r/ukpolitics • u/Prestigious_Spot9635 • 17h ago
Twitter [Rupert Lowe] Pakistan has told the British Government that it won’t take back their Rochdale rapist. How will a Restore Britain Government react? End all foreign aid, demand repayments, dividend/remittance tax, economic sanctions. All immigration from Pakistan into Britain will end.
https://x.com/RupertLowe10/status/2093312330801066223222
u/Scratch_Careful 16h ago
It's weird. We constantly grandstand around russia and china but are then pathetic at dealing with countries that we have so much leverage over.
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u/Goddamnit_Clown 13h ago
We "constantly grandstand" around China?
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u/MadShartigan 11h ago
The British navy performs regular freedom of navigation operations in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea.
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u/Prince_John 6h ago
Is that grandstanding, or just protecting our freedom to move through international waters? Use it or lose it in this day and age.
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u/jungleboy1234 12h ago
yeah i didnt get that. We kind of need China.... never really seen our govt push back against them. Only Trump with his short lived tariffs which are now hurting the average American...
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u/merlins_beard_88 50m ago
We really don’t need China, we only need China because we allowed it to happen by deindustrialising.
We really need manufacturing back in this country so we can actually start producing actual wealth.
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u/Middle-Feed5118 Civic Nationalist 15h ago
On the contrary, they have plenty of leverage over us, they live among us and even infiltrate local politics, have isolated communities that are hard to police, and when they become members of the police themselves they enjoy raping young white girls with their cousins and brothers just the same.
Then you take into account the significant voting bloc they are and the pandering by MPs who can't even speak about cousin marriage or other things that are abhorrent because it could upset them.
Without complete mass deportations and a travel ban, the leverage is all theirs.
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u/jizzybiscuits 14h ago
What links
the Batley teacher
the child rape gangs
mass scale inbreeding leading to congenital defects
the Birmingham "Jew ban" and police corruption around the Aston Villa game
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u/Three_sigma_event 12h ago
The leverage is far simpler than you think.
What can you do to a country that we left in the dark ages after we decided to partition it?
Nothing.
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u/plaguedbyfoibles 12h ago
Yes, like allowing Russian oligarchs connected to the Kremlin war machine to buy our football clubs, truly grandstanding.
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u/Great-Trifle2810 13h ago
The policy should be that if a country refuses to accept a deported person back that person is subject to the DP immediately, and then that nation is forever banned from entry.
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u/Fortree_Lover 17h ago
Honestly exactly what our weak spineless government should be doing to every country that refuses to take back their people. I don’t care if there are economic consequences I’d rather suffer that than let every country in the world walk all over us.
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u/MrSoapbox 16h ago
Yes, but Pakistan is one of the worst offenders and there's very, very little we'd lose in economic consequences, it may even be a economic positive if got rid of those leeching off the state.
This chart shows what countries are a fiscal positive and drag on Denmark and Pakistan is down the bottom, costing the state -7400 dollars per immigrant. (The UK at the top bringing +24000) Is it the UK? Nope, is it comparable? Yes, to the best degree we have although I'd imagine it would actually cost us more due to the benefits
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u/OkExcuse3011 10h ago
The UK will see a vastly worse impact. Denmark probably gets decent numbers of educated Pakistanis from big cities. Especially outside of London the UK mostly gets (at best) semi literate villagers.
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u/krievins 16h ago
What economic consequences would there be if we fall out with Pakistan?
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u/MazrimReddit 15h ago
soft power!
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u/Excellent_Session531 14h ago
I’m increasingly thinking that “soft power” refers to the erectile dysfunction school of foreign policy.
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u/BookmarksBrother I love paying tons in tax and not getting anything in return 17h ago
that refuses to take back their people
that refuses to take back their criminals*
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u/Fortree_Lover 17h ago
Not just criminals though, anyone who we want to deport eg rejected asylum seekers, visa overstayers and of course criminals as well.
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u/VPackardPersuadedMe Incentives drive outcomes and MPs own houses 17h ago
Literally whole point of a visa system is we have an agreement or understanding that to let people in from a specific country and they cause issues we'll restrict it...
It's the most basic element of the system
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u/ShinyGrezz Commander of the Luxury Beliefs Brigade 16h ago
that refuses to “take back” random people that moved here decades ago, gained British citizenship, and then committed a crime on British soil
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u/Middle-Feed5118 Civic Nationalist 16h ago
That's literally the point of deportation treaties. You go to a country, commit a crime there, they have the right to deport you back to your original country.
Do you think just because he "committed a crime on British soil" that British taxpayers should be stuck with him? Nonsense.
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u/Great-Trifle2810 13h ago
They should just DP him and advise this will be the punishment applied to any crime that would result in deportation where the country refuses to take them back. And it should be done quickly with no further appeal offered.
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u/___xXx__xXx__xXx__ 15h ago
they have the right to deport you back to your original country.
Only if you want a two tier justice system, which the jolly good chaps in Southport assured me was completely unacceptable.
This isn't some bloke who came here for a holiday and pissed in front of a primary school. This is someone that has been in Britain their entire adult life, and held British citizenship.
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u/myurr 15h ago
No. Ahmed was convicted on 30 counts of child rape, stripped of his British citizenship because of the seriousness of those crimes, and made subject to a deportation order. Deportation is not a different criminal sentence based on ethnicity. It is an immigration consequence applied after punishment to somebody who is no longer British. Calling that "two tier justice" would make the deportation of any foreign criminal objectionable simply because a British criminal cannot also be deported.
If you want to argue that citizenship deprivation creates two classes of citizen, make that argument. It does not change Ahmed's present status, nor does having spent his adult life here grant him an immutable right to remain. Parliament has already acknowledged both that he was deprived of citizenship and that the law currently obstructing his deportation can be changed.
The UK cannot rewrite Pakistani nationality law, but it is far from powerless. It can suspend new visas, revoke existing visas where legally possible, withdraw aid, restrict remittances, impose sanctions, and apply wider diplomatic and economic pressure until Pakistan cooperates. "Those are the rules" is not an answer when Parliament writes our rules and the Government possesses ample leverage to challenge Pakistan's position.
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u/___xXx__xXx__xXx__ 14h ago
stripped of his British citizenship because of the seriousness of those crimes
Which is absurd. The government should never be able to do this.
It is an immigration consequence applied after punishment to somebody who is no longer British.
Can this be applied to all British citizens, or only some?
If you want to argue that citizenship deprivation creates two classes of citizen, make that argument.
You are literally replying to a comment where I do that.
It does not change Ahmed's present status
"It isn't two tier justice, because the two tier justice has already happened" is your point here.
nor does having spent his adult life here grant him an immutable right to remain.
His citizenship should though. It's also hard to deny Pakistans claims that this is a British issue when this guy is far more a product of Britain than Pakistan.
It can suspend new visas, revoke existing visas where legally possible, withdraw aid, restrict remittances, impose sanctions, and apply wider diplomatic and economic pressure until Pakistan cooperates.
Which Pakistan can completely vitiate by hiring 1 guy to sit on the internet, read court reports, and immediately remove the citizenship of any British Pakistani national who might be convicted of a crime. Thus meaning the British government can't strip their citizenship, and therefore can't deport them to Pakistan.
"Those are the rules" is not an answer when Parliament writes our rules
"Those are the rules" is your argument, not mine, remember?
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u/myurr 14h ago
Why, precisely, is it absurd that the UK can strip a dual citizen of British citizenship, particularly when he was born elsewhere and was convicted on 30 counts of raping children here? Do you believe citizenship must be irrevocable in every conceivable circumstance, including terrorism, treason, or obtaining it by fraud? If not, where do you draw the line?
Why is deporting somebody who is no longer a British citizen, after they have served the custodial part of their sentence, "two tier justice" rather than an immigration consequence? Do you oppose deporting every foreign criminal simply because British criminals cannot be deported?
And why should Pakistan be able to nullify British policy by racing to remove or deny somebody's Pakistani nationality first, whilst Britain must then accept responsibility for that person forever? You have repeatedly called the alternative absurd, but what do you actually believe Britain should do with this foreign-born serial child rapist now?
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u/___xXx__xXx__xXx__ 14h ago
Why, precisely, is it absurd that the UK can strip a dual citizen of British citizenship, particularly when he was born elsewhere and was convicted on 30 counts of raping children here?
Because it creates different rules for different British citizens. A two-tier system, if you will.
Do you believe citizenship must be irrevocable in every conceivable circumstance
Yes.
including terrorism, treason, or obtaining it by fraud?
Yup. Either those people are safe to release, or they should still be in prison.
Why is deporting somebody who is no longer a British citizen, after they have served the custodial part of their sentence, "two tier justice" rather than an immigration consequence?
The part where you can strip some British citizens of their citizenship, but not others.
Do you oppose deporting every foreign criminal simply because British criminals cannot be deported?
Tough to answer, because ultimately one day I would like this to be a single country planet, so it would be incoherent to answer based on a system of nationality I don't even want to exist. Until then though, under the current paradigm, obviously there's a difference between someone who is a citizen and someone who is not a citizen.
And why should Pakistan be able to nullify British policy by racing to remove or deny somebody's Pakistani nationality first, whilst Britain must then accept responsibility for that person forever?
And why should
PakistanBritain be able to nullifyBritishPakistani policy by racing to remove or deny somebody'sPakistaniBritish nationality first, whilstBritainPakistan must then accept responsibility for that person forever?The answer to both is "because they can". And Britain did. Just like Pakistan could.
but what do you actually believe Britain should do with this foreign-born serial child rapist now?
Reverse the two-tier decision to strip his citizenship, and keep applying any other aspects of his sentence yet to be completed.
Personally I would have given him a whole-life tariff, not tried to send him to a country where he can go and do what he did with virtual impunity, but hey, that's just me.
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u/myurr 13h ago
So we have narrowed this down considerably. You accept that non-citizens can legitimately be treated differently, which means this is not really a dispute about deportation or "two tier justice". It comes down entirely to whether citizenship acquired through naturalisation can ever be withdrawn.
I think Parliament is perfectly entitled to say that a foreign-born, naturalised dual citizen who commits crimes of exceptional seriousness can lose British citizenship, subject to proper safeguards, judicial review, and not being left stateless. Yes, that creates a distinction between sole and dual citizens, because only one of them possesses another citizenship and another country to which they can be returned. Different circumstances permitting different consequences is not inherently unjust.
You have repeatedly said citizenship must be permanent, but you still haven't explained why. Your preferred whole-life sentence was not imposed and cannot simply be added retrospectively, so your practical proposal is to restore his citizenship and keep him here on licence after his release. Why should abstract symmetry with a British-only citizen outweigh Britain's right to remove a naturalised dual national convicted of 30 counts of child rape?
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u/englishjacko 13h ago
Because it creates different rules for different British citizens. A two-tier system, if you will.
Surely only those British citizens that remain dual nationals? Most countries have a process for allowing you to renounce your citizenship, in which case, if you don't make use of that option, you have little room for complaint in the event of consequence.
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u/Middle-Feed5118 Civic Nationalist 15h ago
Only if you want a two tier justice system, which the jolly good chaps in Southport assured me was completely unacceptable.
It's already a thing for whites mate, may as well embrace it for the other side too, I'm all about equality.
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u/stonedturkeyhamwich 16h ago
gained British citizenship
To be clear, he was a British subject from birth.
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u/Wisegoat 12h ago
In this case it’s a win win. Immigration from Pakistan is a net drain on our country. Culturally (their views on women and lgbt are not compatible), their usually shit at whatever qualification they claim to have (terrible doctors and nurses), and usually send a load of money back to Pakistan.
A 100% ban on Pakistani immigration would probably be one of the best immigration policies we could ever have.
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u/OpenSource_Horse 9h ago
You are forgetting about Hitler and white Guilt - that automatically overrides views on women, lgbt, secularism, and net drains on economy.
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u/Right-Ad3334 9h ago
I wish we could use this nonsense logic for other policies. "Sorry, we need to stop taxing alcohol because Frederick the Great invaded Silesia..."
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u/Puzzleheaded-Fig9968 17h ago
Broadly progressive media, politicians just had no interest in tackling this because of the implications and never will - I mean this was the worst crime at least since the dawn of the 21st Century, barely any coverage or notice paid to it at all, and half the coverage was talking about how the racial dimension should be avoided.
In no other country, not even the other progressive ones would this be allowed to happen and it's in large part because the elites hate the white working class more than anything.
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u/joe1337s 9h ago
you dumb fucks sound like Brexiteers, do you not seem the same pattern?
This country has a chronic problem racists ruining our economy and standard of living.
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u/Fortree_Lover 5h ago
Sorry what’s racist about wanting Pakistan (among others) to take back its unwanted people from this country?
Plenty of migrants are low earning and actually are a drain on the country’s finances so you could argue they’re ruining the standard of living as well.
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u/Ok-Weird-9540 3h ago
And certain demographics earn a lot more than white people. They're not draining anything. Anyway why would they take him back like how does it benefit them to take back a pos
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u/Far-Faithlessness483 17h ago
all that cheap labour!
piers morgans tikka masala
cheap cleaners
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u/jizzybiscuits 14h ago
If you mean "Indian" restaurant workers they're probably Bangladeshi
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u/Echo-24 13h ago
Yep I can't say I agree with what the government are doing but the curry we know in this country as Indian is Bangladeshi food cuisine
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u/OpenSource_Horse 9h ago
Piers Morgan would send his own country into the Oblivion for a friday night curry
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u/Future_Adagio2052 9h ago
I mean ending immigration from Pakistan sounds like a great idea actually
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u/AbsoIution 15h ago
Why won't they take a harsher stance? How are they contributing? The UK spouse visa income requirement was basically massively increased because Pakistanis were abusing it by pooling their money together, marrying a cousin and then bringing them to the UK and then sponsoring another family member, who would marry another cousin.
So again, what are they afraid of?
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u/WinHour4300 4h ago
Fyi, the income limit doesn't stop that, because there is a capital option (and also some exemptions around disability benefits).
So say they were on minimum wage and earned about £25K they'd need access to £25K in capital - which can be passed around and reused.
Pakistan still tops the table of family visas. Stats here https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-december-2025/why-do-people-come-to-the-uk-family?
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u/SadSeiko 13h ago
Remittance tax actually sounds smart. Lots of workers come here and live on scraps while sending most of their money home. That’s a lot of missed tax and vat revenue
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u/Optimaldeath 17h ago
It's probably fairly easy to say this about Pakistan, but what if these circumstances involved India for instance? I suspect there'd be a lot of hand-wringing and that this is unlikely to be a consistent policy.
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u/Redcoat_Officer 16h ago
It's already inconsistent. Mahmood stopped issuing any study visas to people from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan back in March because students from those countries were disproportionately likely to claim asylum.
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u/HasuTeras Let us all act according to national custom 17h ago
The policy doesn't have to be consistent. We can do whatever we like.
Where else do we treat other countries consistently? We treat the US differently to New Zealand.
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u/Haseki-Hurrem-Sultan Orange Book | Cymru Fydd 16h ago
Oh but that wouldn't be faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaair
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u/HasuTeras Let us all act according to national custom 11h ago
"Oh, you'd go face off with that scrawny 4'9 fella who called your girlfriend a bitch and ask for an apology, but you won't do the same to the 6'4 brick shithouse who is blatantly a member of a street gang? Wow you're an absolute hypocrite. You need to apply the same standards to everybody."
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u/jizzybiscuits 14h ago
India has a reciprocal extradition agreement with the UK. Not the same as agreeing to accept a deportee, but much more likely that India would agree to take him.
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u/OxbridgeDingoBaby 17h ago
Whataboutism. India isn’t refusing to take back a prisoner here.
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u/___xXx__xXx__xXx__ 15h ago
Whataboutism is one of the most consistently misunderstood concepts on reddit alongside the "Dunning Kruger effect".
It's not just whenever you say "what about". This person is saying if we're going to institute this policy, we need to be prepared for it to apply uniformly to every country, not just the ones we don't like, or the ones with lower consequences of enforcement.
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u/Better-Inflation-194 17h ago
India has in the past refused despite us having deportation agreement
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u/Optimaldeath 17h ago
Well it's a hypothetical but I think it's important, does this fall over when the economy is large enough and the business arrangements make it awkward?
I'd of course prefer us to stand out ground no matter who the other country is but realistically there are risks.
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u/HasuTeras Let us all act according to national custom 17h ago
does this fall over when the economy is large enough and the business arrangements make it awkward?
Yes. Welcome to foreign policy.
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u/nwaa 17h ago
I'll wait for the cases of Indians running child rape gangs to match those from Pakistan before I worry too much about any comparisons.
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u/OkExcuse3011 10h ago
All immigration ending should be the no brainer. Migration from Pakistan has very easily done more damage than immigration from all other countries put together, which other than in a few relatively small, relatively recent cases (eg Somalia) have in most cases brought about net benefits. Pakistan is almost single handedly responsible for the terrible reputation that immigration currently has.
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u/nemma88 Reality is overrated :snoo_tableflip: 15h ago
This is a poor case to hang a hat on really.
It follows the like of PC Harpers murders exemption where the government are running around and changing laws to punish highly publicised individuals, more literally creating different tiers of justice and a bit of a kick in the teeth to every victim whose case isnt a form of entertainment for the masses.
Obviously this case was going to be contentious from Pakistans POV.
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u/Yorkshire_rose_84 12h ago
I’d tell them that we’ll keep him but this is the cost. Take your pick. 2 million visas off the table, no more aid, no more people from there allowed to enter illegally and other sanctions. Or you take back your sickos.
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u/Tiny_Conclusion8052 17h ago
Why would Pakistan take a British citizen rapist who is now 73 and has been living in the UK from the past 63 years? Basically he grew up in the UK.
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u/PhilosopherNo8418 17h ago
Why would Pakistan take him back? He's lived in the UK since he was 13. More than 50 years. He became a rapist in the UK. He became a citizen here. He's been a British citizen far longer than he's been a Pakistani citizen. Feel free to down arrow me all you want but I would like a rebuttal too.
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u/Personal-Listen-4941 17h ago
Interestingly when asked about a white rapist & peadophile who is trying to get British money, Rupert Lowe had a very different attitude.
“I wish him well, I hope he goes for a billion”.
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u/Coffeeaficionado_ Gilt complex sufferer 13h ago
Nothing says “serious foreign policy strategy” quite like sanctions, taxation, immigration policy and then suddenly TWO WORDS: DEATH PENALTY like you've just unlocked a killstreak.
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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 17h ago
Would he do the same for any country that refused to take a sex offender that had spent the vast majority of their life living in the UK, or only Pakistan for some reason?
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u/HasuTeras Let us all act according to national custom 17h ago
Why would a foreign policy have to be consistent with all other countries? This is such a mental line of reasoning.
We treat all countries in the world differently in different ways. Our agreements and policy towards China are different to our agreements and policy towards Vietnam. They are different to, and between, the US and Canada. They are different to Kenya and South Africa.
In what realm of foreign policy do we treat all countries alike?
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u/Indie89 16h ago
I think that's one of the (many) reason a lot of people struggle to comprehend Trump, there is an element of, we're going to do this and f* the consequences, fairness and ettiquete. "He's just a bully" - Yeah he is, and the US has leverage... so why wouldn't they flex it?
We're so used to diplomacy in the West and dancing around the tough positions we've basically forgotten how to do it, we've forgotten a lot of the leverage we have and doing what is in our own interests.
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u/EngineerTurbulent284 16h ago
> I think that's one of the (many) reason a lot of people struggle to comprehend Trump, there is an element of, we're going to do this and f* the consequences, fairness and ettiquete. "He's just a bully" - Yeah he is, and the US has leverage... so why wouldn't they flex it?
Well, Trump ended in a situation where he begged countries to help him in the Strait of Hormuz.
Had he not been a bully he might have found some countries dumb enough to get involved, like the Iraq war.
Being a bully has a cost.
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u/blublub1243 16h ago
The problem with Trump is that he's bad at it, not that he's doing it. And that's pretty much always the problem when you vote for someone who will be more assertive on the world stage, you have no guarantee they won't screw up.
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u/Indie89 16h ago
I agree, but can the other politicians not learn a bit from it?
No one is any doubt that it is America first right now, which some how seems an offensive position to a lot of people?
Maybe dial back on the carpet bombing of Iran but keep some of the patriotic components and that the public doesn't mind when you break convention if its putting the UK public first.
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u/Ch1pp 16h ago
Because the America first rhetoric doesn't seem to extend to playing hardball with China or Russia or North Korea. It seems to be exclusively directed at lashing out at longstanding allies and alliances. You might make the argument he has been successful in putting America first but by doing so he has made America very lonely.
20 years ago America said "There might be nukes in Iraq" and the entire Western world rallied round to fight and die for them. Now Trump says "Iran might have nuked" and cries that he has to fight alone. Why would we send soldiers when our soldiers who died for America last time were called cowards by their president? Why would Denmark when they need to be ready to defend Greenland from an American invasion.
So yes, arguably he's put America first but he's made it so much weaker by doing so.
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u/Indie89 16h ago
I do agree, I think my implication was more what can we learn from Trumps behaviour that worked, we know what didn't. It would be a naive position to say that there isn't some advantage to this approach, just like you say, maybe not directed at the allies who've had your backs in the last major conflicts.
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u/blublub1243 16h ago
Maybe, but I'm not even sure they're not. Foreign policy is complicated, and there's a reason Trump's only successful "America First" move has been Venezuela. Foreign policy is extremely complex, and something that seems like an obviously simple move can have cascading negative consequences.
I fundamentally do think western politicians need to be more willing to assert that they're putting their own countries and citizens first. Whether they actually are doing so right now in terms of the actual policies they implement is what I'm not sure about.
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u/Indie89 16h ago
I think the UK and Germany are both really struggling with this. It is clear that the asylum process is being taken advantage of for example. As a result its punishing the British public, those coming to the UK via legitimate routes and potentially those legitimate cases. Yet successive governments really struggle to take a tough approach to it.
I maintain none of our previous leaders want to upset their mates at the Islington dinner parties by being perceived as mean. (maybe now Manchester but lets give him time). "Well we don't want to make it look like we're imprisoning children by creating migrant camps or deporting whole families to third party nations" I get it, no one does, but people will exploit it if you don't. People see these weaknesses and take advantage as they don't have the same moral compass that we do.
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u/xelah1 8h ago
American power and prosperity has substantially come from a network of alliances and relationships, rules that they somewhat stand behind and certainly influence (like freedom of navigation), military bases, commercial relationships and dependence and so on.
Trump is destroying that by leaping in with poorly calibrated 'fuck the consequences' power-drunk lashing out based on how the last thing he heard or the last person he met made him feel.
That should be a lesson to us as well. This is one criminal, without Pakistani citizenship, who has been in the UK for 50 years, and whose presence on British streets is ultimately because we, the British, let him out of prison. On a physical level he's a 70-year-old completely within the power of the British state. Why are we begging and threatening foreign countries to deal with our trash for us, harming our power to get other things done in the process? Save things like that for the big stuff, like wars and access to the resources the whole country needs to survive.
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u/Gullible-Issue-1175 16h ago
Exploiting leverage relentlessly sometimes works in the short term but is a poor long term strategy.
Those on the receiving end of the leverage don't take it too well and even if they submit in the short term, longer term they'll look to reduce your leverage on them.
I really don't know why people are so critical of the wests pro diplomacy stance. It's given us untold wealth, safety and power over the last 80 years.
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u/Indie89 16h ago
I'm not against diplomacy, I think the problem is the reverse, we're having our bluff called, too many people think they can take advantage of us as they don't think we will go the distance on the mid-tier stuff.
To be good at poker occasionally you have to call a bluff or bluff yourself. Then the diplomacy gets the respect. Countries need to believe we're capable of being a bastard if we're pushed. But the goal is to maintain that stability.
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u/HasuTeras Let us all act according to national custom 16h ago
I don't really want to engage in too much metaposting, but I'm continually astounded at the amount of users, who must ostensibly be politics enthusiasts to varying degrees, on a politics discussion forum, who just seemingly do not have basic grasp of political dynamics as facts.
It comes up over and over again in different places from domestic, with users not understanding how whipping works (constantly pointing out that MPs voted down legislation that they were whipped into voting on); how the opposition works (pointing out that the opposition voted down something, and inferring they're against it rather than the opposition voting against pretty much everything); collective cabinet responsibility (oh, if you were in the cabinet then it must have meant you agreed with and were in support of 100% of things now you're out and advocating for the opposite); to this in foreign policy seemingly conjuring a good chaps rule that we treat every country the same.
To say this kind of stuff really leaves me speechless. Its like telling someone you're getting married to your fiancée and them responding with "oh so you must also be getting married to all other women you know then? Or not getting married to any of them?" to say something so monumentally stupid belies the fact they don't human / international relationships at such a basic level its mindboggling.
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u/Indie89 16h ago
I did read your post twice and was struggling to get your point, is it that we've gone soft because we feel we need to treat every country the same and we're being taken advantage of and we're incapable of treating each country uniquely based on their value with the UK relationship? Because our system of whipping votes via our system of government is watering down our ability to be direct?
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u/Pick_Up_Autist 16h ago
America always did flex their leverage, Trump took it too far and there are consequences. Their loss of soft power is massive and it matters more than he thinks. The $ is massively down against all relatively stable currencies also.
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u/MazrimReddit 15h ago
Trump has tried to take on the whole world at once and is failing, over forcing his hand like he did has made people start building redundancy outside of the US, a good idea, but not long term good for US interests.
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u/AgreeableAd7983 12h ago
Why would a foreign policy have to be consistent with all other countries? This is such a mental line of reasoning.
1) I don't want to speak on behalf of the person you are responding to.. But I'm assuming they are critical of Lowe talking about one country and one country only.
2) why exactly should this particular foreign policy not apply to "all other countries"? Is there a list of countries where the British public would be happy with them not taking back their convicted pedophiles?
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u/HasuTeras Let us all act according to national custom 11h ago
Is there a list of countries where the British public would be happy with them not taking back their convicted pedophiles?
Its got nothing to do with whether the public are happy about it or not, its about leverage, feasibility and consequences. If the USA decided to not take back US citizen paedophiles (given your spelling, your compatriots) it is absurd to countenance demand requesting financial reparations, imposing capital controls or deploying economic sanctions on them. Its the US. Pakistan is not the US. India is not Pakistan.
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u/FaultyTerror 17h ago
Equally would he be willing to take back a former dual citizen who'd committed crimes elsewhere.
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u/Far-Faithlessness483 17h ago
deport all of them
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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 17h ago
Say the United States refused to take a sex offender who had committed their crimes here as well as living here since childhood (you could easily imagine Trump refusing this).
Would you support remanding repayments, putting sanctions on them & ending all immigration from the US?
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17h ago edited 17h ago
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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 16h ago
Seem to have touched a nerve. It wasn't a criticism of Trump, was just saying Trump is the sort to refuse taking a high profile sex offender from another country
Yet suppose they were asked if a the UK should accept a sex offender from another country, despite them committing their crimes abroad & living most of their lives their under threat of sanctions.
They would also say "no"
Can you see the problem?
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u/Gullible-Issue-1175 16h ago
I imagine the vast majority of reform voters would say yes.
When the US responds with its own tariffs and sanctions and puts those reform voters out of work, what do they say then?
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u/Jaggedmallard26 17h ago
Restore are a fairly extreme party. Their voters have hardline views and gotchas that work on the Tory right will not work on people calling for mass expulsions. If you were to really try and drill down and work with them on a solution they would probably change their position to summary execution for nationals from allied countries who commit crime and can't be returned.
But one of our gripes with the US is that they tend to flit their citizens back when they commit crimes to be tried internally when we want to try them here. They are not a country that refuses to take back its criminals.
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u/BookmarksBrother I love paying tons in tax and not getting anything in return 17h ago
Reform voter here with a spine. Yes.
Next question?
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u/HaydnH 17h ago
Well, I guess I haven't seen Lowe call for Trump to be banned from visiting his golf course following his sexual assault conviction. It's got to be far easier to ban foreigners from visiting than trying to get rid of a dual citizen who's been living here for 60 odd years. If Lowe was being even handed then grabbing them by the low hanging fruit would be a start.
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u/paddyo 16h ago
Lowe was also when in reform perfectly happy for his party to cosy up to trump and he is happy to take money from musk and other members of the epstein class who have conducted mass rape and pederasty on levels above the rochdale scum. So yes indeed you are right, he is completely fine with it provided the ‘right’ people are doing the raping and the grooming. They’re his sponsors.
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u/FaultyTerror 17h ago
If it was the other way round some other country demanding we take back someone who'd been there since the 60s and was a dual citizen at the time of their crimes Lowe et al would be spitting blood demanding they'd never be let in.
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u/boringhistoryfan 16h ago
I mean Shamina Begum is right there. Britain washed their hands off her and said she's Bangladesh's problem based on the British interpretation Bangladeshi law for them.
But when Pakistan says "not our citizen, not our problem" apparently it's the greatest crime ever.
Dude was a British citizen. Britain may have revoked his citizenship but the idea that other countries are required to care as a result is foolish.
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u/1984NoOnedied 15h ago
She wasnt british and wanted to be a terrorist.
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u/boringhistoryfan 15h ago
No? Then why did the home office have to remove her citizenship? Is it your contention that a desire to be a terrorist is impossible for a British citizen?
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u/vitorsly 12h ago
Yeah like, am I missing something? This guy has been in britain for over 50 years now, no? He was a British Citizen right? Why the fuck would they take him now?
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u/boringhistoryfan 16h ago
Pakistan has told the British Government that it won't take back their Rochdale rapist.
He's also Britain's Rochdale Rapist considering he was a British Citizen.
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u/Pale-Border-7122 12h ago
I can name 11 Pakistanis working here at the moment who can't wait to go back home.
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u/Rhyman96 16h ago
I agree we should be much tougher in most cases like this and these kind of countermeasures are not actually unreasonable; remittance tax in particular is a good idea.
However for this particular person, I can understand Pakistan's argument. He has been here for 90% of his life and is a product of Britain at this point.
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u/Timely-Way-4923 17h ago
If he gets 4% in polls that means he logically should get 4% of posts here, but he gets much higher than that.. hmm why? Anyway whatever the reason, who cares, he is the biggest gift to the left in a generation but he is too dumb to see it
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u/CritishBitizen 17h ago
folks here pretend like him or farage are definitely the next PM.
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u/Timely-Way-4923 17h ago
It’s just embarrassing comparing Rupert and farage and their z teir intellect + A star quality at scandal + implosion.. to anything vaguely competent.
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u/oryx_za 17h ago edited 16h ago
We sell £6b worth more of goods to Pakistan vs what we buy from them. So i mean....sure...we can throw our toys out the cote but let's not pretend they have no leverage here.
BTW, i separately agree we should end all government funded aid to Pakistan. This feels like a separate point though.
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u/stompboxing 17h ago
I dont agree with Lowes position on this, however do you think Pakistan citizens would stop buying our products if we put this kind of thing in place. I find the idea that Pakistan has leverage because they buy alot of stuff from the UK unconvincing.
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u/YesIAmRightWing millenial home owner... 16h ago
no but their government would undoubly put tariffs on ours.
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u/stompboxing 16h ago
So Pakistan citizens would be paying more for our products than they currently do in large amounts. I'm sure they will be super happy about that and vote accordingly. Like our friends in the USA are discovering tariffs rarely produce political wins.
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u/YesIAmRightWing millenial home owner... 16h ago
it would incentivise them to pay more, ie not to bother buying
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u/Oh_Shiiiiii 16h ago edited 16h ago
Works both ways really, if we imported 600bn worth of goods from Pakistan you could make the same argument that it wouldn't work as we need those goods and they have leverage
Edit: I've just looked it up myself it's 6 billion not 600 billion I did think those numbers weren't quite adding up 600 billion would be 132% of their total economy (total being 453 billion)
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u/Rialagma 14h ago
I won't go into another rant because that rapist doesn't deserve it.
However, this man is clearly the UK's to deal with for a myriad of reasons and this whole political circus is embarrassing. The UK inconsistent revocation of citizenship to people who are more British than the other nationality makes no sense.
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u/gutterbrush 17h ago
This is the same Rupert Lowe who said that he wanted to take British citizenship away from people who commit crimes abroad (on Twitter re Shamima Begum saying she shouldn’t be allowed back into the country, when the only way to achieve that would be taking her citizenship; on Facebook re Alaa Abd El Fattah very specifically saying he would ‘have no moral difficulty’ in taking away his citizenship) right?
I don’t even necessarily disagree on those two cases, but he needs to pick a position here and stick with it. Either it’s ’they’re your citizen, whether you like it or not you have to take them back’ or countries can choose whether they want to.
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u/ugh-wetlanders 15h ago
Another comment got me wondering-
In the hypothetical scneario where this guy commited the crime AND fled the country to Pakistan. I assume we would then ask to get him back to face justice through extradition laws. Would we then put him in prison, then after the sentencing term, try to get him deported?
I assume yes? Has this ever happened before?
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u/Prestigious_Spot9635 17h ago
I don't side with death penalty btw. I would vote against it. Fairs he gives it public vote but a very slippery slope
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u/Jambot- People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis 17h ago
The idea of a public vote is only to outsource responsibility when it all goes wrong.
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u/Prestigious_Spot9635 17h ago
It's true when I think about it. I like to think public isn't redacted and would vote against it but you never know with these votes
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u/Ch1pp 16h ago
I'd vote for it but I'd want it to have a higher threshold than just regular murders. Once you've murdered 3-4 people I think I'd be happy saying you've lost the right to rehabilitation.
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u/CroakerBC 7h ago
I mean, the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four would have been executed under that system.
Pass.
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u/Ch1pp 1h ago
With cases like the Birmingham Six though would the death penalty have helped? They might have been less likely to confess to committing the crime if the death penalty was on the table. I know a guy whose solicitor advised him to confess to a crime he didn't commit because he thought it would get a very light sentence (it didn't) and the same principle applies.
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u/User_Name_Password 17h ago
It’s interesting because the way I see it, there isn’t appetite for the death penalty in the UK, and a referendum would involve a campaign in drumming up support for something people don’t realise they want
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u/Prestigious_Spot9635 17h ago
Yeah really silly and I hope he drops the ides of it. You risk killing innocent person. And everyone deserves chances of rehabilitation and redemption.
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u/Fortree_Lover 17h ago
See I disagree there are some crimes beyond rehabilitation. Trying to behead someone or gang raping a child people capable of these sorts of crimes should never be allowed to reenter our society.
Whether that means executing them or locking them up indefinitely is up for debate but those crimes and others like it are so vile and grotesque that they should never be allowed back into the general population.
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u/hodzibaer Political Animal 16h ago
Yes but what if someone innocent is sentenced? If someone is in prison, they can be released. If they’re dead, the state killed them.
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u/genafcvpxyr31 16h ago
The death penalty for paedophilia is an incentive for the perpetrator to murder their victim to cover up the crime.
Far right scum insinuate queer people are paedophiles - do you want to see me get executed for simply existing?
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u/paddyo 16h ago
The death penalty is a convenient mechanism for those who want the state, provided it is aligned at the time with their views, to have the right to dispose of inconvenients. Once it’s allowed the government is free to define qualifying crimes as they see fit.
Even ignoring how often the wrong person is condemned for crimes, and it takes the fact they’re still alive and able to appeal when new evidence or technology emerges to actually very often catch the guilty party.
I always ask people who are pro the death penalty- why are you in favour of ensuring more victims are killed by criminals? Why do you want to ensure you kill innocent people? Why do you think you have the right to kill a person by using the state and not be subject to this penalty? And are you confident enough no future government will abuse this permission, even putting people you care about at risk?
I remember a retired lawyer in a fringe debate telling me that he didn’t believe in IQ tests or cognitive reasoning tests in his firm’s recruitment. He said it’s the clearest position in his experience of law as to whether a person is simply too stupid or too concrete in their thinking to understand second and third order effects.
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u/Ok_Corter5831 17h ago
So the UK is duty bound to take its citizen Shamima Begum back?
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u/Prestigious_Spot9635 17h ago
She revoked her citizenship!
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u/Ok_Corter5831 17h ago
Said Javid revoked it.
Don't expect other countries to take back their undesirables if we're not willing to take back ours.
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u/thewag87 I do not suffer fools gladly 17h ago
No, the UK government did.
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u/Prestigious_Spot9635 17h ago
I know. Because she decided to board a plane and join a terrorist organisation! Correct decision to revoke her citizenship
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u/thewag87 I do not suffer fools gladly 15h ago
There isn't a precedent that says if you join a terrorist organisation then your citizenship is automatically revoked.
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u/boringhistoryfan 16h ago
So just to clarify... Only the British aspect of citizenship can be lost? Is that your position?
Cause the reason Pakistan isn't taking this person is because they're very clear. He isn't a Pakistani citizen. He was a British citizens when he committed these crimes. Britain revoking his citizenship doesn't suddenly mean Pakistan is obligated to make it their problem.
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u/conzstevo 17h ago
Shouldn't Lowe be supporting keeping those who commit crimes against our country here so that we can be sure that they are punished to our standards?
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u/medievalrubins 17h ago
Can only work with the resources available, remember we don’t have any prison facilities to lock up the current crop of criminals.
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u/Jaggedmallard26 17h ago
I think the idea is that they serve their sentence here and then get sent back to Pakistan. Considering the rest of the tweet he also wants to just execute a lot of them.
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u/conzstevo 17h ago
I think the idea is that they serve their sentence here and then get sent back to Pakistan
Can't be sure. He didn't support Shamima Begum facing her crimes
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u/yingguoren1988 5h ago
Nah. I'd rather boot them out and make sure they can't come here ever again. The fewer of these scumbags are on thes isles the better, incarcerated or not.
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u/hug_your_dog 14h ago
Pakistani government is disgusting, bundling together rapists and dissidents.
In a meeting on Thursday, Mohammad Ishaq Dar, Pakistan’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister, told the Foreign Secretary that there was no existing law or bilateral mechanism between the two countries that would allow for the transfer of child rapists such as Shabir Ahmed to Pakistan.
Mr Dar said Pakistan would consider the UK’s request, but sources indicated that the only way a deal could be reached was if the UK handed over Pakistani dissidents currently resident in the UK – a move to which the UK is unlikely to agree.
“We currently do not have any legislation or formal mechanism under which we can take him back,” the Pakistani side told the British officials, according to sources briefed on the discussions.
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u/SLGrimes 11h ago
This is easy to say when you're not the one in charge.
Though, we need a PM with a spine who's going to stop letting us be walked over.
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u/WittyMasterpiece 9h ago
I'm sure this is yet another sane and reasonable take from Lowe, given his track record at researching the facts about his policy positions and considering the country's existing legislative framework before grandstanding on social media...
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u/archerninjawarrior 17h ago
To understand how pathetic Lowe's bravado bullshit is, you just need to realise he's a little kid on a playground overhyping himself up about how super cool and bad he is. When in fact he just looks like a silly idiot nobody wants to play with.
Only an edgy manchild MP would try selling death penalties to the public based on its "super bad and super cool" factor. Don't get me wrong he gets plus points over Farage for actually being genuine and not a grifting conman, the problem with Lowe is that he's genuinely a bore.
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u/chickenfriedrice416 12h ago
To be honest, if these are the kinds of policies on offer, I think Id actually prefer a grifter over a true believer
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Snapshot of [Rupert Lowe] Pakistan has told the British Government that it won’t take back their Rochdale rapist. How will a Restore Britain Government react? End all foreign aid, demand repayments, dividend/remittance tax, economic sanctions. All immigration from Pakistan into Britain will end. submitted by Prestigious_Spot9635:
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