Alasdair Mackenzie
@alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social
Immigration and asylum law. All views my own but reposts not endorsement. Refugees welcome🧡. Green Party member💚. Trans 🏳️⚧️ rights are human rights. He/him.
"Lawyers have hitherto only interpreted the law. The point however is to change it."
"Lawyers have hitherto only interpreted the law. The point however is to change it."
Pinned
Starmer says past governments have been "squeamish" talking about immigration. Bullshit.
Starmer isn't bravely breaking a taboo. He's blaming vulnerable people & deflecting attention from the super rich who hoard power & wealth.
Want something better? join.greenparty.org.uk
Starmer isn't bravely breaking a taboo. He's blaming vulnerable people & deflecting attention from the super rich who hoard power & wealth.
Want something better? join.greenparty.org.uk
As an immigration lawyer, it seems to me that the only thing we talk about more than immigration is how we don’t talk about immigration
Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie
The Lords have departed from years of restraint in standing up to the Government, to obstruct a manifesto commitment giving workers basic day-one protections. Here is a clear case of constitutional double standards, spurred on by business interests 1/ www.theguardian.com/law/2025/nov...
November 28, 2025 at 8:55 AM
The Lords have departed from years of restraint in standing up to the Government, to obstruct a manifesto commitment giving workers basic day-one protections. Here is a clear case of constitutional double standards, spurred on by business interests 1/ www.theguardian.com/law/2025/nov...
Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie
We are pleased to announce we have made the UK a much less attractive place to live
UK net migration falls sharply with drop in arrivals for work and study
Provisional figures for net migration to the UK show levels dropped to 204,000 in the year to June 2025.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 27, 2025 at 8:23 PM
We are pleased to announce we have made the UK a much less attractive place to live
Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie
"Tweaks to taxation and spending aren’t going to un-break Britain.
A tax on multi-million-pound properties, while welcome, is not going to erode the extraordinary wealth of those at the top of our society – nor their grip over our democracy."
open.substack.com/pub/gracebla...
A tax on multi-million-pound properties, while welcome, is not going to erode the extraordinary wealth of those at the top of our society – nor their grip over our democracy."
open.substack.com/pub/gracebla...
Rachel Reeves is living on another planet
A country in crisis and a government in denial.
open.substack.com
November 26, 2025 at 6:30 PM
"Tweaks to taxation and spending aren’t going to un-break Britain.
A tax on multi-million-pound properties, while welcome, is not going to erode the extraordinary wealth of those at the top of our society – nor their grip over our democracy."
open.substack.com/pub/gracebla...
A tax on multi-million-pound properties, while welcome, is not going to erode the extraordinary wealth of those at the top of our society – nor their grip over our democracy."
open.substack.com/pub/gracebla...
Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie
It is IMO not possible to operate any kind of meaningful democracy when your national press is a joke and a travesty, but your mileage on that may vary. I think it’s incontestable that it is impossible to govern well and effectively, while being in hock to these pantomime clowns.
November 27, 2025 at 8:46 AM
It is IMO not possible to operate any kind of meaningful democracy when your national press is a joke and a travesty, but your mileage on that may vary. I think it’s incontestable that it is impossible to govern well and effectively, while being in hock to these pantomime clowns.
Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie
Labour immigration policy explained:
✅ Net immigration rising: CRACKDOWN REQUIRED
✅ Net immigration plummeting: CRACKDOWN REQUIRED
✅ Net immigration rising: CRACKDOWN REQUIRED
✅ Net immigration plummeting: CRACKDOWN REQUIRED
November 27, 2025 at 7:42 PM
Labour immigration policy explained:
✅ Net immigration rising: CRACKDOWN REQUIRED
✅ Net immigration plummeting: CRACKDOWN REQUIRED
✅ Net immigration rising: CRACKDOWN REQUIRED
✅ Net immigration plummeting: CRACKDOWN REQUIRED
Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie
I'm not sure how much it is appreciated that there will be significant emigration coming. Those here on graduate visas coming to an end, the toughening up of skilled worker rules re. salaries/sponsorable roles and the 'earned settlement' changes to come. Lots of people are going to leave.
November 27, 2025 at 11:08 AM
I'm not sure how much it is appreciated that there will be significant emigration coming. Those here on graduate visas coming to an end, the toughening up of skilled worker rules re. salaries/sponsorable roles and the 'earned settlement' changes to come. Lots of people are going to leave.
Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie
The UK, where the day after a decision to take half a million children out of poverty, the media & political world has been full of sneering at those same children & their families, labelling them as ‘Benefits Street’, while the same people are moaning about a tax on £2m mansions. Shameful stuff.
November 27, 2025 at 8:22 PM
The UK, where the day after a decision to take half a million children out of poverty, the media & political world has been full of sneering at those same children & their families, labelling them as ‘Benefits Street’, while the same people are moaning about a tax on £2m mansions. Shameful stuff.
Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie
A quick reminder of who Nigel Farage was most concerned about when Putin's tanks first rolled into Ukraine
November 27, 2025 at 8:22 PM
A quick reminder of who Nigel Farage was most concerned about when Putin's tanks first rolled into Ukraine
We are pleased to announce we have made the UK a much less attractive place to live
UK net migration falls sharply with drop in arrivals for work and study
Provisional figures for net migration to the UK show levels dropped to 204,000 in the year to June 2025.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 27, 2025 at 8:23 PM
We are pleased to announce we have made the UK a much less attractive place to live
BBC absolutely wetting itself here, endless statistics which it has confused with information
Tracking UK migration: Small boats, asylum hotels and visas
Use our interactive tracker to explore the latest migration statistics for the UK
www.bbc.co.uk
November 27, 2025 at 8:16 PM
BBC absolutely wetting itself here, endless statistics which it has confused with information
Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie
Here is a list of reasons why some of my hearings and trials this year have been delayed and kicked off into the long grass, stuck in our record court backlog. Serious allegations which will now be tried *years* after the event. 🧵👇
November 27, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Here is a list of reasons why some of my hearings and trials this year have been delayed and kicked off into the long grass, stuck in our record court backlog. Serious allegations which will now be tried *years* after the event. 🧵👇
Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie
November 27, 2025 at 3:50 PM
It’s interesting which manifesto commitments are set in stone and which are infinitely flexible, is it not
When Keir Starmer asked me to work with our Trades Unions to develop a programme for the biggest uplift in workers’ rights and protections in a generation, I did exactly as I was asked and we produced the New Deal for Working People.
1/11
1/11
November 27, 2025 at 7:54 PM
It’s interesting which manifesto commitments are set in stone and which are infinitely flexible, is it not
Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie
The "don't have an extra kid if you can't afford it" brigade get awfully upset when you suggest they don't stay in their £2m house if they can't afford it, don't they?
November 27, 2025 at 6:09 PM
The "don't have an extra kid if you can't afford it" brigade get awfully upset when you suggest they don't stay in their £2m house if they can't afford it, don't they?
Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie
Central to the 2010s Legitimate Concerns discourse that paved the way for our current pre-fascist moment was the refusal to acknowledge that these "concerns" were based on demonstrable fictions, filtered through socially constructed prejudices. I.e. they were not, in fact, "legitimate".
"A new poll suggests nearly half of Britons think there are more migrants in the UK illegally than legally, but in reality just 7% arrive through irregular channels"
Charlie Angela on how sensationalist reporting in the right wing press is fuelling falsehoods and misconceptions
Charlie Angela on how sensationalist reporting in the right wing press is fuelling falsehoods and misconceptions
November 27, 2025 at 7:08 AM
Central to the 2010s Legitimate Concerns discourse that paved the way for our current pre-fascist moment was the refusal to acknowledge that these "concerns" were based on demonstrable fictions, filtered through socially constructed prejudices. I.e. they were not, in fact, "legitimate".
Labour immigration policy explained:
✅ Net immigration rising: CRACKDOWN REQUIRED
✅ Net immigration plummeting: CRACKDOWN REQUIRED
✅ Net immigration rising: CRACKDOWN REQUIRED
✅ Net immigration plummeting: CRACKDOWN REQUIRED
November 27, 2025 at 7:42 PM
Labour immigration policy explained:
✅ Net immigration rising: CRACKDOWN REQUIRED
✅ Net immigration plummeting: CRACKDOWN REQUIRED
✅ Net immigration rising: CRACKDOWN REQUIRED
✅ Net immigration plummeting: CRACKDOWN REQUIRED
Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie
Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie
"[...] the Labour leader said the homophobic attack left him worried for the future of the UK"
*clears throat*
I HAVE OPINIONS
metro.co.uk/2025/11/26/k...
*clears throat*
I HAVE OPINIONS
metro.co.uk/2025/11/26/k...
Keir Starmer's fury after neice and wife 'beaten by blokes for holding hands'
'I thought the days of beating up people because they were gay were well behind us.'
metro.co.uk
November 26, 2025 at 10:32 PM
"[...] the Labour leader said the homophobic attack left him worried for the future of the UK"
*clears throat*
I HAVE OPINIONS
metro.co.uk/2025/11/26/k...
*clears throat*
I HAVE OPINIONS
metro.co.uk/2025/11/26/k...
Some very valid questions here for Shabana Mahmood, about her distinctly undercooked idea for "independent adjudicators" on asylum (and other immigration?) cases, from the House of Commons Justice Committee
committees.parliament.uk
November 27, 2025 at 1:56 PM
Some very valid questions here for Shabana Mahmood, about her distinctly undercooked idea for "independent adjudicators" on asylum (and other immigration?) cases, from the House of Commons Justice Committee
Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie
This really needs emphasizing. The entirety of the UK media ecosystem is utterly fixated on a 100% fabricated "crisis".
Net migration has fallen again to 204,000, the lowest level since 2021 and is forecast to continue falling over the coming years.
Not that you would know it from the endless coverage of Britain's supposed "immigration crisis"
Not that you would know it from the endless coverage of Britain's supposed "immigration crisis"
November 27, 2025 at 12:48 PM
This really needs emphasizing. The entirety of the UK media ecosystem is utterly fixated on a 100% fabricated "crisis".
Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie
Not the biggest fan of Rachel Reeves but her Budget speech delivered the best one liner on Nigel Farage of 2025
wp.me/p15p2Q-fA7
wp.me/p15p2Q-fA7
Rachel Reeves Budget statement. On freezing Russian assets & Clacton
Finally, we are ramping up sanctions on Russia and freezing known Russian assets. Let me be clear, I do not mean the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage). Under the Conservatives —[Interruption.]…
wp.me
November 26, 2025 at 9:08 PM
Not the biggest fan of Rachel Reeves but her Budget speech delivered the best one liner on Nigel Farage of 2025
wp.me/p15p2Q-fA7
wp.me/p15p2Q-fA7
Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie
This is true. They believe racism is wrong.
Nigel Farage says school racism accusers have ‘different political views’
www.channel4.com/news/nigel-f...
www.channel4.com/news/nigel-f...
Nigel Farage says school racism accusers have ‘different political views’
Reform's leaders gave their response to the budget at a press conference, but several of the questions asked of their leader Nigel Farage focussed on allegations of racism and antisemitism as a school...
www.channel4.com
November 26, 2025 at 8:13 PM
This is true. They believe racism is wrong.
Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie
Our conversation about immigration is framed entirely on Nigel Farage’s terms.
Labour has completely capitulated the ground to the far right, the racism & the hate.
We no longer have a conversation AT ALL about how we need immigration & when we cut it, we pay the price. #r4today
Labour has completely capitulated the ground to the far right, the racism & the hate.
We no longer have a conversation AT ALL about how we need immigration & when we cut it, we pay the price. #r4today
November 27, 2025 at 8:41 AM
Our conversation about immigration is framed entirely on Nigel Farage’s terms.
Labour has completely capitulated the ground to the far right, the racism & the hate.
We no longer have a conversation AT ALL about how we need immigration & when we cut it, we pay the price. #r4today
Labour has completely capitulated the ground to the far right, the racism & the hate.
We no longer have a conversation AT ALL about how we need immigration & when we cut it, we pay the price. #r4today
Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie
Labour are going to be so embarrassed when they find out they suspended 7 of their own MPs for supporting Labour Party policy.
This has been a Labour policy since the Tories introduced it, so don’t go rushing to claim credit for it because the majority of the Labour backbenchers have been pushing this for a long time. Now they’re in government and in a position to remove it and they have done so.
November 26, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Labour are going to be so embarrassed when they find out they suspended 7 of their own MPs for supporting Labour Party policy.
Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie
Labour really has a problem understanding that immigrants are people; and people plan their lives according to the rules that apply to them. You cannot just change the rules retrospectively, and you definitely cannot do so and claim you're doing it in the name of fairness.
November 27, 2025 at 6:48 AM
Labour really has a problem understanding that immigrants are people; and people plan their lives according to the rules that apply to them. You cannot just change the rules retrospectively, and you definitely cannot do so and claim you're doing it in the name of fairness.