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Alasdair Mackenzie

@alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social

4.4K followers 1.6K following 2.5K posts

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."

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Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 12d

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

Zack Polanski @zackpolanski.bsky.social · 12d

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

Pm says Britain has been squeamish about illegal immigration.

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Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 1h

By the way the answer to the question here is obviously “yes, but they’re too complacent or blinkered to notice”

Has Kemi Badenoch sounded the death knell for one nation Conservatism?

The Tory leader’s shift to the right has left its centrist wing wondering if its tradition still has a future

www.theguardian.com

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Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 1h

Would’ve been shorter and less tedious

Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 1h

Tory centrists, giving migrants a kicking, but with “a humanitarian mindset“

Has Kemi Badenoch sounded the death knell for one nation Conservatism?

The Tory leader’s shift to the right has left its centrist wing wondering if its tradition still has a future

www.theguardian.com

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Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 1h

This is an awful lot of words to avoid saying “I took wheelbarrows full of cash to whitewash a monarchy which imprisons women’s rights activists and executes its critics”

I have been criticised for being part of the Riyadh comedy festival. This is why I did it | Omid Djalili

The headlines focus on money, but the gigs were great and I think there are different ways to achieve progress. Art, especially comedy, can be part of that, says stand-up comedian, Omid Djalili.

www.theguardian.com

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Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 2h

The same, amazingly

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Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 2h

There’s a step change from a party which achieves its malign ends within the traditional conception of our constitution & one which is prepared to lay waste to it, and the Tories have rapidly moved from one to the other. But you’d understand none of that from reading the BBC’s political editor.

Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 3h

As you’d expect, Chris is absolutely “fascinated” by the goings-on at the Tory Party conference and what they say about its polling. So much so that he forgot the bits he was going to put in about all the Blackshirt posturing or the party’s trashing of the rule of law

Kemi Badenoch hopes to grab attention with policy blitz

The Tory leader's conference speech included a new pledge to scrap stamp duty on the purchase of main homes.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 3h

Kemi Badenoch hopes to grab attention with policy blitz

The Tory leader's conference speech included a new pledge to scrap stamp duty on the purchase of main homes.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie

flyingrodent @flyingrodent.bsky.social · 3h

Surely not the miracle technology that’s going to rescue us, and Britain in particular

Bank of England warns of growing risk that AI bubble could burst

Possibility of ‘sharp market correction has increased’, says Bank’s financial policy committee

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie

Claudio Francavilla @claudiofrancavilla.bsky.social · 3h

Many of the amazing comedians who performed in Saudi Arabia often portray themselves as free speech champions, denounce "cancel culture"

Yet they didn't didn't say a word about those jailed in the country precisely for speaking up: www.hrw.org/news/2025/10...

Saudi Arabia: Comedians Silent on Detained Activists

Comedians performing at the Riyadh Comedy Festival did not use their public platform to urge Saudi authorities to free unjustly detained Saudi dissidents, journalists, and human rights activists

www.hrw.org

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Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie

ACORN the union @acornunion.bsky.social · 4h

This isn’t an unavoidable fact of life. It’s the direct result of policy choices made my those in power.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

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Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie

Hanniba-LINA Lecter 💀 @agirlcalledlina.bsky.social · 4h

Counterpoint destroying Britain in its current state is good actually

Zack Polanski @zackpolanski.bsky.social · 4h

My secret evil plot to ‘destroy Britain’ has been unveiled by (checks notes) the same paper that endorsed Liz Truss.

If I don’t know better I’d say we’ve got them entirely rattled.

Join.greenparty.org.uk

Greens who want to save the world by destroying Britain.

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Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie

Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 11h

Shameless bullying by odious little tin soldier Jenrick of people who just want to serve the public.

This shouldn’t be worth taking seriously ofc, bar the manifest risk that our politics will now dissolve into an auction over how many judges each party promises to sack.

A few points & a warning 1/

Paul Lewis @paullewismoney.bsky.social · 13h

Top Tory names judges he would sack for bias bit.ly/3KE7cBY some have allowed immigrants to stay in the UK for reasons Robert Jenrick disapproves of. He wants Ministers to appoint (and sack) judges. But top judge Sumption warns this could lead to an authoritarian state

Robert Jenrick names judges he would sack for ‘pro-migrant bias’

The shadow justice secretary has accused ‘activists’ within the judiciary of having links to political causes that compromise their independence

bit.ly

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Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 9h

‘Should comedians be held to a higher standard than footballers? It would help if they weren’t so fond of touting their own importance, their skewering of the ruling class, their “speaking truth to power”.’

Malin Hay on the House of Saud’s comedy festival: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/oc...

Malin Hay | Laughing Their Heads Off

If there’s anything ironic about being so scared of telling the wrong joke that you run straight into the arms of the...

www.lrb.co.uk

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Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 10h

100%

Reposted by Alasdair Mackenzie

Frédéric Moreau @goodclimate.bsky.social · 1d

This lurid headline is about British tourists no longer getting away with overstaying in Schengen. Or being 'illegals', as it's often called in the UK.

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Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 10h

And like the Trumpists, if the Tories no longer accept the rule of law, what else do they want to discard, in terms of our safeguards from authoritarianism? Be in no doubt, we’re in a fight for democracy itself.

And anyone still in the party has shown you which side they’re on /end

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Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 10h

This is obviously the death of the rule of law, a key aspect of any democracy.

It’s also the final death of the Tories as an ostensibly constitutional party and comfirmation of its move, like the MAGA Republicans, into the unconstitutional far right. 11/

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Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 10h

But let’s go back to how corrosive this is, and recall that this personalised bullying is part of an Orbanite-Trumpist proposal to bring judges under the control of politicians (and Jenrick obviously doesn’t expect that it’ll be leftist politicians controlling them). 10/

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Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 10h

So your prior affiliations have little or nothing to do with your approach or your abilities as a judge, and anyone with any understanding knows this 9/

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Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 10h

And the ex-Home Office judges?

Same.

Some you anticipate a tough day from, some you anticipate your opponent getting a tough time. In either case you can be wrong. 8/

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Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 10h

They have a range of views and abilities too. Some you’d hope for a positive result from (though all take their independence entirely seriously). Others are unsympathetic and/or their judgments are open to appeal. 7/

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Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 10h

But here’s why this whole notion, as well as corrosive, is so stupid. Anyone who’s been in the immigration tribunal has encountered judges who used to work in migrants’ rights or represent asylum seekers. Guess what? 6/

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Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 10h

A few years back a number of judges joined the advisory council of Migration Watch - upon retiring, but I don’t imagine the views which led them to do so coalesced only at that point. I’m also sure they weren’t the last to hold similar views. Opinions don’t, putting it mildly, lean only one way 5/

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Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 11h

Second, judges are also appointed not only from among those who’ve represented the Home Office, but from actual employees of the HO. By Jenrick’s logic (which I stress I don’t share) they’ve displayed more ideological commitment than just pro bono charity work. Does he think they‘re ineligible? 4/

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Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 11h

…If Jenrick has evidence any of the judges he’s named is in breach of their oath, I suggest he should put up or shut up, and the very least we can expect of our fearless journalists is that they ask him this 3/

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