Nicola Gatt
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nicolagatt.bsky.social
Nicola Gatt
@nicolagatt.bsky.social
400 followers 510 following 63 posts
Reader, and cat lover, lurks around Autism and ADHD feeds. Aberdeen and Scotland #yes🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
Derbyshire #dcfc 🐏 #Köln 🐐 Türkiye 🇹🇷 Lewisham 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Nicola Gatt
harrywallop.co.uk
Great culture can save lives. Literally.

Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard
December 2, 2025 at 8:48 AM
Reposted by Nicola Gatt
michaelhavard.bsky.social
What the actual?

It was one of the most beautiful sunrises I've seen in a long time today, but hey, maybe that's because Scotland has made it to the world cup for the 1st time in 28 years and we up here are all just so chuffed that the sun's joining in.. 😎
November 19, 2025 at 9:36 AM
Reposted by Nicola Gatt
enddbelfast.bsky.social
Alf Dubs is a 92 year old man who spent his life fighting for refugees, and in particular for refugee children. He fought the Tories tooth and nail during their last three terms, only to see Labour adopt far-right policies on immigration.

“But to use children as a weapon ... I’m lost for words.”
Labour Peer Who Fled The Nazis Condemns His Party's Immigration Crackdown
Lord Dubs said he was "lost for words".
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk
November 19, 2025 at 8:20 AM
Reposted by Nicola Gatt
scotnational.bsky.social
EXCLUSIVE: A leading polling company did not publicise data which showed that support for Scottish independence had increased by more than 6 per cent, The National can reveal
Leading pollsters failed to publicise Scottish independence 'surge'
www.thenational.scot
November 18, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Reposted by Nicola Gatt
chrisderry.bsky.social
Important that the Scottish Independence referendum happens during the World Cup 2026...
a man with blue paint on his face is riding a horse and holding a sword .
ALT: a man with blue paint on his face is riding a horse and holding a sword .
media.tenor.com
November 18, 2025 at 10:12 PM
Reposted by Nicola Gatt
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 Nicola Gatt
edwinhayward.com
Chris Grey calls out Labour's stupidity accurately. 🧵 ⬇️
chrisgrey.bsky.social Chris Grey @chrisgrey.bsky.social · 27d
Everything about the current 'debate' around this is dismal, not just morally but because it is so stupid. For example:

It conflates asylum-seeking and illegal immigration (and sometimes with migration generally)

It shows no understanding of why there is AS

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025... 1/3
Asylum system in UK ‘out of control’ and dividing country, home secretary says
Shabana Mahmood to unveil new proposals modelled on Denmark’s controversial system
www.theguardian.com
November 16, 2025 at 9:03 PM
Reposted by Nicola Gatt
tanjabueltmann.net
🌍 42.5m refugees
Over 70% of them are hosted by low- and middle-income countries.

🇬🇧 548k refugees
= 0.78% of the UK population.

It is not refugees who tear our country apart, it is the mainstreaming of far right policies. And that’s a risk to all of us.

My letter to my MP.

#asylum #Mahmood

🧵
Dear [my MP’s name], As the Home Secretary prepares to announce sweeping changes to the UK’s asylum system, I see it as both my duty as a citizen and responsibility as a migration expert to do all I can to urge policymakers to oppose the proposals—not only for what they will do to refugees, though that is the first concern, but also for what they will mean for all of us and the future society we live in.  That is why I am writing to you as my MP. This letter explains why I consider the need to oppose the Home Secretary’s proposals urgent and, at the most fundamental level, in the national and your constituents’ interest. I was born in Germany, a country whose history taught me how quickly societies can go down dark paths; how quickly our leaders can fail in the choices they make. But the history of the displacement of people that the Nazi regime was responsible for also shaped my understanding of why refugee movements occur—and why our response to any of them can never compromise what are, and must always be, universal human rights. Which is why what is happening in the UK now is so deeply alarming. A manufactured crisis As of June 2025, there were 42.5 million refugees globally. Over 70% of them are hosted by low- and middle-income countries; most of them immediate neighbours. Overall, five countries—Colombia, Germany, Türkiye, Iran and Uganda—host a third of the total number of refugees; Germany is the main host in the EU, hosting 2.7 million. The UK hosts 548,000 refugees; that is 0.78% of the UK population. About 110,000 people are in receipt of asylum support; that is 0.15% of the UK population.
November 16, 2025 at 9:25 PM
nicolagatt.bsky.social
#fox #lewisham
After bagging a pigeon she comes for a mooch around the garden
A fox sniffing the wall in my back garden in Lewisham A fox standing in grass in my back garden in Lewisham
November 9, 2025 at 12:05 PM
nicolagatt.bsky.social
Life after the Rams…Barks brilliant! Next one Bryson 🐏🐏🐏❤️ #dcfc #dcfcfans
November 7, 2025 at 11:59 AM
Reposted by Nicola Gatt
shortbreadfairy.bsky.social
Listening to RacheReeves pre tax/budget speech isn't helping 🙄

If you're (rightly) blaming Brexit for our under investment and productivity woes, then undo Brexit, become a member of one of their trading groups and campaign to rejoin the EU.

Otherwise there no point in this speech.
November 4, 2025 at 8:25 AM
Reposted by Nicola Gatt
chaillich.bsky.social
👇
October 29, 2025 at 10:21 PM
Reposted by Nicola Gatt
chasbell.bsky.social
October 30, 2025 at 7:57 AM
Reposted by Nicola Gatt
antheawest1.bsky.social
UK public opinion might just be expressing a move to the left - at last ...
Photo of new Green leader Zack Polanski pushing the 'Overton window' box leftwards, away from head-and-shoulders Nigel Farage.
October 22, 2025 at 8:56 AM
Reposted by Nicola Gatt
ottoenglish.bsky.social
Do you recognise any of these people?

Wanted by the Met after the violence on Saturday

news.met.police.uk/news/appeal-...
Appeal to trace 11 people linked to disorder near Whitehall
The Met is appealing for the public’s help to identify them following violent disorder at protests on Saturday, 13 September.
news.met.police.uk
September 15, 2025 at 5:38 PM
Reposted by Nicola Gatt
implausibleblog.bsky.social
James O'Brien, "The scenes on Saturday were striking, the numbers very high, but a fraction of the turnout of the please don't leave the EU marches"

"No matter that the problems were literally caused by Brexit"
September 15, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Reposted by Nicola Gatt
mimij9.bsky.social
He’s started on the LGBTQ community. You come for me and my family and you won’t know what’s hit you. I’m ready to fight with everything you piece of fucking shit.
adamjschwarz.bsky.social Adam Schwarz @adamjschwarz.bsky.social · Sep 15
Nigel Farage:

"Children who have two stable parents have a better chance in life... The most stable relationships, the ones that last the longest, tend to be between men & women... There's an awful lot of kids in the country not getting the kind of start... they deserve."

Farage has two ex-wives.
September 15, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Reposted by Nicola Gatt
iandunt.bsky.social
The government knew about Mandelson's friendship with Epstein before it offered him the role of ambassador to the US. It should never have given him the position inews.co.uk/opinion/this...
This Labour Government was supposed to be better. It isn't
The Government knew about Mandelson's friendship with Epstein before it offered him the role of ambassador to the US. It should never have given him the position
inews.co.uk
September 10, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Reposted by Nicola Gatt
pickardje.bsky.social
we revealed in FT two years ago that Mandelson stayed at Epstein's luxury house in Manhattan while the financier was in jail for soliciting a minor

he was deputy prime minister at the time

always seemed weird that broadcasters didn't really pick this up at the time

www.ft.com/content/0723...
Links between Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein detailed in JPMorgan report
Emails indicate then UK business secretary stayed at New York house while disgraced financier was in prison
www.ft.com
September 10, 2025 at 4:48 PM
Reposted by Nicola Gatt
cobieef.bsky.social
He also said we don't have freedom of speech, even though freedom of expression exists under the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act, both of which he's announced that he wants to repeal.
September 3, 2025 at 4:57 PM
Reposted by Nicola Gatt
ottoenglish.bsky.social
Masked men putting up flags and demanding that passers by who challenge them tell them where they come from is not something to be celebrated.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Why I am putting up Union flags on my high street in Sutton
www.bbc.co.uk
September 3, 2025 at 7:19 AM
Reposted by Nicola Gatt
scotlandscomrade.bsky.social
You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
BNP, EDF Reform UK, Brexit party, National front alike, All of them represent the ugly face of British nationalism. This is where Farage hold his stock in, This is where he gathers his momentum from. Their collective grievance....
REFUGEES/MIGRATION
August 27, 2025 at 6:19 AM
Reposted by Nicola Gatt
adambienkov.bsky.social
Reform UK, which has a grand total of four MPs, was just given an uninterrupted platform for an hour and a half on the BBC and Sky News channels, in order to talk about its plans for mass deportations

When was the last time the Greens (with four MPs) or the Lib Dems (with 72) were given the same?
August 26, 2025 at 11:01 AM
Reposted by Nicola Gatt
patrickharvie.bsky.social
The UK does not have a "migrant crisis" or a "small boat crisis". It has a racism crisis, and it has been deliberately created.
August 25, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Reposted by Nicola Gatt
kieranmacneil.bsky.social
Fantastic evening in St Andrews with @nicolasturgeon.bsky.social discussing her memoir ‘Frankly’ - deeply moving and inspiring.

A great reflection on leadership, staying true to your values, and the challenges of political life.
August 16, 2025 at 8:30 PM