Tanja Bueltmann
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tanjabueltmann.net
Tanja Bueltmann
@tanjabueltmann.net
13K followers 590 following 550 posts
Professor @ University of Strathclyde | migration and diaspora history | history of collective action | citizens' rights | commentator | immigrant | trans inclusive feminist | she•her | my views | https://tanjabueltmann.net
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tanjabueltmann.net
I say this with the bluntness it requires: they will get people murdered if this continues. This is not just populism anymore either: it’s completely unhinged and a deliberate choice that does endanger lives. I am not saying this lightly at all.
Screenshot of an Express article; it says: Robert Jenrick lists 30 'activist judges' he vows to axe in war on UK's open border In a bold move, Robert Jenrick is set to unveil a controversial plan targeting what he calls 'activist' judges, at the Conservative Party conference.
October 7, 2025 at 7:19 AM
tanjabueltmann.net
So anyway, folks: I’m out of here for a while. There is too much I have to deal with / do atm, so can’t keep up here as well. Will be back soon. In the meantime, here’s some totally unsolicited advice! First of all:

☀️ Enjoy the sunshine.
Picture of a tree with full young-ish green leaves against a cloud-free blue sky. Due to the sunshine, colours are very vibrant. A part of a typical Edinburgh town house can be seen in the bottom right hand corner background.
May 16, 2025 at 1:58 PM
tanjabueltmann.net
My letter to the Prime Minister. #immigration
Slightly amended so I can fit this here: I am writing to you as an immigrant who chose to make the UK my home. As someone who is now also a British citizen. And as a German-born historian who understands where the complete normalisation of the far right can end. I write to say: For shame! I first came to the UK in the 1990s for a visit with my grandmother. Objectively, much was backwards here. No mixer taps in the bathroom; awful ‘bread’; and strings had to be pulled to switch on lights. But however I felt about this, my own string had been pulled: I loved this Cool Britannia. It was quite possibly then that I decided that the UK was to be my home. When I arrived to settle here permanently, I made a choice: to contribute my skills, my knowledge—all I have to offer—to this country rather than another one. I am deeply disgusted by your comment today that immigration has done ‘incalculable damage’ to the country. This is the language of the far right. It is insulting, hateful & will fuel xenophobia. And it is just wrong. Migration is a normal part of the human existence. None of us would be where we are without it. Open your fridge and you will see migration. Immigrants help make the UK tick every single day, whether we clean toilets in our hospitals or provide care for the elderly; whether we empty our bins or carry out cancer research. We are mothers, sons-in-law, aunts and uncles, friends, neighbours and colleagues. I ask you not tell me that you do not mean me. I know that you do not—at least not primarily—mean a white woman from Europe who has a PhD. But who do you mean? And, much more importantly, who do you think those racists who were engaged in riots on our streets last summer think you mean? Anti-immigration narratives have defined UK policymaking for the best part of two decades. And fundamentally so. They were the key driver in delivering Brexit, for example, and, as such, have directly limited the rights and opportunities of British citizens. This obsessive focus on immigration as the ‘problem’—that is the real problem. And it is consistently delivering poor outcomes for the UK. Instead of tackling this, you are choosing to consolidate it, sowing divisions along the way. You may point me to polling and tell me that this is what voters want. Do they? I am not surprised at all that over 50% of voters might say they want to see immigration reduced if that is the question they are being asked. What we need to know is what they would answer to the question: “Would you like to see immigration reduced? What this would mean for you and your local community is XYZ.” That is not how surveys can ask questions, but governments absolutely can choose to make policy using such a more informed position. Prime Minister, you continue to talk a lot about making the tough choices. But let’s be clear: setting immigrants up as the ‘other’, as a scapegoat—describing us as a threat ‘pulling the country apart’, a ‘squalid chapter’, a risk that might make the UK an ‘island of strangers’—these are not tough choices at all. These are the easy choices. They are the choices that populists make who have no solutions to the real problems a country faces. What I would like to know, Prime Minister, is what you will do when your policies lead to the implosion of the UK’s Higher Education sector. What you will tell communities when they can no longer provide any care for the elderly. The policies you announced today will not solve anything at all. They will have exclusively negative impacts. For those immediately affected; for our communities; and for our economy. Being pro-immigration—it is progressive, yes, but the much more crucial point is that it is also the most pro-UK policy approach that any politician in the country can pursue. And you are choosing to do the opposite. This, Prime Minister, is the real damage—and it will be very calculable indeed. Tanja Bueltmann
May 12, 2025 at 2:46 PM
tanjabueltmann.net
I have not seen such a blatant anti-immigrant statement based on falsehoods, pitting people against people, in some time. Statement made by Keir Starmer at today’s immigration summit.
“There is little that strikes working people as more unfair than watching illegal migration drive down their wages, their terms and their conditions,” he added.
March 31, 2025 at 6:27 PM
tanjabueltmann.net
Finally a lesson for Labour: recognise that cosplaying AfD didn’t help the CDU. Merz set out to halve AfD support. Instead, he helped further normalise AfD and they landed on over 20% … gaining nearly 1 million votes *from* CDU.

Voters pick the original, not the copycat.

Don’t cosplay Reform!
Screenshot of a graph showing voter movements to the AfD. It gained most from those who didn’t previously vote — 1.8 million voters as previously noted, but then also 910k from the CDU.
February 23, 2025 at 11:10 PM
tanjabueltmann.net
I’ll leave you with these maps, missing constituencies won’t change the overall pattern much.

Light blue = AfD

Last map = AfD % for second vote (party vote).

If you really think that these maps show the far right has been defeated, then I honestly don’t know what else to say.
Map of Germany showing first vote result >> vote for a specific candidate, basically like first past the post (black = CDU; dark blue = CSU; red = SPD; green = Green; dark pink = Die Linke; grey areas shown = no result yet). Map of Germany showing second vote result >> vote for a party (black = CDU; dark blue = CSU; red = SPD; green = Green; dark pink = Die Linke; grey areas shown = no result yet). Map of Germany showing second vote breakdown for the AfD; while the % highest in the East, this shows significant % across most of Germany (grey areas shown = no result yet).
February 23, 2025 at 11:10 PM
tanjabueltmann.net
Twitter being even less of the force it once was is one way in which to lessen that influence. But until then, this here is just one example of it: he is being taken seriously and staying on X tacitly helps with that as it suggests it’s still a usable platform that plays an important role.
And people take him seriously. Last week the Telegraph splashed on a single tweet from Musk criticising Rachel Reeves’s proposed changes to inheritance tax on some farmland, even though Musk’s real understanding of almost anything about British life or politics could barely stretch to 280 characters. More worrying is his tendency to act as a freelance operator in international politics, blurring all lines between national security, faux-diplomacy and personal gain.
November 24, 2024 at 12:50 PM
tanjabueltmann.net
As Twitter continues its death spiral*, just a quick welcome to new followers and re-affirmation that I will use this in due course, just too much on atm. In the meantime, here are some autumnal greetings from the Highlands. #autumn #Highlands #ApplecrossPeninsula #Skye #Raasay #CuillinHills
A landscape photo showing a view of the Isle of Skye as seen from Applecross Peninsula. In the foreground is barren landscape in brown autumn colours; a single-track road is visible on the left, with some white cottages just about identifiable in the distance. There is a stretch of water and, in the background, parts of the Isle of Raasay and the tops of the Cuillin Hills on the Isle of Skye can be seen. The sky is grey and cloudy.
October 18, 2024 at 11:52 AM
tanjabueltmann.net
The Conservatives — limiting your future further every single day.
Screenshot of a news headline about the new immigration rules. It says: ‘Most UK nationals unable to bring home a foreign spouse under new migration rules’
December 4, 2023 at 10:05 PM
tanjabueltmann.net
Aw thank you Chris! I am currently spending evenings sorting through photos and this happened to be one that popped up only yesterday and I did then think that I’d have to check if you’re here. Lovely memory.
Photo of Chris and me sat at a table in a restaurant in Brussels.
November 1, 2023 at 7:07 PM
tanjabueltmann.net
This morning I wrote to UKRI to inform them of my resignation from the UKRI Talent PRC with immediate effect. My decision to resign is a direct result of the letter from the UKRI CEO published here www.ukri.org/news/respons... yesterday.

I attach my resignation letter for information.
Full text of my letter unfortunately too long to fully copy for all images, so here is a summary that captures the essence; I am having to spread this across the images as not enough space here: I argue that I expected UKRI to express concern in terms of wellbeing and safety issues that the public singling out of two academics might cause, and to confirm EDI as a core mission of UKRI. I then say that the UKRI CEO's response is anything but, setting a chilling precent that precedent that documents that UKRI is prepared not only to bow to government pressure, but to identify EDI as immediately dispensable in the process. I then continue to explain why I think this is so concerning. I note that such developments are not happening in isolation given the recent pledge at the Conservative Party conference to to ‘kick woke ideology out of science’, and examples from elsewhere that document that the government is moniroting those critical of government policy. I end by asking about where this will end and saying that I cannot serve in an org that makes such choices.
November 1, 2023 at 12:50 PM
tanjabueltmann.net
Still ‘living’ in the alternate universe that is book writing, so not much from me here yet. But this wee robin (no hidden nod to birdsite!) I managed to capture is too lovely not to share. Birds are of course also a great symbol of migration, so very fitting. Anyway: hello folks …more coming soon!
Photograph of a European robin in a tree. The robin is sitting on a small branch and looks quite “puffy” and round. There are some green and yellow-ish leaves on the branches around the bird.
October 23, 2023 at 9:51 PM