Election Year or Fear!

[ramAnag]

Unfortunately, your last six words aren't always applied by some I'm afraid rA.

As I have said on another thread my concern is the impact on the future of this forum. I have no problem with the political threads at all but for the 'footie' threads to have some depth and interest it is essential that as many varied opinions as possible are available to be expressed and read. By definition that requires as many contributors as possible to still use the site!

In my opinion we have lost some good posters over the years and tbh we can't afford to lose anymore, indeed not long ago MA inferred that he was considering, because of the tone being used by some, whether to continue posting on here. Recently, imo, a line has been crossed too many times especially when it comes to your term 'respectfully'!

As MA says there is a point where 'enough is enough'!

Understand your concerns, mac and indeed there have been times when MA and I have exchanged PM’s about whether it’s worth remaining on a forum where the atmosphere is sometimes so toxic.

I suspect that during ‘international breaks’ the situation worsens because there are essentially two weeks of no domestic football, no potential signings to speak of and no one seems remotely interested in international football, even with the ‘Carsley factor’ this time around.

You’ve been on here long enough to know that this isn’t the first time there’s been such toxicity, it’s been around for years, but I have to say that if the likes of you and MA call it a day I won’t be far behind.

In the meantime, and as an example, consider TTR’s latest offering. He posts a link from GBNews with the simple comment ‘Hilarious’. At this point those, like me, have a choice…ignore it (‘put a sock in it’) which allows him/GBNews to perpetuate his/their (imo) usually foolish and often offensive views…challenge it, which will inevitably lead to a row…or simply ask ‘why hilarious’? because, to me, it’s a well reasoned stance with anything but ‘hilarious’ implications. I’ll go for the last one and see what happens.

[Trickytreesreds]

Understand your concerns, mac and indeed there have been times when MA and I have exchanged PM’s about whether it’s worth remaining on a forum where the atmosphere is sometimes so toxic.

I suspect that during ‘international breaks’ the situation worsens because there are essentially two weeks of no domestic football, no potential signings to speak of and no one seems remotely interested in international football, even with the ‘Carsley factor’ this time around.

You’ve been on here long enough to know that this isn’t the first time there’s been such toxicity, it’s been around for years, but I have to say that if the likes of you and MA call it a day I won’t be far behind.

In the meantime, and as an example, consider TTR’s latest offering. He posts a link from GBNews with the simple comment ‘Hilarious’. At this point those, like me, have a choice…ignore it (‘put a sock in it’) which allows him/GBNews to perpetuate his/their (imo) usually foolish and often offensive views…challenge it, which will inevitably lead to a row…or simply ask ‘why hilarious’? because, to me, it’s a well reasoned stance with anything but ‘hilarious’ implications. I’ll go for the last one and see what happens.

So, because its a GB news article, you don't like it?
You use the comment offensive/ foolish? Is it foolish, to call out Tony Blair (again) for his meddling lies?

Its hilarious purely in the audacity of this demon, to blame Bexit. He was the start of immigration nightmare, that has spiralled out of control.

Perhaps this, from the Telegraph, offends you as well? Starmer at the moment, is the most Gullbile European leader going. Orban has told the EU, that if they try fining Hungary over its sovereign rights, he'll bus them all to Brussels. he knows the well being of its economy and citiizens come first.

Any way-

Has Keir Starmer’s Britain become the softest touch in the West for illegal migrants? In a week when another 12 people drowned in the Channel and ministers squirmed under scrutiny about their still leaderless Border Command, attention turned to the Continent. “Rwanda’s back – but it’s Germany planning to use it,” screamed a tabloid headline on Friday. Tory leadership candidates fell over one another to claim German endorsement for their now defunct scheme.

Joachim Stamp, Berlin’s migration commissioner, had indeed floated the idea of processing asylum seekers in Rwanda, using facilities now sitting idle since Labour abandoned the policy as their first act in office. The irony of this turn of events will not be lost on British taxpayers, who paid hundreds of millions of pounds for these facilities in Kigali. And if the Germans are so eager to go ahead, where does that leave all the legal objections and moral outrage of our own liberal establishment?

In a further twist, Germany’s London ambassador, Miguel Berger, denied the story. “Let’s be clear,” he tweeted, “there is no plan of the German Government to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.” But this official denial was a classic piece of diplomatic distraction. The ambassador added: “The discussion is about processing asylum applications in third countries under international humanitarian law and with the support of the United Nations.”

So Germany is considering sending asylum seekers to Rwanda. The only difference is that Stamp wants to put the scheme under UN supervision and target migrants entering the EU across its eastern borders — a tactic used by Putin’s Russia to destabilise Europe.

In Germany, the politics of migration is even more incendiary than in Britain. Last month a deadly terrorist attack in Solingen, allegedly by a Syrian asylum seeker, helped the Alternative for Germany (AfD) to become the first Right-wing nationalist party to win a state election since 1945. Olaf Scholz’s embattled centre-Left government responded by speeding up deportations. True, there has been no popular unrest in Germany to compare with this summer’s riots in Britain. Over recent years, however, there have been hundreds of arson attacks on refugee hostels in the former East Germany. In some of these incidents, crowds of onlookers have cheered on the arsonists. Many blame Angela Merkel’s decision to admit more than a million migrants from Syria in 2015 for the rise of the AfD.

Friedrich Merz, her successor as leader of the Christian Democrats, has moved his party to the Right to head off the populist challenge. He wants to exclude all asylum seekers from Syria and Afghanistan. Expect more of this if he replaces Scholz as Chancellor after next year’s federal elections.

The migration debate is, of course, highly charged not only in Britain and Germany but also in France. There Michel Barnier, President Macron’s choice as Prime Minister, has a reputation as a hardliner on immigration. The direction of travel in France and Germany is therefore clear: on migration, both countries have had enough of the liberal policies that are still championed here by the Labour Government.