Rick 💙

A sturdy man, just shy of his middle years. Working in the drug/alcohol recovery world. Views are my own etc 🇪🇺🇪🇺🇪🇺🇺🇦🇺🇦

[Don McGowan @donmcgowan]

This right here is one of the reasons our country is in such a mess.

Reform UK have re-announced this same 'policy' seven times in the past three years. Seven.

But Sky News treat it as new and describe it as 'daring'.

Rinse and repeat. Every time Reform need to regain narrative control, roll out the Navy in the Channel story, let the media get overexcited like they've eaten too many sweets, and send out Zia Yusuf and Laila Cunningham to shout over presenters when they dare to challenge it.

There are so many extremely serious news stories to be covered, but Reform dominate the headlines.

Our planet is on fire, literally … small boats.

Trump is more than halfway to becoming a fascist dictator in the US … small boats.

Our country's infrastructure is at the brink of collapse and people can barely afford the little food we see in the supermarkets … small boats.

Our news media's response — let's waste time talking about Reform's 'daring' plan. Again.

It's utterly unacceptable that we are being fed this malign news, day after day, instead of the real stories.

When Reform UK collapse into insignificance after Farage is found guilty of hiding millions of pounds in donation cash, we need to set a precedent.

Never let one party control the story. We're missing so much important news because of Reform UK and their perpetual tantrums.

Stop.

[LubnanBoi @AgitatorAK]

Dear @JeremyClarkson I saw this on my feed on another platform and instantly thought you needed to see it.

"Jeremy Clarkson thinks people who receive benefits should have to send a weekly thank you email to a randomly chosen working person, explaining what they did with the money, or have their payments stopped.

So here is mine. If you’d like to give it a share to help Jeremy see it, that would be great.

Dear Jezza,

Thank you for your concern about my contribution to society.

I should say first that you were aiming this at young people you believe are sitting at home doing nothing.

But you wrote it as a blanket rule applying to everyone whose benefits are paid.

That includes more than thirteen million pensioners, millions of people who receive benefits while working, who may find themselves being ordered to thank another benefit claimant, and me.

I receive PIP.

That money goes towards the Motability car I use to travel to work.

It is not a free car. It is not even my car. I exchange the mobility part of my PIP to lease it.

The car takes the lot.

Which is awkward, because that same payment is also meant to help cover the additional costs of being disabled, including a wheelchair that is actually usable for my job and hearing aids that allow me to do it.

There is nothing left for either.

I chose the thing that gets me to work.

That car enables me to work and, because I can work, I now pay considerably more in tax than I have ever received in PIP.

But my contribution does not end with my own tax bill.

I have built programmes that hundreds of people now use to earn a living.

They pay tax too.

Those programmes have helped thousands of people overcome anxiety, return to their lives and, in many cases, return to work.

Then there are all the people supported by the coaches and practitioners I have trained.

That is what disability support can do when it is designed to enable people rather than humiliate them.

My PIP did not disappear into some great benefits black hole.

It helped provide the transport that allowed me to work, build a business, create opportunities for other people and contribute far more than I could ever have done without it.

But as we are exchanging thank you letters, perhaps you could send me one too.

I paid my television licence throughout the years the BBC gave you the platform that made you famous.

I now pay for Amazon Prime, which helps fund the television programme about your farm.

I do not choose to watch it.

But that is how society works, Jeremy.

We all contribute towards things we may never personally use because the entire country would fall apart if every payment had to provide us with an individual benefit.

Perhaps you could also thank the taxpayers whose public services and infrastructure support your businesses.

And while you have the stationery out, perhaps you could explain the farm.

In 2021, you told The Times that avoiding inheritance tax was “the critical thing” in your decision to buy land.

In 2024, when that became rather inconvenient, you said it had never been true. You claimed you had actually bought the farm because you wanted somewhere to shoot and that tax avoidance had simply sounded like a better story at the time.

I am not sure which version helps your argument.

It is funny how public support and clever tax arrangements are treated as perfectly respectable when they benefit wealthy people.

Yet when a disabled person receives help to leave the house, go to work and participate in society, you think they should be made to perform gratitude.

So thank you for your concern, Jezza.

I hope my licence fee, Amazon subscription, taxes and contribution to the economy have all been gratefully received.

Please send your thank you letter weekly, along with a full breakdown of how you spent the money.

If it is not sufficiently fulsome and effusive, I assume your income will be stopped.

That is only fair."

[Mr Ethical 🚩 @nw_nicholas]

Farage doesn't give a stuff about immigration. He will retire to a tax haven. He learned early in life that there are many racists in Britain and saw a way of making a fortune, when the general direction was education & tolerance.

[Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno]

These hateful lies spread online.

They are radicalising people into extremism.

[Brendan May @bmay]

Eurotunnel is prepping for the new passport system. It will be an absolute bin fire. Each car will have to stop and get out at these kiosks. All because the UK chose hard Brexit with third country status. Sheer, unrivalled, ruinously costly stupidity.

[Alex Taylor @AlexTaylorNews]

Immigration quadrupled after Brexit

And yet the very same snake-oil merchants who conned people in 2016 into thinking it would drop are on TV, right this minute, just as they were yesterday - whipping up outrage against immigration and saying they alone can stop it (again)

[Noah Karl🌏🌌🚀 🇪🇺🇩🇪 @NoahKarl1]

The difference between

"There used to be hot summers too."

and
climate crisis.

[Alex Taylor @AlexTaylorNews]

Yes, he said this, word for word, I checked

Firstly it's a downright lie, as not a single one of them crossed to the mainland (they need a visa from Ceuta and if they had one, why put themselves through the risk of drowning etc, they would have travelled legally on it long ago)

Secondly and more widely, I'm sorry but it takes a particular kind of gall to constantly fan these often racist flames, when 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒐𝒘𝒏 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒔 were basically economic migrants, looking for a better life, fleeing from conflict and poverty in Sri Lanka. The only difference is his parents were much luckier than the people he constantly whips up hate against (for reasons best known to himself) in that the UK 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 came to in the 80s and he grew up in was a much more welcoming place for "migrants," economic or otherwise

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

Weird invasion where everyone’s gone within a day, and they never made it to European soil in the first place.
https://t.co/p1xxBUdfVO

[Joël Grimal @Collectors_Way]

Harry Redknapp hid money in an offshore bank account in his DOG’S name

To try and avoid paying tax in the UK.

Who do “patriots” like that want you to hate instead of them?

On yeah, foreigners

[ADAM @adamemedia1]

Every country on earth needs to do this.

[Alex Taylor @AlexTaylorNews]

Except @pritipatel 50 000 or so have been sent back to Morocco by this evening already, but hey ...

And as Home Sec directly in charge of the "Boriswave" which quadrupled immigration after Brexit, maybe you're not the one to be giving anyone lessons in controlling borders ?

[Alex Taylor @AlexTaylorNews]

Just checked @SuellaBraverman and @RobertJenrick feeds. No correction yet to say not a single one of "these men" has even made it to mainland Spain let alone "to the UK and Calais" as they both claim👇

But hey, what does the truth matter when populists can stir up "outrage" ?

[Michael M. 🇨🇭🇳🇴🇮🇸🇱🇮🇬🇧/🇨🇾 @vivamjm]

As I've tweeted so many times in the past...
UK has chosen a #BelarussianBrexit..
Behind its (still descending) Gammon Curtain...
Compare & contrast with the EU27 inc former countries behind their Iron Curtain ..& now Gibraltar .. that have chosen & embraced mutual freedoms & greater prosperity

[Tony P-K @BongoThePongo]

@vivamjm We removed ourselves from the EU relegating ourselves to '3rd country' status. When you leave the club, you lose the perks. In the EU we were the Dons with Germany. Outside, little better than Belarus. This 'we're better we're British' thinking needs to end. We're not

[Michael M. 🇨🇭🇳🇴🇮🇸🇱🇮🇬🇧/🇨🇾 @vivamjm]

I have to conclude many of my fellow Brits are unthinking, thick sods, driven by blind Gammon hatred...
(Just look at the consistently ignorant replies here to the opening tweet I have responded to a few times)
They have allowed themselves to be manipulated into voting against their own interests in extended greater benefits & rights (EU membership) & would vote away even more (ECHR) if they thought their "high priest" would order the blowing of 'the small boats' out of the water, using the RN...or (no permission given) actually invaded France with British troops to stop the "invasion" of unarmed people in barely seaworthy dinghies.
The billionaires meanwhile laugh at how easy it is to create the conditions to better exploit people by simply directing their tribal rage at others with nothing.

[Michael M. 🇨🇭🇳🇴🇮🇸🇱🇮🇬🇧/🇨🇾 @vivamjm]

"The EU could easily remove all the checks for people from the UK" if the UK wholly reciprocates for the EU.
It is called reciprocal freedom of movement & being part of the same Common Travel Area, under *mutually recognised* legal oversight & authority; jurisdiction.
Here it is called Schengen.
Otherwise you get the unavoidable checks (as per all the borders between any two *different* - not *mutually recognised* - legal jurisdictions).
None of this would be an issue but for Brexit, so of course it is *all* Brexit's fault.
As for "boycott the place", how stupid can you be @rstk8?

[BrexistentialCrisis @BrexistentialC]

First they came for the EU.
Then the ECHR.

They say leaving both will mean taking back control.

It’s all lies.

What they actually plan to take away is 100+ years of hard won worker’s rights, children’s rights, women’s rights, HUMAN rights, all of which make YOUR life better.

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Alastair Campbell, "Nigel Farage is a consequential figure in British politics, I doubt Brexit would have happened without him"

"History will say the three key drivers of Brexit: David Cameron who called the referendum, Boris Johnson who led one of the campaigns and Nigel Farage who laid the ground for it"

"Camerons gone, Johnsons gone, and the fact that some people are talking about Nigel Farage becoming the next prime minister, what does that say about our politics?"

"The guy who has helped to inflict the very thing, Brexit, that has weakened our economy, weakened our standing in the world, that we think he should be prime minister?

"It's a form of madness"

"The populism and lies of the Brexit campaigners"

"Brexit was all about taking back control. Partly because we lost our membership of the European Union and so the Dublin Convention, we've lost control"

"Partly because so many Europeans left Britain, went back, doctors, nurses, and carers, we then had the Boris wave of immigration, people from other countries, particularly India, Bangladesh"

"We also have people from Ukraine and Hong Kong which I think the public are more willing to accept"

"The truth is, we have to get the balance right between an aging population, where we're going to need immigrants to do the jobs that British people don't want to do, and we need high skill immigrants"

"Charlatans like Farage are always going to make immigration the issue because they haven't got much else to say about anything else"

"Andy Burnham is very pro European, in his heart he knows Brexit is a disaster, knows that we have to somehow fix it"

"I think it will be a much closer relationship with the European Union"

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Gent in baseball hat, "I would like to see Andy Burnham succeed, I think there are huge opportunities"

"His agenda.. An elected second chamber, devolution of power, Proportional Representation, I would love to see the UK rejoin the EU in due course"

"I'm a Labour party member myself, I hope he succeeds, because if he doesn't I fear for the future of the UK"

Neelam Aslam, "One piece of advice you want to give Andy Burnham"

Gent in baseball hat, "Get on with rejoining the EU as fast as possible"

"Joining the EU Single Market would make a huge difference to Britain's ability to grow"

"Rejoining the EU Customs Union would make a difference to our ability to trade internationally"

"And the fact that the EU brings in all sorts of norms that protect the environment, consumers, workers, paternal rights, etc"

"So I would like a much closer relationship with the EU"