‘You can’t just keep saying “sorry”’
I can’t see how Damian Green had to resign over a relatively trivial matter, yet for this hostile environment issue and the deep trauma it has caused for so very many people, no one has yet fallen on their sword.
You can’t just keep saying “sorry” and “ I regret.” In order to truly show how you understand the callous suffering you have caused, somebody in the government has to feel the pain too. It may be a sacrifice, but someone has to go, before we can move on. Do they not get this is quite the worst thing directly caused by a British government in more years than most of us can remember? It is not enough to say it was at a time when there was deep public concern over immigration levels.
sammy909
‘May won’t resign, but Rudd should’
The whole business of removing immigrants, whether from the West Indies or places like Syria, is very unchristian. I don’t understand the government’s logic with that argument.
But I, and many on this website (journalists and readers alike, it seems), also find it a bit repellent. First Theresa May, now Rudd, are robotically applying targets for deportation. May won’t resign, but Rudd should at least offer her resignation, which can be accepted or refused. If there were a fresh election soon, this series of scandals would be enough, probably, to put this government into opposition for much longer than Tony Blair achieved with the previous Tory government! I wouldn’t shed a tear at that passing.
TimMellor
‘Clearly May is rattled’
Responsibility is a strange thing, isn’t it? Governments tell voters that they should take more responsibility for their own destiny yet as soon as something like this Home Office scandal erupts, they rush to find a scapegoat. A fine example of behaviour to present to the country.
It is never their fault. Clearly May is rattled.
Escapee99
‘The architect of this scandal now resides in 10 Downing Street’
This is a scandal bubbling beneath the surface for some years, and the culprit and architect of it now resides in 10 Downing Street.
The public service is now riddled with spurious, meaningless targets, but this one has nasty effects on the people caught up in them.
Years ago, May warned her colleagues not to be seen as the “nasty party”. How ironic, because that is exactly what they have become.
foryniner
‘Is it any wonder we’ve therefore allowed a “hostile environment” approach?’
This was always the inevitable conclusion of the entire anti-immigration rhetoric of UK politics for the last decade. “Oh but isn’t it horrible” wail the tabloids, who did the most to stir it up.
The entire immigration “debate” has been boiled down to “how much do you hate immigration” in the mainstream. So when people complain that “you’re not allowed to debate immigration” they’re right, but in entirely the opposite way to what they think. Nobody, literally nobody, in the mainstream makes the case that immigration is a good thing, and yes that includes the Labour party for the full length of that time as well.
Is it any wonder we’ve therefore allowed a “hostile environment” to take hold and deport innocent citizens?
YorkerBouncer
