GMB Merton Branch

Merton Branch, Southern Region

[Brexitshambles @brexit_sham]

In under two minutes, Farage biographer, Michael Crick, exposes the fundamental problem with Reform…

[GMB Merton Branch @GMB_M27]

https://t.co/ZbBClmOP0O

[GMB Merton Branch @GMB_M27]

https://t.co/cOI29Dj7IF

[GMB Merton Branch @GMB_M27]

https://t.co/nxNrrrqnjq Mick Lynch on Peter Mandelson

[GMB Merton Branch @GMB_M27]

https://t.co/vRDZFNMeu7 Beth Rigby exposes Rishi Sunak as a hollow man who is so afraid of the electorate he will not call a General Election.

[Tim Bale @ProfTimBale]

Hang on - so he was removed from the conference hall with the aid of Greater Manchester Police (18 seconds in)? Would be interested to know from @gmpolice on what grounds their officer felt obliged to get involved?

[Diane Abbott @HackneyAbbott]

Enoch Powell got thrown out the Tory party for rhetoric like Braverman’s. Instead she gets rapturous applause from the Tory faithful. https://t.co/ObgLSfMf1n

[Sky News @SkyNews]

Chief Political Correspondent @joncraig details what happened when a protestor interrupted Home Secretary Suella Braverman speech at the Conservative Party conference.

Andrew Boff accused her of talking "trash" about "gender ideology".

https://t.co/xItZsH7tea

📺 Sky 501

[Tom Copley @tomcopley]

Andrew has never been afraid to stand up for his principles and speak out for what he believes in, even when it puts him in conflict with his own party. Good on him.

[GMB Merton Branch @GMB_M27]

Be careful what you wish for: Vote Tory. / Get UKIP....

[GMB Merton Branch @GMB_M27]

https://t.co/wVrrNvBekd Where is the video clip of Patel and Farage dancing to and singing: " I Love You Baby....."

[GMB Merton Branch @GMB_M27]

https://t.co/GAsQMPZU8I Truss / UKIP's Coming Home......

[The News Agents @TheNewsAgents]

“We definitely got a Liz Truss side-eye.”

Against the odds, The News Agents attended the jam-packed speech of the former PM, as a senior Tory tells @jonsopel they are “frankly horrified” at her renewed popularity.

👉 https://t.co/SdyBDl7qyY

@maitlis | @lewis_goodall

[GMB Merton Branch @GMB_M27]

https://t.co/oOpY67bzL5 Farage at the Truss Press Conference and the ukipization of the Tory Party...

[The News Agents @TheNewsAgents]

“You could have been at a UKIP or Brexit party conference.”

The News Agents discuss the Conservative “move” to the “Nigel Farage agenda” - who was present at Liz Truss’s party conference speech…

On @GlobalPlayer
https://t.co/SdyBDl7Yow

[GMB Merton Branch @GMB_M27]

'Are you here to cause trouble?' As Truss enters the building, you can see her head nod twice as the journalist asks the question....

https://t.co/BJdKn5FuzT

[GMB Merton Branch @GMB_M27]

https://t.co/tNfLt4rISJ

[Beth Rigby @BethRigby]

Record tax rises since 2019 will cost equivalent of £3.5k per hh. Tories overseen largest increase in taxes (£100bn this parl) since 2WW. By time of next GE tax burden expto rise from 33% to 37% of nat income & higher taxes ‘may never be reversed’ @ifs
https://t.co/9XWi6CHbWQ

[GMB Merton Branch @GMB_M27]

https://t.co/Hy76ReMvuY

[Peter Stefanovic @PeterStefanovi2]

The US State Department will from next month end all military cooperation with Rwanda after adding the small African nation to its list of countries using or sponsoring child soldiers. Meanwhile our own Home Secretary shamelessly sings its praises

https://t.co/KAYysbYOrC

[GMB Merton Branch @GMB_M27]

https://t.co/xernKqMZRd

[Adam Bienkov @AdamBienkov]

Rishi Sunak excludes trade unions and scraps workers' rights and environmental standards from his India trade deal https://t.co/YSpZ5Ju6Ul

[GMB Merton Branch @GMB_M27]

https://t.co/Cd4LcTWm8P

[Mark Kieran - Democracy Activist @MarkKieranUK]

WARNING: THREAD CONTAINS GRAPHIC LANGUAGE

🧵 What a morally vacuous, embarrassingly incompetent monster Suella Braverman is.

Having worked at the Home Office deciding asylum applications, I know the 1951 Refugee Convention's terms are far clearer than her pernicious propaganda would suggest.

She says many asylum seekers base their claims on “feeling” discriminated against in their home countries. But the scope of the Convention is limited to people who believe they have a “well-founded fear of persecution” for some specific reasons. Those reasons are race, nationality, religion, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. Mere feelings of discrimination would not meet that rigorous test, and any application made on those grounds would (rightly) be fast-tracked for refusal.

She suggests that persecution, by definition, must involve a threat to life. Not true. Persecution often DOES involve a threat to life, but other things can qualify as persecution (arbitrary detention, unjustified confiscation of assets, withdrawal of state protection from crime). Braverman knows this, but the boneheads whose votes she is soliciting do not, so hey, why not spin the line?

In my time at the Home Office, I refused many asylum applications which, on the evidence presented, clearly did not meet the test of a well-founded fear of persecution on Convention grounds. The majority of those applications were made by people (mostly young men) who appeared to be seeking better economic futures for themselves and their families. That's completely understandable, and I never blamed them for trying, but it's not grounds for asylum, so neither did I feel any guilt in refusing them…that's not the purpose of the asylum system.

But I did grant asylum to a number of people who had clearly faced unimaginable horror in their own countries before escaping to the UK, where they felt safe and where they believed they would be able to live the rest of their lives in peace.

There was the Sikh activist who had a kettle of boiling water poured over him during a police interrogation. There was the woman from a minority Muslim sect who, when her husband died, and her neighbours started throwing stones through her windows at night, sought the protection of the local police only to be publicly ridiculed and then gang-raped by six officers in front of her three young children. There were the young Tamil men forced to inhale the fumes of burnt chilli powder by Sri Lankan police. Others hung upside-down and beaten for days until they confessed to crimes they played no part in. And many, many more with genuine, provable experiences just as gruesome.

Nearly thirty years on, I can still recall the faces of those people as they recounted their experiences to me during interviews and the tears in the eyes of the interpreters as they translated words no one should ever have to hear.

Since my days in the Home Office, I can’t recall a single Home Secretary who hasn’t had to wrestle one way or another with the asylum system. But neither can I recall one who has approached the task with as little humanity in their heart as Braverman. Truly, she is in a league of her own.

I simply don’t believe the majority of people in this country support the cruel policies that Braverman embraces so enthusiastically. As I listen to her today, my sincerest hope is that when Open Britain and our partners finally deliver a functional democracy in this country, monsters like her will never again be able to game their way into high office and abuse the power they find there.

This is our fight.

If you've read this far, please consider giving this a retweet and following me, @OpenBritainHQ and @StopTheRot_UK so you can be part of this positive change. Thank you.

[GMB Merton Branch @GMB_M27]

https://t.co/PcvB9ZVqzS

[Trades Union Congress @The_TUC]

We will never turn our backs on those fleeing poverty, persecution or war.

Because the real enemies of the working class don't arrive by small boat, they fly in by private jet.

[GMB Merton Branch @GMB_M27]

https://t.co/oNLGtBttmx

[ALASTAIR CAMPBELL @campbellclaret]

And Sunak PM; and Cleverly foreign sec; and Sadiq Mayor; and hopefully Lammy soon foreign sec. The speech was as intellectually incoherent as it was repulsive. That Sunak allowed it to be made underlines his weakness to stand up to forces doing to him what Johnson did to May