All that said, Stephen is entirely right when he says this: "this government’s biggest failing, which is that it is essentially incapable of saying that racism is wrong, full stop. That is a far bigger contributor to emboldened racism in the UK."

"Seizing Brexit opportunities to deregulate" was mostly unspecified magic fairy pixie bullshit then, and it's not going to get any more realistic in the hands of a bunch of Reform clowns who don't know how anything works, don't care to learn and disdain anyone that might.

A comment that reminded me of this discussion: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4580... (the article it's about is an interesting read also).

I mean, maybe, but if so then it has to be paired with a bit of common sense in the enforcement.

Also, ‘provably harmful’ seems an unnecessarily high bar. ‘Not manifestly trivial’ would have worked fine here.

It's a very similar dynamic to the rise of Trumpism. Nobody on the right speaking up or saying anything, as the individual incentive was to keep your head down – but the collective cowardice ending up somewhere really bad.

Even just the threat of this becoming policy is going to damage the economy; Why make an investment whose returns depend on this not happening?

The regret numbers on Brexit rise in the same way Trump’s approval numbers drop.

There is an existential need to improve the standard & quality of public debate; a plague on everyone’s house right now.

‘Fuck Around and Find Out’ is proving a flawed approach to running the world.

Jews in Manchester should not be attacked because of political animus against Israel.
No one should have to shut up about civilians killed in Gaza, because an antisemitic murderer in Manchester. It doesn't make sense.