Chief among the corrosive bits of rhetoric that have taken root and need urgently to be challenged is the remarkable belief that "pulling up the drawbridge for a little bit" for working age migrants will result in MORE money available for pensioners. HOW? FROM WHERE? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... - ThreadSky

sturdyalex.bsky.social • 17 days ago

Chief among the corrosive bits of rhetoric that have taken root and need urgently to be challenged is the remarkable belief that "pulling up the drawbridge for a little bit" for working age migrants will result in MORE money available for pensioners.

HOW? FROM WHERE?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g2d6881rro

Comments

chemic-al.bsky.social•17 days ago

Of course Labour could have keep the promise they made in opposition instead of doing their best to annoy as much of the population as they can

amandagillender.bsky.social•17 days ago

Perhaps I've missed something.
Has Reform announced some policies?
If I interpret the women correctly fewer work age migrants will mean more work & thus more cash for pensioners.
Pensioners will fill the gaps in the building sector, the NHS - & will care for even older pensioners in the care sector?

adrianshort.uk•17 days ago

Going to engage in some mild, temporary xenophobia until I get my money.

horningtoft.bsky.social•17 days ago

Because they probably believe the fiction that all immigrants are permanently housed in five-star hotels at the taxpayers' expense.

juneussell.bsky.social•17 days ago

And that the pension is not a benefit.

cathiew.bsky.social•17 days ago

The WFA cut was very very badly handled & cut too tightly. From that I feared that Labour lacked the political savvy to win the next GE against Farage. Where are the simple tangible gains that these sort of voters can point to? So - yet again - we blame immigrans .

cathiew.bsky.social•17 days ago

Immigrants.

lisafellaantifa.bsky.social•17 days ago

I dunno but I think going from the progressive party to the far-right fascist party is a step in the right direction. The Reform Party will cut even more services.
Why are so many in the electorate this stupid?!!
But then again, why is Labour so stupid?

brennick.bsky.social•17 days ago

Decades of media lies and general thickness is a hell of a combination

officer-blackavar.bsky.social•17 days ago

Maybe they should look across the pond to see how "pulling up the drawbridge" is working out?

mlungu.bsky.social•17 days ago

I know, right. How is a reduction in the number of people working going to boost what is available to be spent on people who don’t work?

theocassionaltog.bsky.social•17 days ago

From the media mostly being owned by very rich right wing white men who have a vested interest in pushing this shite. From the Beeb's constant platforming of Farage and the Tufton St vultures.

Whilst the plebs are arguing with each other we don't notice the horrific shit they are getting up to.

samanthasearrings.bsky.social•17 days ago

Lol. They missed the lesson about siege warfare in year 9.

putt1ck.bsky.social•17 days ago

davidrobbo.bsky.social•17 days ago

Because political illiteracy. Because no political party and barely any of the media has ever been interested in the positive, fact based arguments about immigration.

bumpintheroad.bsky.social•17 days ago

So every one here and elsewhere can repudiate or elucidate such arguments but what do you, practically, do about voters who hold these opinions and are not able or open to discovering new or different information and examining their own views and consequent voting intentions?

hornetgx.bsky.social•17 days ago

End sexism.

OH NO NOT THAT WAY WITH ONLY 20 YEARS NOTICE!!?!?!?!?!

smithmichaelw.bsky.social•16 days ago

Chatting to somebody in a bar after the football earlier this week, who ended up complaining about migrant hotels, and immigration where they lived - their solution - Move to Portugal where obviously they are the good kind of immigrant and will instantly learn Portuguese assimilate perfectly

irfauna.bsky.social•17 days ago

Because reform sells the lie, that it's minorities or pensioners. Without that it doesn't need to be bit.

alanjstedman.bsky.social•17 days ago

Misinformation

I've no doubt Reform people are saying this sort of thing on the doorstep (and plenty more). They are ideas they can get away with because you do have to know a bit of detail to bounce them back at them. They are just plausible but groundless gobbets

glesga-grognard.bsky.social•16 days ago

they have convinced themselves that they would get the money stolen from the migrants.

peterwelsh68.bsky.social•17 days ago

From what I can gather
Reform want to turn every UK waterway into a moat if given some clear water in the forthcoming elections.

su51mtf.bsky.social•17 days ago

Clear water is something the country desperately needs. Deform (far better name, IMHO) are something we most definitely DO NOT need.

jim1132.bsky.social•17 days ago

People who spend a lot of time on Facebook, Id guess. It's great for staying in touch with your old school chums but toxic for your brain.

utlaegr.bsky.social•17 days ago

The Facebook page 'Britannia Daily' is a real hotbed of racist and anti-immigration rhetoric, and on Good Friday, there are people celebrating the drowning of an asylum seeker in the Channel because, apparently, the country's woes are due purely to asylum seekers. It's so depressing.

utlaegr.bsky.social•17 days ago

It's also really tiring constantly trying to combat it along with the insults and threats, but the other option is not to challenge it, which would mean allowing it to go unchecked.

robbinova.bsky.social•17 days ago

Start that sort of thinking and the drawbridge will eventually be shut for you !!!

juneussell.bsky.social•17 days ago

lol
Who do they think pays for pensions?

juneussell.bsky.social•17 days ago

(I know, I know)

grannyannie35.bsky.social•17 days ago

Are Reform proposing any policies apart from immigration & privatising medical care. Someone complaining about winter fuel allowance & pension are in for a shock when they have to pay for medical care - the likelihood is that their medical care will be provided by immigrants…

mandalee.bsky.social•16 days ago

Jill and Jane need to realise that those immigrants are going to be the ones changing their nappies and giving them bed-baths in the nursing home before too long. What happens when they're not there?

redhare.bsky.social•17 days ago

The subtext of course is “you need to do everything for me and not for others.”

janmakarta.bsky.social•17 days ago

How can the alternative for disappointed Labour voters *possibly* be Reform??
Have they never heard of the Lib Dems? Or the Greens? 🤷‍♀️

msmitham.bsky.social•17 days ago

It's based on the endlessly repeated idea that immigrants are a cost.
If you believe they're all on benefits and that people like translators need to be employed to cater for them, and you have little critical thinking skills, it makes sort of sense.

notjobloggs.bsky.social•17 days ago

It’s difficult to have any sympathy or tolerance for such willful ignorance.

richard.wickedproblems.earth•17 days ago

It really is time to dissolve the people and elect another.

markhagen.bsky.social•17 days ago

Dissolving the people is a soylent reference, right? 😬

richard.wickedproblems.earth•17 days ago

I like your thinking. And I'm sure you actually knew it was Brecht, which gets you 3 extra points.

markhagen.bsky.social•17 days ago

From "Die Lösung". Interestingly he wrote it from a place of shame at the treatment of protesting workers.

daveredwine.bsky.social•17 days ago

Delusional

craiggrannell.bsky.social•17 days ago

We all know that every single immigrant is somehow simultaneously taking all ‘our’ jobs and embarking on massive benefit fraud. So clearly by removing all these people, there will be eleventy million billion extra pounds for pensioners. Or something.

thesecretbuyer.bsky.social•17 days ago

Indeed!

Observe the absolute economic destruction of S Korea and China unfolding if you wish to see what happens to a nation that doesn't have immigration and also has low birth rates.

The UK needs immigration desperately. It's keeping it afloat long term. Without it, same fate awaits.

craiggrannell.bsky.social•17 days ago

I always find myself baffled by anti-immigration twonks. The demographics during FOM were that in many cases younger, tax-paying migrants came to the UK, and old fuckers from the UK went to live out their pensioner days in the EU.

So the UK went: GET RID OF TAX-PAYERS‽

SMART!

philt602.bsky.social•17 days ago

But anti-immigrant folk are basically massively insecure & generally ignorant folk. So, of course immigrants can simultaneously take their jobs & commit benefit fraud!! It is simply people fearing what they do not understand!!

fairlytalladam.bsky.social•17 days ago

Less net contributors to the economy equals more money in the economy innit.

gemstwin.bsky.social•17 days ago

Pull up the drawbridge “just a little bit”? That’s like an American supporting Trump b/c he promised to lower the price of eggs…I hope those two ladies realize what they’re about to do. 🤷🏾‍♀️

molynj.bsky.social•17 days ago

The Telegraph have been peddling this myth.

Eg. The old age pension is becoming unaffordable because there are too few working age people paying taxes to fund it.

Telegraph Solution - Stop immigration.

No. Wrong. More immigration is the solution.

molynj.bsky.social•17 days ago

A more sensible take.

basking-crow.bsky.social•17 days ago

If they pull up the drawbridge ‘for a little bit’ they’ll be a shortage of workers to care for some of the said ‘pensioners’.

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