Sean Thomson
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seanthomson.bsky.social
Sean Thomson
@seanthomson.bsky.social
93 followers 160 following 80 posts
Signal processing libtard. Coastal rowing centrist dad. 🇨🇦🇬🇧🇮🇪
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Reposted by Sean Thomson
rutgerbregman.com
I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.

They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1
November 25, 2025 at 9:26 AM
Reposted by Sean Thomson
peterjukes.bsky.social
When I hear Farage talking about rounding up and deporting hundreds of thousands of human beings, and threatening those with leave to remain or settled status, I cannot help but think of the schoolboy sidling up to me and telling me that “Hitler was right”

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Don’t believe Nigel Farage’s denials. He targeted me for being Jewish – and it hurt | Peter Ettedgui
Now that my former classmate has finally spoken about the allegations of his behaviour at school, I feel compelled to address his points directly, says Peter Ettedgui, a film director and producer
www.theguardian.com
November 25, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Reposted by Sean Thomson
ebharrington.bsky.social
Revelations about RW social media accounts being run from Russia correspond perfectly to data already revealed by the Panama, Paradise & Pandora Papers: Russian money streamed thru offshore accounts funds virtually all right-wing "populist" parties in EU & NAmerica. Same goal: undermine democracy.
chadbourn.bsky.social Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 2d
This is one of the big accounts boosting Tommy Robinson, Farage and Reform and ‘English Patriots’.

It’s Russian.
Collingwood @admcollingwood 田 Date joined January 2017 • Account based in Europe Veritied since Since August 2024 > 1 username change Last on January 2017 Connected via Eastern Europe (Non-EU) Android App
November 24, 2025 at 11:26 AM
Reposted by Sean Thomson
drrachelclarke.com
"My NHS colleagues & I weren’t willing to let the bodies pile high in their thousands. Boris no longer mentions them at all."

My piece on the responses to the UK Covid-UK Inquiry report that try to airbrush the dead away.

Sincere thanks, @theobserveruk.bsky.social.

observer.co.uk/news/nationa...
I’ll never forget the horror of the Covid wards | The Observer
observer.co.uk
November 23, 2025 at 9:18 AM
Reposted by Sean Thomson
tanjabueltmann.net
Tried to get this published but no luck, so might as well ‘publish’ it here so it’s not a complete waste!

➡️ Stripping rights from refugees today endangers us all tomorrow

#asylum #Mahmood #history #humanrights
Stripping rights from refugees today endangers us all tomorrow   When I was 13, I visited a Nazi concentration camp for the first time, confronting my country’s dark history always—and rightly—a bedrock in my growing up.    One image from that visit has stayed with me ever since: a display of prisoners’ personal possessions.    It revealed a world in which those imprisoned were stripped not only of their freedom but of the last tangible traces of their humanity. That systematic erasure was the most important precondition for murdering millions.   Now, as a historian, I know that history does not flow into the present in a straight line, and direct comparisons are rarely appropriate. They certainly are not here.   But history is the one compass humanity has. Too often we choose to ignore it.    The Home Secretary’s proposals for changes to the UK’s asylum system represent such a moment of failure.    Yet the most troubling aspect of Labour’s frantic efforts to appear tough on immigration is not even the historical echoes that taking refugees’ possessions invokes. It is that cost recovery is not the real purpose of the rationale behind it.    The true aim is to appeal to a particular audience—those who take satisfaction in seeing people seeking refuge deprived of what little they have. It is hard to imagine a more troubling approach to policymaking, and that becomes even clearer when we consider the Home Secretary’s proposals in context.   As of June 2025, there were 42.5 million refugees globally. Over 70% are hosted by low- and middle-income countries. The UK hosts 548,000 refugees; that is 0.78% of the UK population. Around 110,000 people are in receipt of asylum support; that is 0.15% of the UK population.   It is unconscionable that such a small and vulnerable population can be targeted with deliberate cruelty and weaponised for assumed political gain.   And that is all this will ever be. The core miscalculation is believing that adopting these positions will neutralise Reform.    Both historical knowledge and current research show the opposite. Mainstreaming extremist policies legitimises them further and aids only the original. Each step towards Reform’s territory simply gives Reform more power.   But our political discourse has been so degraded over the last decade that many no longer even recognise policies—or the language that frames them—as extreme.    That is how the Home Secretary can speak so casually of desperate people seeking sanctuary as recipients of a ‘golden ticket’ as though the context is Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory rather than countries torn apart by war and starved by famine. Speak of her ‘moral mission’ to withdraw support, alleging that ‘illegal migration is tearing our country apart.’ And warn of ‘dark forces stirring up anger,’ oblivious to her own role: from the use of blurry, dehumanising images of refugees to spread falsehoods about their impact on communities, to the equally false description of refugee movements as illegal migration.    I suggest the Home Secretary find a mirror if she is keen to understand who is helping turn anger into hate.   Because it is the mainstreaming of far-right talking points that the Home Secretary’s proposals represent that is really tearing our country apart.   For when a policy looks like the far right, speaks to the far right and is hailed by the far right as being far right, it is far right. There is a reason Stephen Yaxley-Lennon is jubilant and speaks of ‘the Overton window having been obliterated.’   This makes a mockery of the Prime Minister’s recent comments on the urgent need to tackle racism. But it also raises alarming questions about the impact this will have on communities around the country, many of which are already deeply divided.    The proposed policies will do nothing for these struggling communities, because their problems simply do not stem from people seeking sanctuary with us. In fact: for as long as politicians focus on immigrants and refugees as the cause of our problems, they will fail to deliver for the British people.   But it is important to grasp the impact of the Home Secretary’s proposals as they carry broader consequences for all of us. Suggestions for changes to how the European Convention on Human Rights is applied are particularly concerning. Requiring judges to prioritise ‘public safety’—falsely implying refugees pose a threat—would qualify human rights for a specific group.   And once one accepts that human rights can be qualified for one group, one creates tools that can be used against anyone.   So what these proposals really mean goes far beyond asylum policy. This is about the kind of country we will have in the future. If human rights are no longer universal, they become a means for exclusion and control.    That is why stripping rights from refugees today can only enable a system that endangers all our rights tomorrow.    And that is why our historical compass matters and why we have to use it now. Because that compass tells us without doubt that when first they come for one group that is never where it ends. 
November 18, 2025 at 8:03 PM
Reposted by Sean Thomson
tanjabueltmann.net
I do not think that anger is a helpful emotion. It does not really do anything that is positive.

But I must admit that I am angry at a very fundamental level these days because everything that is currently happening in the UK was predictable and predicted. Not in every detail, but in the ... 🧵
November 18, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Reposted by Sean Thomson
guitarmoog.bsky.social
Labour has comprehensively trapped itself by agreeing to play entirely by their opponents’ rules.

The game is fixed so the only move that’s ever available is more and worse cruelty, while at the same time no level of cruelty will ever be enough to win.

A moral & political death-spiral.
jessicaelgot.bsky.social Jessica Elgot @jessicaelgot.bsky.social · 8d
Lots of Labour MPs asking Mahmood tonight to rule out child detention. She won’t rule it out. That’s because forced removals of families will mean children in detention for periods.

Home Office ruling out deportation of lone minors but the changes will certainly mean more detention of children.
November 17, 2025 at 9:40 PM
Reposted by Sean Thomson
jdburns.bsky.social
November 14, 2025 at 7:49 PM
Reposted by Sean Thomson
athenakugblenu.bsky.social
You cant parachute asylum seekers into deprived areas, in completely inappropriate housing, then say those migrants are 'dividing our country'. You divided the country because you can't organise a basic service and process claims in a timely way
November 16, 2025 at 9:28 AM
Reposted by Sean Thomson
eddavey.libdems.org.uk
Robbie Gibb was appointed to the BBC Board by Boris Johnson, was an editorial advisor for GB News, and worked as Theresa May's Director of Comms.

He is not impartial or neutral. The government should remove him from the Board immediately to protect the BBC's independence.
November 11, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Reposted by Sean Thomson
jamesrball.com
The BBC is apologising for its Panorama edit. It shouldn’t. First, the narrative is true: Donald Trump *did* incite the Capitol riot. Second, the apology won’t appease those attacking it. So why not at least stand for something?

Wrote this on it earlier this week:
inews.co.uk/news/world/b...
The BBC was right about the Capitol riots. In a sane world, Trump would be in jail
The US President faced impeachment over the violence, and in a world where Republicans had more courage, he would have been found guilty
inews.co.uk
November 9, 2025 at 7:05 AM
Reposted by Sean Thomson
zoejardiniere.bsky.social
Asylum seekers, housed in hotels in Manchester, are reaching out in their own words to address the concerns of the local community.

Please take a minute to read their letter, & share it with the people in your life who need to hear the truth about the people they are protesting.
October 27, 2025 at 11:41 AM
Reposted by Sean Thomson
stellacreasy.bsky.social
Don’t give these people benefit of the doubt. This racist rant isn’t an accident. Or ‘speaking out of turn’.

It’s designed to fill our airwaves with people debating ‘if’ non white skin is a problem. Not Reform.

Diversity isn’t the issue, hatred is. Don’t indulge it, vote for it or tolerate it.
October 25, 2025 at 10:51 PM
Reposted by Sean Thomson
teamcanadaforever.bsky.social
PM Carney on decoupling from US: "This sort of relentless process of greater integration has reversed. That's a big change. When you have a big change like that and you had your economy oriented towards that, which ours was,some of your strengths become vulnerabilities and you have to do big things"
October 26, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Reposted by Sean Thomson
paddington82.bsky.social
Labour’s plan to move the goalposts by increasing the ILR qualifying period from 5 to 10 years for legal migrants already on the path could potentially affect over a million people, cripple industries and the NHS and destroy trust in the immigration system. They should absolutely rethink their plan.
October 26, 2025 at 9:34 AM
Reposted by Sean Thomson
reformexposed.bsky.social
Spread it far and wide.

Sarah Pochin, Reform UK
October 25, 2025 at 7:31 PM
Reposted by Sean Thomson
innercitypress.bsky.social
Censorship Alert: I published a book about Ghislaine Maxwell trial, and another on Kevin Spacey's trial- this evening I got an email from Amazon's KDP saying they are inappropriate and there all of my books are being taken down, including on Sudan, SBF, Eric Adams
October 25, 2025 at 1:51 AM
Reposted by Sean Thomson
victinibcn.bsky.social
Ontario launches the perfect ad. Canadians are true brothers 💙🇨🇦
October 21, 2025 at 11:18 PM
Reposted by Sean Thomson
peterwalker99.bsky.social
Here this all is as a story. The Conservatives said they would provide clarity, but they have not as yet.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Deporting legally settled people is ‘broadly in line’ with Tory policy, says Badenoch’s office
Conservative leader’s spokesperson sets out plan to strip the right of indefinite leave to remain from people claiming benefits
www.theguardian.com
October 22, 2025 at 4:01 PM
Reposted by Sean Thomson
iandunt.bsky.social
The Conservative immigration proposals cannot be allowed to stand without a profound and widespread statement of moral condemnation inews.co.uk/opinion/tori...
October 22, 2025 at 4:05 PM
Reposted by Sean Thomson
jonnelledge.bsky.social
"The idea of deporting people with settled status is disgusting, and anyone proposing it should be immediately drummed out of polite society. Breaking promises made in good faith to our friends and neighbours is racist, extremist and immoral."

I'm basically shouting at the sky here, but still.
It’s racist, it’s extremist and it’s immoral
The right is still calling for deportations, and the government is still being cowardly about it. Also: London’s first green belt; some notes on a shark; and some news, on my next book.
jonn.substack.com
October 22, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Reposted by Sean Thomson
youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com
(if anyone would like to maybe start some sort of campaigning or pressure group of and on behalf of immigrants with ILR and settled status in Britain then I would be interested in helping, or indeed trying to get it off the ground myself, email in bio, etc)
October 22, 2025 at 9:55 AM
Reposted by Sean Thomson
sundersays.bsky.social
Katie Lam has made a video - focusing on not giving new ILR grants to people who don't have it

But quietly including the Conservative proposal to be the first government since Idi Amin in 1972 to revoke the permanent leave to remain, then expel: she underplays to what extent
x.com/Katie_Lam_MP...
x.com
October 21, 2025 at 8:49 PM
Reposted by Sean Thomson
jdportes.bsky.social
Good, but this is not some off-the-cuff comment - it *is* official Conservative Policy.

It was tabled as a formal amendment Lam (who is their frontbench spokesperson on this topic) as a committee amendment to the Borders Bill.

www.theyworkforyou.com/pbc/2024-25/...
October 20, 2025 at 7:29 PM