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Mike Slaven

@mcslaven.bsky.social

2.3K followers 1.9K following 1.2K posts

Author of "Securing Borders, Securing Power" (Columbia UP, 2022) http://tinyurl.com/yeywvdaa Doing migration politics/policy research, currently @colmigproject.bsky.social. Political speechwriter of yore. Obscure academic in provincial England, AZ guy 🌵

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Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · May 13

Does calling anti-immigrant policies racist work at opposing them? Much analysis (validly) says no, but I have a new 📖 article 📖 on why this was essential to changing immigration politics in Arizona 🌵. Sometimes the effective arguments aren't already popular! 1/ www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Saying racism: calling anti-immigration policies racist as effective pro-immigrant politics in Arizona

Identifying anti-immigration policies as racist commonly features in political discourse in many majority-white countries. Both behavioralist studies of voter attitudes and studies of party positio...

www.tandfonline.com

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 3h

Spot on from @stephenkb.bsky.social. And the other aspect of this nasty turn is the eliding of British ‘culture’ with ‘white British’, which will shock anyone who has watched TV or football, or listened to music, or read a book, or indeed breathed since 1980.

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Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 14h

bsky.app/profile/sund...

Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 14h

Badenoch both defended Jenrick - for just making observations - but also said: “I don’t think this is where the debate should be, about how many faces people see on the street and what they look like.”
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 19h

She's backing him up I think!

Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 23h

We're a long way from a Reform victory -- the election is almost 4 years away, and even at their current polling lead they would have a hard time reaching a majority government. But what they certainly can do is bury the Conservatives.

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Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 23h

he hasn't always been this way - he broke bad - but is widely considered a Tory leader in waiting, though I don't think he has the right path to bringing the Tories back

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Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 1d

Maybe this is beyond the imagination of the UK's current political hacks but I imagine a campaign against "Racist Robert" is something other parties would embrace, it would be grimly funny for Farage to be hitting Jenrick for being racist but also has a chance to work quite well electorally IMO

Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 1d

I think Jenrick now is more obviously racist than Farage (in terms of what a typical person would see as racism). Farage dislikes immigrants but projects a "maybe it's just banter" irony. Jenrick seems very dour about his racism then doubles down in grave tones www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Robert Jenrick complained of ‘not seeing another white face’ in Birmingham neighbourhood

Shadow justice secretary criticised for suggesting he could tell how integrated Handsworth was based on short visit

www.theguardian.com

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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 1d

Coverage of Jenrick today basically amounts to sane-washing. He didn't criticise judges. He claimed there was a conspiracy by certain judges, who he had discovered and could number, to undermine British law and create open borders.

ʀak @raksky.bsky.social · 1d

“… a sort of mad McCarthyite scream of paranoia and anxiety of the sort which he has now branded himself… he is living entirely inside of his little mind…”

Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social nails Robert Jenrick’s plans for “activist” judges during Sky News’ Press Preview.

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G Elliott Morris @gelliottmorris.com · 1d

at this point you have to acknowledge that there is no way that these guys don't try to mess with the 2026 midterms. there is absolutely no respect for the legitimacy of the opposition

Blue Georgia @bluegeorgia.bsky.social · 1d

Stephen Miller: "Eventually elections don’t carry the day because violence beats votes… When we see a muscular response from the federal government, it’s because we’re not going to let violence beat votes."

Is he implying federal intervention determines political legitimacy, not ballots or courts?

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The Secret Barrister @barristersecret.bsky.social · 1d

This is a lie.

There are many criticisms you might sensibly and truthfully make of the Sentencing Council and the Sentencing Guidelines. I’ve been making them for years.

But this is an outright lie. Pure fabrication. A fraud on the public.

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Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 1d

I'm sure Conservative voters are going to love Jenrick's forthcoming proposals to relocate nonwhite families to rural areas in England so there is not a "preponderance" of one group over another.

Best for Britain @bestforbritain.org · 1d

Wow. Robert Jenrick doubles down by branding a black journalist's questions "ridiculous" and saying that the problem is not his comments, but "journalists like you who pop up and try to knock me down", adding that "this is the reason why terrorist attacks happen". ~AA

Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 1d

private sector temporary contracts in Spain are down by about 2/3, as this account gets into (sympathetic but also pretty accurate - Sanchez has done more than his thin margins would suggest and of course has also held onto power) renewal.org.uk/articles/dar...

Daring to deliver: Pedro Sánchez and the revival of Spanish social democracy

10 Renewal 33.1_Heymann10 Renewal 33.1_Heymann.pdf108 KBdownload-circle Since 2018, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez has led one of the most successful social democratic governments in the worl...

renewal.org.uk

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Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 1d

Before she was a politician, Chrystia Freeland wrote an essential ethnography of the kind of super-rich we have now. They see their immense wealth as proof of their unmatched talent so they really don't question themselves or their entitlement to run society www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/202849...

Plutocrats by Chrystia Freeland | Penguin Random House Canada

"Studded with numbers and economic data . . . [Plutocrats] is as complete a work of economic journalism as one could hope for. More surgeon than writer, Freeland has dissected the dynamics of power in...

www.penguinrandomhouse.ca

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Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 1d

When we write the history of this moment, the decisions of Trump's billionaire outriders to treat Trumpism as triumphant after 2024 will be major. They have gotten what they wanted and tried to impose a reality in which what we're seeing is what America wants, which is proved false every day

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Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 1d

In Trump times you get used to hacks, weirdos and mediocrities in big admin jobs. It's the circus. But the Bari Weiss thing shows how institutions where this didn't have to happen are also going this way, as a handful of deluded billionaires have decided this is society now and we all must like it.

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Jeremy Cliffe @jeremycliffe.bsky.social · 1d

There's a fascinating case study to be done on the different strategies of Macron and Sánchez. Both emerged, against the odds, from centrist milieux in the mid-2010s to lead their countries since 2017/18. But their fates are totally different.

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southpaw @nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · 2d

As you see the Ellisons’ use the husk of Paramount/CBS to hand out fiefdoms to conservatives, remember: This summer Paramount bribed Trump $16m at the cost of 60 Minutes’ integrity. FCC approval of the Ellisons’ takeover bid followed within a few days. Brendan Carr made this statement at the time.

Brendan Carr, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission:
President Trump is fundamentally reshaping the media landscape. And the way he's doing that is,
when he ran for election, he ran directly at these legacy broadcast media outlets, ABC, NBC, CBS.
For years, government officials just allowed those entities with execs sitting in Hollywood in New York to dictate the political narrative. And he has fundamentally changed the game. And you see that really having consequences that are just rushing all through media.

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Quinta Jurecic @qjurecic.bsky.social · 2d

I truly don't understand what people thought was going to happen

Mary Dudziak @marydudziak.bsky.social · 2d

Has Trump’s second term posed a greater or lesser threat to the rule of law than you expected? @nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/m...

Has Trump’s second term posed a greater or lesser threat to the rule of law than you expected?
Circular graph showing over half answered: much more than I expected, about a quarter: more than I expected, about an eighth: similar threat to what I expected, small sliver: much less threat than I expected.

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Mueller, She Wrote @muellershewrote.com · 2d

Harmeet Dhillon (DOJ) publicly targeted this judge on Twitter a couple weeks ago.

The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 2d

SOUTH CAROLINA… “Judge Goodstein was walking on the beach when the fire started. Her husband, Arnie, was in the house with children and perhaps grandchildren. The family had to escape by jumping from a window or balcony...” www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

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Evan Bernick, a finite mode with a smol hooman and a lorg floof @evanbernick.bsky.social · 2d

ICE is doing a hell of a lot of harm in the Chicago area *right now.* I don’t mean to trivialize the national guard stuff, it absolutely is an irresponsible escalation, but the guard-centric convo around this really does understate what’s going on without any guardsmen.

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Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 2d

The UK national discourse on ILR has become extremely radicalized extremely fast. A big part of the blame lies with the Labour Party, which was the first over the summer to propose major changes to ILR and to imply certain people with it don't actually deserve to be here.

Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 2d

Under Conservative proposals, lots of pensioners from India would effectively have to naturalize in the UK and renounce their Indian citizenship, or leave

Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 2d

As written, this would also apply to pensioners, regardless of length of stay or how much tax/NICs they had paid.

bsky.app/profile/jdpo...

Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 2d

Good point.

In principle, Conservative policy is to remove entitlement from the *contributory* state pension from all those with ILR, no matter how long they have been here/how much tax or NICs they've paid, and to deport them.

www.theyworkforyou.com/pbc/2024-25/...

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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 2d

In fact this *understates* the point here.

Tory policy is not (just) to remove benefits but to remove ILR and deport, exactly like the Farage plan the PM correctly described as racist.

Prof Nisreen Alwan @nisreenalwan.bsky.social · 2d

“Another part of the plan would limit benefits to people with UK citizenship, removing it even from those who have been in the country for years or even decades and have indefinite leave to remain”

If this is not xenophobia then I don’t know what is.
Sickening.
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Tories say people denied benefits in UK can return to home countries

Mel Stride outlines plans to slash £47bn a year from public spending, including £23bn welfare cut

www.theguardian.com

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Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 2d

finally, proof that you can talk about racial justice issues and kitchen table issues at the same time

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Cristian Farias @cristianfarias.com · 2d

This video of Chicagoans intervening to save a man from being abducted off the streets by ICE is making the rounds on Instagram.

Community action works.

Source: www.instagram.com/reel/DPZL2AL...

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