Doctors like everyone else can freely choose to work where they like. You see that in digital nomads.
Brexit, for once some facts.
- Thread starter flecc
- Start date
Isn't it just another more modern form of colonial exploitation of poorer countries?
'Let's economise on the costs of training UK doctors and import them from Ghana, Nigeria and the Congo/ They can pay the costs of training our new crop of doctors,' Rubs hands and fingers a pile of bank notes.
If you believe a free world is a better world, you would not be so hostile to freedom of movement.
I have explained my reasons in detail above.
I note that you made no attempt to address the issues I raised. None.
Your reference to freedom of movement is rather bizarre. This is a concept which applies only inside the EU Shengen area of similar high value economies
. It does not apply outside. It is not legal for people to simply turn up from Africa on a plane in Paris. They all enter illegally who come without a proper visa.
No high value economy in the world allows just anyone to turn up and settle.
This being said, I am at a loss as to why you raise it as if 'freedom of movement' was the norm, or even widely practised.
Last edited:
Take the case of the doctors that Jonathan mentioned. They may have studied here or have only worked here. We don't know their history. As far as our NHS recruits from overseas is concerned, I don't see any problem. Countries don't hold their citizens slaves. That doctor that our NHS recruits may have grown up in Ghana but his education and upbringing was paid for by his parents. He is free to choose how to live his life.
This could happen here if our next government went for mass deportation.
I think illegal border crossings should be punished with heavy fines instead of treatments like this.
I think illegal border crossings should be punished with heavy fines instead of treatments like this.
Post from Connor Tomlinson
A new iron curtain of censorship now encircles the UK and Europe, imposed by politicians purporting to defend democracy. America can help lift it. Censorship...
youtube.com
It's a big subject, I needed time to think about it.
Reform has started fighting among themselves. Why do you think that is? Egos? Lack of programs and ideas? Cult of one leader? Can't understand how the civil service works when they ask for expense receipts or budget preparations?
I disagree. Their wages have gone up but eaten by inflation, especially house price.
On skill levels, immigrants have to compete while being disadvantaged by their relative lack of fluency in English, poorer communications, poorer connectivity within their industry. You can see that clearly in London.
Let's not be hypocritical about it. We all benefit from their accepting working the low paid wages. Their presence is the reason that the sick among locally born are not forced to work in their places.
What about the ever growing number of Brits living and working abroad?
I have only worked in 2 countries. My children have worked in a dozen.
What you see is the consequences of greater mobility, something that we should be pleased about.
Let's see if Farage becomes PM at the next election, he would deploy his plan for mass deportations.
Here is the assessment from ChatGPT on his plan:
1. What the UK could try to do
- Withdraw from the Refugee Convention → would remove obligation to process asylum claims, but requires 1 year’s notice and would trigger international backlash.
- Leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) → 6 months’ notice; would mean no Strasbourg oversight, but likely damage UK’s standing in Europe and risk trade/security agreements.
I reckon the best solution is to organise long term structures for proper integragrion for about 50,000 asylum seekers a year, education, health care, job placement, family reunifications.
- Exit some UN human rights treaties (e.g. on torture, children’s rights, discrimination). This is legally possible with notice but would cause severe reputational harm.
- Core UN human rights obligations (like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) have no withdrawal clause. UK is permanently bound.
- Customary international law (jus cogens)— absolute rules binding on all states:
- No torture
- No sending people to places where they face persecution or torture (“non-refoulement”)
- No indefinite arbitrary detention
These apply regardless of treaty membership and cannot be derogated.
3. Practical Implication
Even if the UK denounced every treaty it legally could, it would still be bound by obligations that directly contradict mass deportation to unsafe countries or indefinite detention.
4. Bottom Line
Farage’s plan is not legally workable:
- It would require treaty exits unprecedented in modern UK history.
- Even after withdrawal, core human rights rules would still block parts of the scheme.
- Attempting to override these obligations would put the UK in the same category as states that openly defy international law, with heavy diplomatic and economic costs.
I voted for BREXIT for one reason. Sovereignty.
Since the 1990s, in the main, a succession of governments had waived our sacred right to govern ourselves.
The British People, allow Parliament to make laws in our name and with our democratic mandate. That right was sold away gradually to foreign bureaucrats, judges, and politicians, who from the mid 2000s, began over ruling the decisions of Parliament and our own highest courts. This in probably one of the oldest continual democratic government systems in the world was intolerable as the price ( or part of the price) for being able to trade with the EU. Considering the longer view of the price my parent's generation paid to free them from fascism, it was pretty sick that when we left, they set out to damage us as much as they did.
Back to the present:
Our constitution has two relevant maxims.
PARLIAMENT IS SUPREME
NO PARLIAMENT CAN BIND THE HANDS OF ANY FUTURE PARLIAMENT
This means that ANYTHING any Parliament decides to do can not be resisted by laws made before, and that there is no authority higher than the will of a parliament elected by the British People. It also means that no foreign power has control, if Parliament does not consent for it to be so.
If past governments entered into arrangements or treaties we no longer wish to uphold, Parliament can simply repeal them and strike down the arrangements. They do it all the time. We repealed laws which persecuted homosexual people, and laws demanding the death penalty, the total illegality of abortion, and many others.
The unwanted laws or treaties do not require clauses written into them allowing them to be terminated.
We can simply strike them down and amend any laws which refer to them.
We can rewrite the Human Rights Act, preserving what we want of it.
The issues at odds with our sovereignty, which ought never to have been enacted in the first place, are those which require all British Law to be subject to the rulings of a foreign court (vassalage - permanent subjugation of our ancient, unbroken government) and those parts which are used to prevent the deportation of foreign criminals and illegal migrants.
That is it. It is perfectly simple.
Will various foreign powers and courts be up in arms?
Of course they will. We know how they squirm like a wounded snake as soon as their power over us is challenged, and we know they will seek to harm us, just as they did before, during the negotiations. Are we going to bow to that? It is our choice.
If they try to damage us, I would certainly respond by threatening to withdraw from any NATO Article 5 duty to defend them.
Boris should have done that in 2019. Trump did it, and look how they rushed to change their ways. The UK armed forces may have been gutted by the terrible decisions made by recent governments, but along with France they are pretty much the best Europe has, notwithstanding good efforts by countries like Poland and Finland. As for the rest of Europe, the armed forces aren't worth anything. Say it and mean it. The upcoming fuss over the ECHR and Human Rights Act amendments will disappear. The Irish will be the most annoying - bugger them.
The EU isn't the only one with winning cards in its hand.
Last edited:
What about our word is our bond? We entered into treaties with other countries and now we just break them because our new government finds them inconvenient? Are we ready to leave the UN too because those treaties that the UN upholds are not breakable?
I tell you what I think of a long term solution for the illegal migrants. We and all other Western countries most affected by illegal immigrants, that is all the 7 countries in the G7 by the way, should properly fund the UN refugees agency. We delegate the job of deciding who are priority cases and who are not, the UN will lease land, set up camps, feed, educate, provide healthcare for the millions of refugees. We then take a set number every year and settle them.
You have to STOP THEM COMING. The only way is to deter them.
Because of the genocidal policies of the current Iraeli government, we are going to see 2 million in Gaza displaced and quite likely another three million from the West Bank. If the choice for them is Europe with soft borders and even softer reception they will move there and hordes of them will want to come to England where we already have, nearly four times the population density of France, homelessness on a grand scale and vastly expensive housing. We can barely provide for our own people who already live here. Dentistry? GP appointments? Waiting times? The country is heading for ruin.
The world is full of people who would be better off camping down your street and soon buying, or renting a house up your road.
All of this pushes up prices. We can not even get near building accommodation at the rate needed to keep up with the number of incoming migrants and the Home Office dispersal policy is blighting towns in the north where they are buying up housing and landlords are ejecting tenants and altering homes into HMOs.
Some of the migrants will make VERY VERY BAD NEIGHBOURS. Ex Hamas for example. We already have documented problems from two years ago when Albanian criminal gangs infiltrated thousands of people and they now control drugs and prostitution in many areas. This inspite of many being deported.
There is a reason that Jordan and Egypt don't want Palestinian refugees, and it isn't just the numbers. Places like Lebanon which took a lot of Palestinian refugees in the past lived to bitterly regret it as radical groups became embedded in their previously peaceful, and tolerant society.
WE MUST STOP THEM or our lives will be in the same misery that they left and very often bring with them.
Man told girls in Epping he wanted to 'have a baby', court hears
Hadush Kebatu, an asylum seeker staying at The Bell Hotel in Epping, denies five charges against him.
www.bbc.co.uk
Last edited:
You can't stop them unless you stop our lifeboats picking them up for starters. We also owe them due process. You can't just break our laws when it comes to treatment of illegal migrants. Farage's solution is simplistic and can't work. That's why it's dangerous. ChatGPT made the case very clearly and I don't think it's been programmed to make Farage look bad.
However, we can hand them over to UNHCR. That has been done before for millions of people, for example, after the Vietnam war, millions fled communist Vietnam to seek refuge at neighbouring countries like Hong Kong, Malasia, Phillippines, Indonesia etc. They handed over the vietnamese boat people to UNHCR which resettled them in the USA, Europe, Australia etc. It was a great success. Instead of spending 1-2 million per migrant in the Rwanda scheme, we can give a fraction of that money to UNHCR to take care of them.
I'm not arguing around and around on this.
I am right, and unless Labour REALLY does something on this and Starmer has already wet his underpants and failed to do what is required - You KNOW who will win, and not being one for wringing his hands, he will do what he says and he won't care one jot what the EU thinks or what anyone else thinks about it.
It WILL be brought to an end and the more he does what about 70% of the public want, the more power he will have.
I do not advocate for him, or like him. I simply point out that if you ignore the public on this and other things, you know who you will see in Downing Street in four years time.
The END
EDIT - and stop talking nonsense. All treaties are breakable. You just announce you are leaving the treaty and fk the diplomatic consequences. Countries do it all the time.
You do yourself no credit by saying things that are patently untrue.
I am right, and unless Labour REALLY does something on this and Starmer has already wet his underpants and failed to do what is required - You KNOW who will win, and not being one for wringing his hands, he will do what he says and he won't care one jot what the EU thinks or what anyone else thinks about it.
It WILL be brought to an end and the more he does what about 70% of the public want, the more power he will have.
I do not advocate for him, or like him. I simply point out that if you ignore the public on this and other things, you know who you will see in Downing Street in four years time.
The END
EDIT - and stop talking nonsense. All treaties are breakable. You just announce you are leaving the treaty and fk the diplomatic consequences. Countries do it all the time.
You do yourself no credit by saying things that are patently untrue.
Last edited:
Here - a long long list of treaties abandoned by a lot of countries.
The most frequent nation to withdraw from treaties it made in the past is the USA.
chatgpt.com
The most frequent nation to withdraw from treaties it made in the past is the USA.
ChatGPT - Treaty withdrawals by nations
A conversational AI system that listens, learns, and challenges
chatgpt.com
I added a question to your chatGPT link. Which treaties the UK cannot get out.
It is even more important to know them than those we can renounce.
In principle, the UK can withdraw from almost any treaty, since international law recognises a right of denunciation or withdrawal if the treaty itself provides for it (e.g. Article 50 TEU for Brexit), or under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties if there’s fundamental change, material breach, or consent of the parties.
But there are categories of treaties the UK “cannot get out of” in any realistic sense:
---
1. Peremptory Norms (Jus Cogens)
These are rules of international law that no state can derogate from by treaty or withdrawal, e.g.:
Prohibition of genocide
Prohibition of slavery
Prohibition of torture
Prohibition of aggressive war
Even if the UK signed a treaty allowing slavery, it would be void under international law.
---
2. UN Charter Obligations
As a founding member of the United Nations, the UK is bound by the UN Charter.
Article 103 of the Charter gives its obligations priority over any other treaty.
While in theory the UK could leave the UN (Article 6 allows expulsion, but there’s no formal withdrawal clause), in practice leaving would mean cutting itself off from the Security Council and the entire UN system. It’s politically close to impossible.
---
3. Customary International Law
Some rules bind all states regardless of treaties, such as:
Immunity of diplomats
Law of the sea basics (e.g. innocent passage)
Withdrawal from a treaty like the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations wouldn’t free the UK from the customary rule.
---
4. Treaties with No Exit Clause (or very hard exit)
Some treaties lack explicit withdrawal provisions, making exit diplomatically explosive. Examples include:
European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR): the UK could denounce it (Article 58 ECHR), but it would mean leaving the Council of Europe, undermining Good Friday Agreement commitments in Northern Ireland, and facing huge political consequences.
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT): has a withdrawal clause (Article X), but given the UK’s status as a nuclear-weapon state under the treaty, leaving would trigger global crisis and heavy sanctions.
---
Summary:
Legally, the UK can denounce almost any treaty with the right procedure.
But it cannot escape jus cogens norms, UN Charter primacy, and customary law.
Some treaties are technically escapable (ECHR, NPT, WTO), but doing so would come at such enormous political and economic cost that they are practically “non-leavable.”
---
Would you like me to make you a table of key UK treaty commitments (ECHR, NPT, WTO, NATO, UN, etc.) showing whether exit is legally possible, politically possible, or impossible? That could give you a quick-reference “at-a-glance” map.
It is even more important to know them than those we can renounce.
In principle, the UK can withdraw from almost any treaty, since international law recognises a right of denunciation or withdrawal if the treaty itself provides for it (e.g. Article 50 TEU for Brexit), or under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties if there’s fundamental change, material breach, or consent of the parties.
But there are categories of treaties the UK “cannot get out of” in any realistic sense:
---
1. Peremptory Norms (Jus Cogens)
These are rules of international law that no state can derogate from by treaty or withdrawal, e.g.:
Prohibition of genocide
Prohibition of slavery
Prohibition of torture
Prohibition of aggressive war
Even if the UK signed a treaty allowing slavery, it would be void under international law.
---
2. UN Charter Obligations
As a founding member of the United Nations, the UK is bound by the UN Charter.
Article 103 of the Charter gives its obligations priority over any other treaty.
While in theory the UK could leave the UN (Article 6 allows expulsion, but there’s no formal withdrawal clause), in practice leaving would mean cutting itself off from the Security Council and the entire UN system. It’s politically close to impossible.
---
3. Customary International Law
Some rules bind all states regardless of treaties, such as:
Immunity of diplomats
Law of the sea basics (e.g. innocent passage)
Withdrawal from a treaty like the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations wouldn’t free the UK from the customary rule.
---
4. Treaties with No Exit Clause (or very hard exit)
Some treaties lack explicit withdrawal provisions, making exit diplomatically explosive. Examples include:
European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR): the UK could denounce it (Article 58 ECHR), but it would mean leaving the Council of Europe, undermining Good Friday Agreement commitments in Northern Ireland, and facing huge political consequences.
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT): has a withdrawal clause (Article X), but given the UK’s status as a nuclear-weapon state under the treaty, leaving would trigger global crisis and heavy sanctions.
---
Summary:Legally, the UK can denounce almost any treaty with the right procedure.
But it cannot escape jus cogens norms, UN Charter primacy, and customary law.
Some treaties are technically escapable (ECHR, NPT, WTO), but doing so would come at such enormous political and economic cost that they are practically “non-leavable.”
---
Would you like me to make you a table of key UK treaty commitments (ECHR, NPT, WTO, NATO, UN, etc.) showing whether exit is legally possible, politically possible, or impossible? That could give you a quick-reference “at-a-glance” map.
Tell the Israelis about the genocide one.
Tell the Chinese and the North Koreans about the slavery one
No one here is arguing about these things though. It is a diversion.
Because of people like you and those who think like you, and because previous governments allowed themselves to be hamstrung in ways which damaged the sovereignty of the country and bowed in helplessness in circumstances where the population became outraged by this and some other matters, we WILL SEE Farage in Downing Street.
You did it to yourself and you continue in the same deluded fashion supporting no change and advocating stupid solutions which simply mean instead of crossing y small boat we ship them in by aeroplane when NONE OF THE MIGRANTS at issue are in a dangerous country.
France is not persecuting them, committing genocide, harming them in any way.
They are therefore NOT in need of asylum in the UK.
They are safe already and only the blind can't see that.
Tell the Chinese and the North Koreans about the slavery one
No one here is arguing about these things though. It is a diversion.
Because of people like you and those who think like you, and because previous governments allowed themselves to be hamstrung in ways which damaged the sovereignty of the country and bowed in helplessness in circumstances where the population became outraged by this and some other matters, we WILL SEE Farage in Downing Street.
You did it to yourself and you continue in the same deluded fashion supporting no change and advocating stupid solutions which simply mean instead of crossing y small boat we ship them in by aeroplane when NONE OF THE MIGRANTS at issue are in a dangerous country.
France is not persecuting them, committing genocide, harming them in any way.
They are therefore NOT in need of asylum in the UK.
They are safe already and only the blind can't see that.
Farage may get to be the next PM if enough people believe that his plan will work. I don't think it will be the case. People have been misled by brexit, they believed in promises like new trade deals will be the easiest things in the world especially with the USA, and we'll kick all the foreign boats out of our EEZ, etc. Just look at how Trump fought his last election. He and his supporters wrapped themselves in the flag. Now the same people wrap government buildings with Trump's photos. Nationalism leads to ultra nationalism and the cult of the leader. My wife came back from Kent yesterday. She told me bridges in Kent and Essex are draped in large Union Jacks. Maybe some billionaire paid for them. Farage plays the nationalist card with the support of a very large section of the press and TV channels. My point is if Trump's MAGA loses the mid terms, then the chance of Farage's winning the top job is not big.
Apologies for delay responding to this as well as the posts on the other thread. Both are engaged arguments requiring thought and early retirement is not at all what I imagined. Am busier than before, at least twice as dragged from pillar to post and have little frontal lobe space for anything other than mindlessly staring at bad cappuccinos on budget flights. But it's good to have a more considered view from the right of the political spectrum here.
Jonathan, you have no need to apologise to me for anything, least of all that you were busy. I fully understand that. Enjoy your life - however you spend it.