single market and in the type of close collaborative relationship that Norway and Iceland have with the EU. This would have avoided all the problems we have experienced and would have been more in keeping with the tiny majority in favour of Brexit in 2016.