Changing the rules for migrants already here is wrong and unfair but only affects a finite group of people. Extending default settlement to 10 years or more for everyone is a social policy disaster.
Is this yet more performative cruelty designed to appease putative reform voters? Perhaps I am naive, but this is also surprising coming from a barrister. I was called to the Bar in 2007 and one of the stand out memories of my legal education was the importance of fairness and treating all people - whichever side of whatever criminal or civil dispute they were on - fairly. Putting aside any practical arguments about costs (which seem in any case to be stacked against Shabana Mahmood’s proposals), this is just shameful.
Is this yet more performative cruelty designed to appease putative reform voters? Perhaps I am naive, but this is also surprising coming from a barrister. I was called to the Bar in 2007 and one of the stand out memories of my legal education was the importance of fairness and treating all people - whichever side of whatever criminal or civil dispute they were on - fairly. Putting aside any practical arguments about costs (which seem in any case to be stacked against Shabana Mahmood’s proposals), this is just shameful.
Yes, I fear it is exactly that :(
Both mainstream parties are trying to out Reform Reform, with increasingly cruel right wing policies. I hate it.