Tag: Immigration

Competing for Asylum Expulsions and Book Review on American Revolution

The political news is positive for a change. Settlement of the war in Gaza does seem possible, although there is a lot of work yet to be done on that. Meanwhile the Conservative and Reform Parties are competing on who can be toughest in halting excessive immigration. The Tories will definitely withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) if elected to govern which I consider a good thing – for too long judges have presumed to settle English law instead of Parliament deciding. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp gave a good interview for the BBC on this subject yesterday. I always thought he could go far and might make a better leader than other candidates.

A book I have been reading lately is “The Fate of the Day” by Rick Atkinson – all 850 pages of it. It’s a history of the American war of independence and covers the years 1770-1780. It’s too long but is revealing on the wonders of how the Americans managed to win the war when Great Britain had the largest navy in the world and a large land army also. British politicians thought it would be easy to bring the Americans to heel but found otherwise in reality. Political will is what made the difference.

It’s a shame that Americans did not learn from their own history when deciding to go deeper into the war in Vietnam.

One interesting section covers the activities of US Naval Captain John Paul Jones who attacked Whitehaven and stole the local gentry’s silver plate. He died at quite a young age and was buried in Paris. But many years later his body was disinterred for reburial in the USA when a medical examination showed he was suffering from a kidney disease – probably IgA nephropathy which I also suffer from. He remains a hero of the American Revolution despite a chequered career.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://x.com/RogerWLawson  )

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Summer at Last and Political Issues Rising

Yes the sun is out and there is not a cloud in the sky – although thunderstorms are threatened for later today.

Keir Starmer has said he will reduce the number of immigrants which he now seems to accept have got out of hands. But exactly how he will do this is not really clear. Minor changes to rules imposed by the ECHR will not suffice. The real problem is some lawyers have got out of hand and have finessed the legal system to put obstacles in the way of any restrictions. They have been supported by funding from legal aid and from charities. Unless such funding is stopped, not a lot will change.

We need an Act of Parliament that stops funding of legal appeals regarding refusal of admittance.

The Telegraph ran a good article today on how Starmer made past promises to stop illegal immigration, none of which were carried through or had much impact – see https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/05/12/keir-starmer-has-changed-his-tune-on-immigration/

Why the sudden urgency to do something about immigration? It’s because the Reform Party are now looking a serious threat to both Labour and Conservative Parties. Recent opinion polls and local election results put Reform well in the lead. Personally I won’t be changing my voting intentions unless I see some actual results from the Labour initiative. But Chris Philp M.P. (shadow Home Secretary) is doing a good job at promoting some Conservative Party initiatives on immigration. He has always impressed me with his ability to put forward practical and popular policies. He would be a better leader for the Conservative Party than current or recent ones.

If you think immigration is out of hand in this country and that it could not get worse, just look at Sweden. Gang warfare has broken out and even children are paid to commit crimes including murder as they cannot be prosecuted. Over the 20 years since I worked for a Swedish company, the culture of Sweden has changed from being a safe and disciplined country to one of rampant crime. This is a direct result of excessive immigration. See https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/11/30/sweden-gangs-child-contract-killings-foxtrot-young-offender/

Another big political issue at present is free speech in the UK. There have been several examples recently of the police prosecuting or harassing people who might have said allegedly offensive words on social media (for example the case of Julian Foulkes). I certainly think it has gone to far and I today joined the Free Speech Union (see https://freespeechunion.org/) who have been supporting challenges to the misuse of legislation in this area. Even I am at risk of falling foul of some misguided police challenges after some over-sensitive person complains about my political views!

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://x.com/RogerWLawson  )

You can obtain notifications of new posts in future by following me on Twitter (now “X”) – see https://x.com/RogerWLawson where new blog posts are usually mentioned.

Introduction of “Deportation” Bill

The Conservative Party have introduced a Deportation Bill to Parliament. Chris Philp MP, Shadow Home Secretary, said: “Labour and Reform are both complicit in the trade of empty slogans and hollow promises. Our plan can be enacted now to get immigration back under control.”

The Bill’s main elements are:

  • Automatic deportation for anyone who arrives in the country illegally.
  • Introducing an annual cap on migration – Ensuring migration levels are determined by the British people. 
  • Doubling the residency requirement for Indefinite Leave to Remain from 5 to 10 years – British citizenship is a privilege to be earned, not a right to be claimed. 
  • Creating new powers to revoke Indefinite Leave to Remain – Allowing us to remove those who have become a burden to the UK.
  • Disapplying the Human Rights Act from all immigration-related matters – Preventing foreign nationals from exploiting our court system.
  • Increasing the salary threshold for work visas to £38,700.
  • Introducing powers to deport all foreign criminals – If you break the law here, you go home.

This all seems eminently sensible to me. But what is the chance of it becoming law? Rather low I suspect because the Labour Party is keen to have more low-paid immigrants in the country who are more likely to vote for them as the UK’s social security system is way too generous and easy to exploit. Gerrymandering is the name of the game.

More information here: https://www.conservatives.com/news/conservatives-introduce-the-deportation-bill

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://x.com/RogerWLawson  )

You can obtain notifications of new posts in future by following me on Twitter (now “X”) – see https://x.com/RogerWLawson where new blog posts are usually mentioned.

Riots and How to Stop Them

This weekend the UK has seen a number of riots – demonstrations that are more or less violent. What are they about? This is a difficult question to answer as the protestors are often claimed to be “far right” who oppose the level of immigration into the country mixed with those concerned about the level of knife crime which resulted in the murder of three young girls last week. Muslims are often seen as to blame for some of the issues.

What has been the Government response to the riots? Getting tough with more prosecutions, more police, more people in prison, stronger laws and more rhetoric seems to be the answer. But I don’t think that will solve the problem. The underlying problem is that many English people do not like the current level of immigration which the Government has done very little to stop. They blame the current ills in society such as high crime rates on too much immigration. The new Labour Government seems unlikely to change matters substantially.

If they want to stop the riots they need to tackle that issue. Too much immigration results in housing shortages and difficulties with other major public services. It also depresses wages due to the influx of unskilled workers.  

What is wrong with having right-wing views? I certainly think people should be economically independent and not rely on the state (and our taxes) for basic living costs. I don’t believe in communism or the watered down version called socialism which destroys individual initiative and hence wealth creation. A capitalist economy, which is what we have, needs to be tempered with compassion for those who are temporarily disabled but people should not be relying on the Government for hand-outs at every opportunity.

Only the Reform Party shows any sign of promoting policies that will tackle the main political issues in an effective way. That is why so many people are frustrated with the Conservative and Labour Governments we have had in the last few years who have simply stoked up frustration. The result has been the riots.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson  )

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More Cheap Labour Required? And Results from Intercede and Telecom Plus

Both the CBI and the CEO of Next have called for a relaxation of immigration rules so as to provide more workers. There are desperate shortages of staff in some sectors of the economy such as retail and hospitality, particularly in low-paid unskilled jobs. With a booming economy it has proved very difficult to recruit staff at wage levels that companies want to pay.

The problem has been compounded by a rise in “inactivity” levels, i.e. people who could be employed but are not. Some of them are suffering from long-term sickness but others have simply dropped out of the workforce because they can survive on benefits. The Covid epidemic has encouraged these trends but in essence there are underlying factors such as demographic changes that are a major cause. As the population ages people are less keen to work and are more likely to suffer from medical complaints that the NHS cannot fix quickly due to mismanagement of that service of late.   

Do we need to allow more immigration to help businesses? I suggest not. A tight employment market encourages companies to invest in improving productivity when if they can hire labour easily they do not. Poor productivity is one of the major problems in the UK economy and has been for years.

Even Labour leader Keir Starmer is opposed to unrestricted immigration and has said “Let me tell you: the days when low pay and cheap labour are part of the British way on growth are over”.

The UK needs to look at fixing some of these problems via Government policies on social security benefits including pensions and helping those suffering from illness by improving the NHS while companies need to invest more in productivity improvements. That means more equipment and better training.

Two more sets of results from companies I hold in my portfolio came out this morning. Recession? What recession?

Telecom Plus (TEP) reported revenue up by 51.5% and adjusted profit up by 22.5% with dividends up to match in its interim results. Reading this company’s results helps you understand the impact of the energy crisis on household bills and the impact of government interventions to cap prices.

Not only has the company increased the number of customers signed up to its services because they now have a very competitively priced offering for energy supply, it has also meant that more people have been signing up to sell their services as their household budgets have come under pressure due to the rising cost of living.

The rising cost of energy has also meant customers have reduced their energy consumption by 10% over the summer with a larger reduction expected over the winter months. Customer churn remains at record low levels and bad debt provision seems not to be a problem although that might rise. Forecasts for full year profits and dividends have been increased.

As both a customer of Telecom Plus as well as a long-term shareholder, but not a reseller, I am happy with the progress made.

Intercede (IGP), a company specialising in digital identities, reported revenue up 24% in their interim results and net profits up 124%. Again there is a positive outlook statement and it looks like the strategy to grow by acquisition is paying off. The share price may not have been buoyant of late as small cap technology stocks have fallen out of favour but the company seems to be doing the right things. That’s solely my opinion as a long-term holder of the shares of course.

Both companies demonstrate that there are still profits to be made, even in the tricky energy sector where the government has been interfering.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson  )

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