Author | Lightnews

Simon B.-M. @simonbm.bsky.social · 14m

As it is now, if you record a UK passport with an airline, the app may refuse check-in if you cannot provide a visa for travel to the EU. You can, of course, go to the airport early and check in at a desk.

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Simon B.-M. @simonbm.bsky.social · 22m

But the relation of ordinary people to politics is to worry about what they are going to do to you. We are neither judges nor confessors. The only reason to distinguish opportunists from believers is if opportunism may realistically lead in a different direction.

Simon B.-M. @simonbm.bsky.social · 34m

Is it worse? We’re mainly concerned with outcomes. The Tory party now has a policy that will produce xenophobic and racist outcomes. That makes them racists whatever they have in their heads. Who cares if they go to Hell or Purgatory for 1000 years?

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Simon B.-M. @simonbm.bsky.social · 44m

You’re not suggesting beheading?

Simon B.-M. @simonbm.bsky.social · 45m

So far I’ve used an EU MS document for both directions, but when there’s an ESTA style system in both directions, that won’t work. The software will refuse check-in in one direction. Hence my scepticism that carriers can handle it.

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Simon B.-M. @simonbm.bsky.social · 49m

If it’s recorded obviously. As a dual national I have great trouble with the carriers’ software. It usually only lets you enter one document for a return trip. There’s obviously no problem with the border police with physical documents.

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Simon B.-M. @simonbm.bsky.social · 56m

A lot of people find it stupid and inconvenient, but they don’t think it’s important enough to change. The British monarchy survives on the same principle. Can’t be arsed is very powerful.

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Simon B.-M. @simonbm.bsky.social · 1h

The problem is you’ll have to explain to a carrier first who’ll be working on the precautionary principle.

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Simon B.-M. @simonbm.bsky.social · 2h

He’s not following his own advice. It’s a tweet with advice that is not following itself.

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Reposted by Simon B.-M.

Rüdiger Beckmann @pixelwelten.bsky.social · 4h

„Klassisch konservative Parteien übernehmen Sprache, Rhetorik und ideologische Elemente der extremen Rechten. Jeder Anspruch auf Konsens und Staatsräson wird über Bord geworfen und gegen eine Lust an Polarisierung eingetauscht.“

@nataschastrobl.bsky.social via @philomag.com

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Simon B.-M. @simonbm.bsky.social · 2h

To summarise all those words: she should pretend not to be far right so that Reform can implausibly claim not to be far right.

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Simon B.-M. @simonbm.bsky.social · 2h

I object to this screenshot. I features 100% a racist person although only 45% vote for one of the two far-right parties.

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Simon B.-M. @simonbm.bsky.social · 3h

That’s kind of the point of a far-right party, isn’t it?

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Reposted by Simon B.-M.

Annette Dittert @annettedittert.bsky.social · 1d

"There is no great outcry in the right-wing press or from conservative politicians against mass deportation.
The days when they stood up to the injustice of retrospective legislation are long gone."

Another good and valuable read on how fast things seem to shift in Britain atm. Deeply worrying.

Nick Cohen @nickcohen.bsky.social · 1d

The Conservatives plans to deport hundreds of thousands of legal residents of the UK are far more extreme than anything Donald Trump is proposing
Piece from me on the horror show of the right morphing into the far right

open.substack.com/pub/nickcohe...

"Respectable" racism and the mass deportation of our neighbours

How the British right out-Trumps Trump

open.substack.com

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Simon B.-M. @simonbm.bsky.social · 11h

A US measuring cup is 236.588 ml because it just is.

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Richard Bentall #FPBE @richardbentall.bsky.social · 18h

I agree. X is now a cesspit flooded with accounts provoking ethnic hatred, fear of vaccination and opposition to green policies. It looks highly orchestrated, most likely be enemies of democracy and peace in the west.

Dan Nexon @dhnexon.bsky.social · 18h

The UK and the EU need to ban X, and ban it yesterday.

emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 1d

Once again Elon Musk has stoked far right violence in Ireland or England.

www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/20...

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Simon B.-M. @simonbm.bsky.social · 18h

The naffness is the appeal. It makes naff people feel better about themselves.

Reposted by Simon B.-M.

Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik @blaetter.bsky.social · 21h

Schon reingehört?

Im neuen »Blätter«-Podcast beleuchtet @annettedittert.bsky.social, wie Musk, Farage und Co. versuchen, die britische Demokratie auszuhebeln.

Jetzt reinhören 👉 www.blaetter.de/podcast – und überall, wo es Podcasts gibt.

»Wenn die MAGA-Bewegung für Geld und Personal sorgt, ist das eine ernstzunehmende Gefahr für die britische Demokratie«, Annette Dittert, »Blätter«-Podcast, November 2025

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DAK62 @dak62.bsky.social · 21h

Dem, was Frau Türk-Neubaur hier sagt, ist nichts hinzuzufügen.

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Simon B.-M. @simonbm.bsky.social · 20h

People without a racist obsession are hardly going to notice either way.

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Reposted by Simon B.-M.

Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · 1d

Angus: Canada is reconsidering that relationship with China. Why? Because we can no longer trust the US.

And we know that we have 150, maybe more, Canadians in custody at ICE detention centers. We had two Canadians under Chinese custody and it caused a huge outcry. We now have over 150 in the US.

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Simon B.-M. @simonbm.bsky.social · 21h

Absent a deal, Brits in EU would have become 3rd country nationals subject to the existing rules in each member. EU in UK would have been subject to whatever the UK govt decided to please the Daily Mail.

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Simon B.-M. @simonbm.bsky.social · 21h

That’s the thing. The UK hadn’t registered EU citizens. FoM was their whole status. And it wanted to use the fate of EU citizens as leverage in parts of the negotiations relating to completely different things.

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Simon B.-M. @simonbm.bsky.social · 1d

Also residents in the EU had acquired rights under national law through length of residency. The WA is an improvement over that but does not retain full pre-Brexit rights. It is much more important for EU citizens in the UK.

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Simon B.-M. @simonbm.bsky.social · 1d

Once had a black cocker with a suspected admixture of poodle. No expert on chemistry, but there is no way dog food contains that much energy.