How was your Tuesday? Probably better than Rishi Sunak’s. Unless you’re a West Ham fan, obviously. Because yesterday they took the pre-vote vote on the Rwanda bill. Again??? Yes, again. We’ve got loads of horrible forriners fresh of their highly sinkable boats, just waiting for a one-way ticket to… well, kind of ‘oblivion’. There’s a queue half way round Heathrow as we speak, ok, that’s nothing unusual in itself, but this is people under guard. Chained to the Duty Free. Shackled to the Oyster Bar. Because they can’t be deported until we sort out the whole Rwanda thing. And this is the third time its come before ‘the House’. The proper vote is today. Yesterday’s was just to approve the wording of the plan. And for others to seek an amendment to it before it passes parliament.

60 people from the government voted against Rishi’s plan and 3 of them resigned in protest.

Not because they’re lovely people who think a few poor asylum seekers who’ve been tortured and persecuted in their own countries then crossed half the world on foot and by very precarious boats to arrive here, should be given a break of some kind. But because they think the wording of the policy is not strong enough. It gives refugees the right of appeal. Keeps them here when we want them gone. Make the wording tight and infallible so the courts won’t rule it illegal or unworkable, like the previous 2 times.

From my perspective, its all just a bit ‘random’, a bit ‘desperate’. You can’t send refugees ‘home’ if they’ve been victimised in some way so send them to (close eyes, spin a globe of the world, stick a finger on it to stop it…) to Rwanda!!! Lets just bung that semi-trustworthy, possibly human-rights-abusing, questionably corrupt, previously torturing nation a few hundred million and see if we pass a law to dump our unwanteds there. Oh, sorry, see if we can ‘stop this horrible trade in human trafficking’, what was I thinking?

They vote today. And if they don’t amend the bill, we’ll probably be voting again next month, possibly the one after as well, depending on when the general election is called.

This is precisely why we NEED football.

Happy wednesday

A xxxx