For my British friends …

@emiliya They "disappointed" with Brexit because the extreme vision offered by Nigel Farage was undeliverable. Liz Truss's vision of a low tax, small state Britain had no popular support and defied economic logic. The atrocious Rwanda policy was completely detached from reality. The drift to the right wing has ultimately destroyed the Conservative Party.

@SW-User I am an observer of UK politics. Millions voted for Reform and if Labor disappoint in the next five years, millions more will vote for them in your next election. Right wing sentiments are clearly held by many in the UK.

"Look how desperate the Tories were getting, inventing policies bordering on the sadistic. It made not one jot of difference."

It made no difference because they failed to deliver. They lacked unity and conviction. The UK civil service is also very powerful, and most were against these policies.

@SunshineGirl "The drift to the right wing has ultimately destroyed the Conservative Party."

This is a delusion. They will have to become more right wing now, or Reform will continue to become more popular. Reform are their competition, and many conservatives voted for them. How can you say that right wing has no appeal when Reform have done so well?

@emiliya The right wing has plenty of appeal, but no logic and no serious agenda for governing (as was clearly evidenced by the Reform UK manifesto). It is easy to shout and criticise from the sidelines, less easy to implement practical policy. Before signing up to a populist agenda you have to have a realistic programme of reform, or otherwise you are destined to fail and disappoint your supporters.

@emiliya
The UK civil service is hollowed out by years of austerity, like most other public sector bodies. It is of course politically neutral. If a policy is poorly thought through, funded, and badly led, there is no amount of engineering that can put that right.

@SunshineGirl Oh really?

@emiliya
Agreed. One only has to watch or read the "Yes, Minister" and "Yes, Prime Minister" TV series and books to see how the Civil Service Mandarins control their so-called masters.

@ArtieKat Yes. I worked for the Treasury throughout the financial crisis and the first two years of the Tory government. Economics is surprisingly unpolitical when you are involved in the technical side and most economists are grateful that they do not have to take responsibility for implementing their theories.

@SunshineGirl OK, I accept your personal experience.

Correction:
Are you talking about the coalition of 2010?

@ArtieKat I think even in the 1980s that was a slightly jaded portrayal. If a policy is badly thought through, or there is no vision at all, it is impossible to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

@SunshineGirl You say: "The UK civil service is hollowed out by years of austerity, like most other public sector bodies. It is of course politically neutral. If a policy is poorly thought through, funded, and badly led, there is no amount of engineering that can put that right."

The UK civil service is not neutral.

If the ruling party and an electorate want to implement a policy, they ought to be able to. Your civil service has continually interfered with this process and tried to stop various policies from being fulfilled. These policies are only controversial because of the attention given to them by the very undemocratic media. Some days ago, the Supreme Court in the UK ruled that civil servants would have to fulfill the Rwanda policy, or they could be prosecuted. The policy was deemed lawful, despite their opposition. It was the civil service that launched this legal challenge, so they have made their views and their lack of neutrality very clear.

Reform received 4,072,947 votes and have 14% of the vote share in a country where just 59.9% of the population voted. By popular vote, they have come third. This means that those who voted very much care about immigration. A poll revealed that more than half of the UK wants to see a reduction in immigration. They will not get this with a Labor government, who, despite winning, received fewer votes than in 2019, when they lost abysmally. This election has revealed that people, a large number of them conservative voters, are tired of policies not being fulfilled and that Reform is on the rise. It also revealed that some are so disinterested or disenchanted by politics that they would rather not vote at all. I have seen some speculate that this is due to anger. I do not believe it is. Normally, when people fail to vote, it is because they feel there will be no difference made to the country or to their lives. They are right, as Labor is not an improvement on the Conservative Party.

It also seems clear to me who the media wanted to win this election. I heard one commentator say that Labor had a good campaign, free of controversy. No campaign is free of controversy; it is only free of what the establishment determines. If the establishment and the media have decided they want a certain party in power, they will get that party in power. This is democracy in the West.

@emiliya Actually, the civil service is neutral. The legal challenge was made because it controvened the European Convention on Human Rights. The tories said they would pull out of the ECHR if the challenge was successful. And that would have been disastrous for the consequences for right to free speech, the right to demonstrate, workers' rights, tenants' rights, consumer rights, environmental issues, right to fair legal representation and such like (others will come up with more examples). Pulling Britain out of the ECHR would put this country on a similar footing as Russia.

@emiliya Rwanda never got anywhere implementation because it was poorly thought through and there was no serious political will behind it (even the Home Secretary conceded it would only account for 2% of the backlog).

"The Establishment", if it means anything at all, is the party that has formed governments for the past 14 years and had to pass an act of parliament declaring that its Rwanda policy was "legal" (despite much evidence to the contrary). Mainstream media outlets such as the Daily Mail and Telegraph were no friends of the Labour Party until their victory came to be seen as inevitable in recent weeks.

@jackieash What do you think the priority of the civil service should be? Do you think they should listen to the ruling party and the view held by the majority of the population, or be concerned with the ECHR?

Why did the Supreme Court in England rule that the Rwanda policy is legal, and that civil servants may be subject to prosecution if they continue to resist it? It may not be relevant to the current government as Starmer will now dispense with this plan, but it is an important question to ask given your comment on this matter. Is UK a democracy that listens to its people or not? In 2016, they voted for less immigration, and they have got more immigration.

UK also has other laws that violate ECHR.

@emiliya Civil servants have an ethical obligation not to break laws, including those of the ECHR. The Rwanda policy is only 'legal' because the government of the day passed a law declaring that it is so 😐 All water under the bridge now.

@emiliya The civil service has to balance the responsibility of implementing national laws but also within international law. It is not, as you are implying, siding with one or the other, but working with both. If Britain breaks international law with other policies, those too will be dealt with in the right channels. But as I said before, there are many, many areas where the ECHR comes in. Would you expect to get a fair trial if you are charged with an offence? Of course you would.

The Rwanda policy became law, literally because Sunak and co told Parliament they would be kept in until they voted the "right" way. And since it became "law", it has turned out to be an unmitigated failure.