Tessera

Let me put it this way: It certainly is a *choice* to keep as Home Secretary a woman who literally told an immigrant member of the public to “f*ck right off” through a microphone from a stage. To choose keeping that the language of the office that decides who is allowed to stay

Andrew Sinclair @bluesprints.bsky.social · 2w ago

Unless this “honesty” involves the recognition that immigrants are *not* the root cause of the UK’s problems *but* actually a part of the solution to them, this will be completely pointless. I cannot stress this enough. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Burnham to say UK must be honest about its challenges as he prepares to become PM

Labour leader will visit king to accept role on Monday and will start making cabinet appointments that afternoon

theguardian.com

Just to save journalists from doing research and checking facts, here's a handy table of distances I made a while ago: bsky.app/profile/blue...

Andrew Sinclair@bluesprints.bsky.social · last mo.

Manchester > London - 204 miles MCR > Edinburgh - 222 miles MCR > Aberdeen - 343 miles MCR > Inverness - 372 miles MCR > Portree - 430 miles MCR > Kirkwall - 523 miles Manchester in the North of Britain? No, not even close.

Dear journalists, pesky immigrant here, so what do I know … But here’s a visual aid for you: Manchester is not “the north”. Seriously: it’s actually getting insulting now given how many have pointed out how wrong and unhelpful all of that nonsense is (and even within a northern England corridor).

Map of the UK that shows how Manchester wouldn’t even be the middle.

James Ball@jamesrball.com · 2w ago

My proposed Minister for AI.

WALL-E Puts On Glasses

Alt: Gif of WALL-E, a robot character from a Disney Pixar movie. He’s working on a future, uninhabitable, deserted earth, which is really a garbage-strewn wasteland as a result of an ecocide caused by rampant consumerism, corporate greed, and environmental neglect. So, in essence: 100s of WALL-Es were left to clean up after humans fucked it up more than royally … In this specific gif, the one remaining WALL-E is going through garbage and has just found a bra, putting the bra over his eyes like glasses. WALL-E is yellow and instead of legs he has tracks like an excavator.

static.klipy.com

My proposed minister for AI

David Leask@leaskyd.bsky.social · 3w ago

This mentions Brexit as the starting point. Until the UK reckons with the role Brexit had in enabling the far right, things like this will happen more and get much worse. I don’t know how many more times one can say this but we are *a lot* further down a very dark road than most people realise.

I am not sure that we appreciate how much hostility there is from the far right to the learning and speaking of languages. 1/2 www.thetimes.com/article/9a33...

Can’t quite put my finger on it but I feel like I’m being watched for some reason.

A field of (probably) wheat. There are trees and hills in the distance, the sky is a hazy blue, but yellow is the dominant colour because of the field. One can just about make out two heads from deer sticking out of the field of wheat, with really only their noses, eyes and ears visible. They are looking straight at me.

Sky News@news.sky.com · 3w ago

History does not judge. But historians will interpret the facts of his premiership. They will look at how he enabled Reform, implementing some of their core agendas; how he chose to limit our rights further; how he failed to put in place protections for our democracy; how he chose to employ … 🧵

Starmer will hope history judges him more kindly than his party

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 3w ago

Brexit supporters once complained about me to the Electoral Commission* because I used a clip during an election period that used the phrase “vote for me too” to centre voices of EU citizens here & British citizens in EU. I’m sure those Brexiters will be as outraged about this actual interference …

Trump administration to grant $12m to groups founded by UK conservatives Jacob Rees-Mogg and Toby Young

Tarik Abou-Chadi @tabouchadi.bsky.social · 3w ago

Grüne und Linke haben seit der Bundestagswahl zusammen so viel zugelegt wie die AfD. Es dreht sich aber alles um die AfD. Als wäre eh schon sicher, dass sie 2029 regiert. Das Narrativ des „Rechtsrucks“ suggeriert man müsse sich anpassen und könne gar nicht aktiv progressive Politik gestalten.

Deutschland Wählt / Österreich Wählt@de.whln.eu · 3w ago

BUNDESTAGSWAHL | Sonntagsfrage Forschungsgruppe Wahlen/ZDF AfD: 27% (-1) Union: 23% (-1) GRÜNE: 14% (+2) LINKE: 13% (+2) SPD: 12% (-1) FDP: 4% Sonstige: 7% (-1) Änderungen zur letzten Umfrage vom 19. Juni 2026 Verlauf: whln.eu/UmfragenDeutschland #btw29

Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 3w ago

We’re rapidly approaching a situation in which it becomes legally hazardous to express any criticism of “gender critical” views. The combination of well-funded lawfare and well-funded media moral panic is extremely dangerous to free speech for everyone, as well as obviously to trans people’s rights.

Alex Says Stuff@alexsaysstuff.bsky.social · 3w ago

"unearthed by The Times" "Published in May and available on Amnesty's website"

When Mahmood becomes Chancellor, which appears to be the plan, every single immigrant in the UK should withhold our tax. Then, after a week or so, we can have another chat about immigrants in the UK and the impact of her policies. Maybe she'll finally get it. ... Truly wish doing this was an option!

Anne Applebaum@anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 3w ago

For clarity: this is about pushing far right, and ultimately fascistic, agendas in Europe and globally. It is crucial civil society and politicians wake up to the seriousness of the situation. But our media are failing us and our politicians are actively choosing to stay on the platform …

The State Department has just put out a tender, offering funding of up to $3 million to European organizations who want to fight against "Supra-national institutions" - presumably the EU - and governments who seek to regulate the internet and end Western Civilization. www.state.gov/drl-nofo-dev...

Tanja Bueltmann @tanjabueltmann.net · 4w ago

While the UK is, yet again, in the thralls of Farage's toxic politics and ego, immigrants all around the country continue to do what we always do: be your neighbours, colleagues, doctors, cleaners; be the carers of your parents and sick; your bin men. In short: help the UK tick every day.

Tanja Bueltmann @tanjabueltmann.net · last mo.

24 June 2016. The day after when EU citizens across the UK were told to ‘go home’; when the then PM said he would not protect our rights. Stories largely forgotten. BLEA - Brexit Lived Experience Archive - which I am launching today, is here to preserve this history. #Brexit brexit.migravox.org

Home - BLEA

BLEA. Brexit Lived Experience Archive Documenting experiences. Personal experiences provide valuable insights into how Brexit is lived and understood by those directly affected. Recording these accoun...

brexit.migravox.org

Tanja Bueltmann @tanjabueltmann.net · last mo.

A lot of people say that they don't understand how Starmer managed this given his huge majority. Well: His majority was an anti-Tory majority; what he then did as PM was continuity Tory or *worse*. This is how we got here. A man with no principles of his own was elected on a relatively ... 🧵

Tanja Bueltmann @tanjabueltmann.net · 2mo ago

I do not know how anyone can stay on X. ‘The world’s richest man is participating in a transnational terror campaign. […] Any path to a free international order, unthreatened by fascism, must run in part through breaking Musk’s power.’ newrepublic.com/article/2119...

Elon Musk’s Race War Just Took Darker Turn—Time for a Global Response

The violent fascist riots in Belfast reveal the future that the trillionaire really wants. We need an international movement to constrain him.

newrepublic.com

Tanja Bueltmann @tanjabueltmann.net · 2mo ago

There are, in my view, 25 things everyone needs to understand in light of recent events: 1) Those out in our communities last night were not protestors, but organised far right extremists. 2) Their actions align with fascist ideologies. 3) So yes: these are fascist practices on our streets. 🧵

Tanja Bueltmann @tanjabueltmann.net · 3mo ago

Most importantly: as a cis woman; a feminist; a historian - this will *never* be in my name. Then: an equalities body that chooses to exclude a specific group; chooses to limit human rights of one community - it is an equalities body that has already dismantled itself and any legitimacy with it.

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 3mo ago

Single sex toilets must exclude transgender people, says EHRC

Tanja Bueltmann @tanjabueltmann.net · 3mo ago

The state of things. A thread 🧵

Tanja Bueltmann @tanjabueltmann.net · 10mo ago

It’s easy to say that this is the last desperate hurrah of a dying party, but can we be clear: Trump’s ICE agents are literally kidnapping people, detaining them without due process in concentration camps (yes, this is the right term) and 1000s have disappeared. These are fascist practices.

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 10mo ago

Tories to pledge to create immigration taskforce modelled on Trump’s Ice

Tanja Bueltmann @tanjabueltmann.net · 10mo ago

When I was a teenager there was a bus direct from my hometown in Germany to London - we had a British army base, and this direct bus connection was one of the benefits of that. One summer I went on that bus to go volunteer in an old people's home in Southend-on-Sea. I had just turned 18 and was... 🧵

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

Dr Chris Noone @chris-noone.bsky.social · last yr.

You are a "citizen of nowhere", they said. A "queue-jumper", they said. Now I am a "squalid chapter", they say. A risk as I might make this an "island of strangers", they say. I am "pulling the country apart", they say.

Just out! Our peer-reviewed critique of the Cass Review has been published by BMC Medical Research Methodology. Please read and share. We show that the Cass Review is fatally flawed and should not be the basis for policy or practice in transgender healthcare. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

As a German I will forever be grateful to all who fought for the liberation of Europe. But as a historian I am looking at front pages today and must wonder: What is the point of remembering #VEDay 80 years on, what is the point of our thanks, when we are failing to protect the sacrifices made? 🧵

Bloomberg News@bloomberg.com · last yr.

Essentially *all* research and expert assessments show that this does not work. It will not counter Farage, but literally push votes towards Reform. It genuinely is impossible to overstate how profoundly stupid and strategically illiterate this decision is. You cannot out-Reform Reform.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer is preparing tougher measures on immigration to stem a record flow of arrivals across the English Channel and stave off the threat posed by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party after it made sweeping gains in this week’s local elections.