European. Translator & writer. Allergic to Brexit. Seeking justice for the disabled, the homeless, & refugees. 🇪🇺 @davidheadviews.bsky.social
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Joined November 2012
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David Head retweeted
Probably helps that the move doesn't kick in for years, but does illustrate that voters are perhaps more flexible & responsive to narrative and persuasion than highly engaged political pundits (who typically aren't) imagine them to be.
David Head retweeted
More to come this week, but "red wall" Labour MPs need to be aware that the PM is raising freedom of movement because it is intimately linked with the future of UK manufacturing. theguardian.com/politics/202…
David Head retweeted
In the wake of events in Belgrade tonight, Americans on here should keep in mind that there are enough signs from Minneapolis to Chicago to South Texas that such civil society mobilisation is possible in the United States too
David Head retweeted
Carney, premiers to meet with First Nations leaders in Ottawa for first time in years ctvnews.ca/politics/article/…
David Head retweeted
This is a man who knowingly took up Nazi rhetoric to gin up the hatred behind an ongoing ethnic cleansing of Haitian refugees from his own state.
David Head retweeted
Serbia just voted out the party that held power for 14 years under authoritarian rule. People organized, showed up, and won.
America, this could be us next week!
David Head retweeted
Exc - The former Tory candidate who suspended over contract killer claims was an adviser in Kemi Badenoch’s office
Sources tell @BenQuinn75 and me that Jack Ross worked as social media consultant
theguardian.com/politics/202…
David Head retweeted
Orbán gone. The Bolsonaros gone. Vucic gone. Netanyahu so desperate to avoid facing the criminal courts of his country if he loses the upcoming election that he's trying to incite a nuclear war.
Americans can do their part to stem the toxic tide of global fascism on November 3.
BREAKING: Putin just lost another ally in Europe, and people are celebrating in the streets. Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia’s authoritarian leader and close ally of Trump and Putin, has officially conceded defeat in a historic snap parliamentary election. The student-led opposition movement has won, ending more than a decade of Vucic’s grip on power. Voter turnout reached nearly 70%, the highest since the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1992.
David Head retweeted
In 2016, Boris Johnson waved a Cornish pasty while promising Brexit would give Britain control over immigration.
His government ended free movement and introduced a new visa system. Under that system, long-term arrivals reached 1.469 million in a single year,
By 2023, 82% of long-term arrivals were from outside the EU.
The shift was stark: fewer EU arrivals, far more non-EU migration, and record numbers overall.
Nigel Farage also said he preferred immigrants from India and Australia to eastern Europeans.
Brexit changed where many migrants came from.
It didn’t deliver the lower numbers Leave voters were promised.
David Head retweeted
Congratulations, President @LulaOficial, on your re-election in Brazil.
The relationship between Canada and Brazil has flourished under our partnership. Let’s seize this opportunity to make it even stronger, together — to create major new trade opportunities, protect the environment, and build greater prosperity for both our peoples.
David Head retweeted
'Leaving the European Union was the biggest act of economic self harm any country has ever committed'
Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, tells #BBCBreakfast Andy Burnham 'is spot on' about having an "honest discussion"
David Head retweeted
PM open to discussing free movement as government explores closer ties with EU
channel4.com/news/pm-open-to…
David Head retweeted
'Leaving the European Union was the biggest act of economic self harm any country has ever committed'
Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, told #BBCBreakfast Andy Burnham 'is spot on' about having an "honest discussion" ove the prospect of returning to free movement between the UK and European Union
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8e3…
David Head retweeted
Lula victory speech:
"We had to overcome foreign interference through digital platforms, which we will have to regulate.
We cannot have monstrously huge corporations earning millions & billions, paying no taxes to this country & trying to steer this country's election results."
David Head retweeted
Different Leave figures promoted different destinations.
Norway-style arrangements were openly discussed, and Norway participates in the Single Market with free movement.
So it is historically incorrect to retrospectively compress every Leave vote into: 17.4 million people voted specifically to end freedom of movement.
Free movement was a major issue in the 2016 campaign, amplified by Nigel Farage’s notorious “Breaking Point” poster, which was widely condemned as racist.
But it was NOT the proposition on the ballot paper.
Yesterday @bbclaurak repeatedly treated freedom of movement as the defining core of the 2016 Brexit decision.
She explicitly told @AngelaRayner that free movement was “at the heart of the Brexit debate” and repeatedly pressed her on whether it should return.
But the actual referendum question asked only whether the UK should remain in or leave the European Union.
It did not ask voters whether Britain should:
• leave the Single Market
• leave the customs union
• end freedom of movement
• or adopt any particular model of Brexit.
Those choices came afterwards.
2016 decided EU membership.
It did not write every subsequent interpretation of Brexit permanently into the constitution.
David Head retweeted
You do not need to love the British journalist to appreciate why they are so precious and essential for our freedoms, just look at way Simon Heffer tears apart Liz Truss’ book in @Telegraph - now: Show me a single US journalist who has done this to Trump, instead of enabling him, hiding behind the buttoned-down comfortable elitism taught at the Columbia School of Journalism.
We never got the Museum of #Brexit we were promised (i.e. threatened with), thank goodness. But a Rogues' Gallery of Brexit might well be appropriate.
David Head retweeted
In one day, two politicians - Bolsonaro in Brazil and Vucic in Serbia - with ties to Trump and his family have lost surprise elections, thanks to high turnout. The rise of the international far-right is not inevitable.
