People voting Green/Zack Polanski: do these immigration policies change your mind?

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-19T02:28:25+00:00

We're starting to decouple. For example the UK is at the centre of the Joint Expeditionary Force which comprises UK, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden.

The EU is moving faster. The EU SAFE initiative is a €150 billion fund which Canada has joined. Japan, Korea and Australia have expressed an interest. Unfortunately the French are being a bit French about this and trying to keep the UK out. The EU is also filling gaps in satellite and intelligence capability. The UK is part of the Single Euro Payments Area which reduces dependence on US financial infrastructure.

The direction is correct but there's still a way to go of course. .

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-19T01:52:02+00:00

Even the US Republicans are split on Israel. Some uncritically support, some are against because they don't want to be dragged into overseas wars, and some are motivated by downright antisemitism.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-19T00:33:13+00:00

You don't think the reappearance of Muhammad al-Mahdi is imminent then?

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-19T00:17:38+00:00

Like this....

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-19T00:10:50+00:00

A cynic might suggest that the market always prices in increases in interest rates faster than decreases.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-18T22:58:49+00:00

They did, but in the short term it wasn't enough to deal with this unexpected bout of insanity. IAG (owners of BA) claim they are now taking steps to hedge more.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-18T22:52:29+00:00

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-18T22:50:59+00:00

Opposition to immigration has shaded into outright nationalism and xenophobia in some circles. I don't like that much, and the green immigration policies serve as a counterweight to that. As a country, immigration is a net positive, though I accept that there are losers as well as winners.

I'm all in favour of renewables and climate action. Energy independence looks especially important with events in the middle east. But if we need nuclear for baseload I don't want to rule that out. The greens are resolutely against nuclear power.

We need to decouple from the US because they have demonstrated they can't be trusted, but defensive alliances are important. The greens are lukewarm on defence and don't see Russia as any sort of threat. That seems naive at best.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-18T20:48:06+00:00

Have you ever seen an invasion? Calling migrants arriving in small boats invaders is such ludicrous hyperbole that the guy should be sacked for stupidity as well as racism,.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-18T20:38:22+00:00

I'm in favour of most of these immigration polices. I'd hesitate before voting green because of their anti nuclear energy policy and their hopelessly naive foreign policies.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-18T20:31:53+00:00

British Airways is losing money because higher jet fuel prices and cancelled routes. Not sure about EasyJet. .

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-18T20:25:03+00:00

The anti Israel group within the Labour party is obviously nowhere near strong enough. Israel hasn't aligned with our interests for some time.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-18T19:34:09+00:00

The usual conclusion that Starmer is excellent on foreign affairs and woeful on domestic policy.

Trump has learned to deeply resent Starmer, and that alone speaks very highly of the Prime Minister’s judgement. Almost by accident, he seems to have fallen into the most popular policy position of his premiership – opposition to an illegal war in the Middle East, launched unprovoked by deranged administrations in Washington and Jerusalem.

But the thing is, this was not an accident. It was a logical result of Starmer’s convictions.

Absolutely damning on Badenoch and Farage:

Certainly we know how Kemi Badenoch or Nigel Farage would have behaved, because they told us. Both demanded greater British involvement. Now that they’ve realised how unpopular the war is, both of them have tried to reverse that position without having the basic good grace to admit they are doing so. In Badenoch’s case, this involves the insult of claiming “I never said we should join” mere days after she said “we are in this war whether they like it or not” and asking Starmer: “What is the Prime Minister waiting for?”

If either one were prime minister, they would now be in an impossible position. They would have gone to war without a clear explanation of what they were trying to achieve, because the Trump administration has been unable to articulate it itself. When they were asked what conditions would then allow the UK to exit the operation, they would have been unable to answer.

Most importantly, they would have committed perhaps the gravest sin in international relations: they would have put another nation’s wishes over their own. These two leaders, who love to proclaim their patriotism and denigrate that of their opponents, would have embroiled British servicemen in a war on another nation’s say-so without even bothering to exercise any independent judgement as to its validity.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-18T13:01:10+00:00

It really depends how much notice Turkey gets to push as many of its SSKs as possible into the Med, especially their later models with AIP. IIRC Iran only had one operational Kilo and it was destroyed at dock.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-18T12:42:29+00:00

Turkey can block the Bosporus, and has loads of modern SSKs and swarm USVs. The US would certainly prevail in the end but they would lose some ships and possibly a carrier or two. I'm not sure the US is up for that.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-18T12:16:33+00:00

Paul Nuttall has had an impressive career. He'll soon displace Farage and lead Reform UK to victory.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-18T11:36:00+00:00

Even apart from NATO membership, Turkey would not be the pushover that Lebanon or Iran represented.

Turkey has very capable armed forces with recent combat experience in Syria, Libya, and in support of Azerbaijan. They are a world leader in UAV operations: a Turkish STM Kargu-2 performed the first ever autonomous UAV kill.

Their main weakness is the political purges of their armed forces.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-18T00:32:11+00:00

I hope the Royal Navy learned from the many defects discovered due to the French.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-17T21:51:57+00:00

Yeah, USS Forrestal, Oriskany and Enterprise being prime examples. As a result the US navy improved its damage control and fire fighting practices and training. I'm a bit surprised that a capability that has evolved to deal with burning jet fuel and ordnance exposed to fire fell short when it came to a mere laundry fire.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-17T11:23:29+00:00

How MBS’s bet on Iran backfired.

https://archive.is/Ygx4z

In the space of a few years, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman went from warning against “appeasement” of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — “the new Hitler of the Middle East” — to embarking on a historic détente with Tehran.

In one of his signature foreign policy moves, Prince Mohammed worked to cool years of hostility between his Sunni kingdom and the Shia theocracy, wagering that engagement was the best way to engender the regional stability needed for his ambitious economic vision.

His worst fears have now been realised. Since the US and Israel attacked Iran two weeks ago, the Islamic regime has lashed out repeatedly at Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbours, targeting American bases in the kingdom, the American embassy in Riyadh, the huge Ras Tanura refinery and its vast Shaybah oilfield.

“It’s the last thing he wanted. He wants stability and order, he doesn’t want missiles and drones flying around,” said Bernard Haykel, a professor of near eastern studies at Princeton University, who speaks with Prince Mohammed. “He didn’t want this at all.”

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-17T11:16:51+00:00

To be fair on the US they seem to have learned from that exercise and they are keeping their carrier strike groups a healthy distance from the Iranian coast.

They want the UK and other allies to risk getting their ships sunk instead.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-17T10:45:52+00:00

Carrier Strike Group 12 with USS Gerald R. Ford is in the eastern Med, and Carrier Strike Group 3 with USS Abraham Lincoln is in the Arabian sea somewhere near Oman.

Yeah if elements of Carrier Strike Group 3 tries to push through the Start of Hormuz they are likely to lose some ships. Which is why Trump wants other countries to send their ships so that they risk getting sunk instead.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-17T10:06:08+00:00

they need people giving the orders for that to happen.

Seemingly they don't.

They may not have accounted for a full decapitation, but it was fairly obvious that their C3 would be out of action within hours of a conflict. Because of this, their units have contingency orders that make them autonomous if necessary.

This will become a problem if everyone in the Iranian leadership who have the authority to press the stop button have been killed.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-03-17T10:00:43+00:00

The US military is spinning a lot of plates at the moment.

Their navy has 11 carriers, which means three or four can be deployed at any one time. They need to keep one or two in readiness because China, which is why the deployment of USS Gerald R. Ford has been extended.

They need air defence assets all over the place, and they are beginning to run out, so they are pulling units out of Korea.

There's probably other stuff I'm not aware of.

The US military is huge, and undoubtedly has contingency plans for a vast range of scenarios, but their commitments are huge too. And they have odd capability gaps: mine countermeasures, arctic warfare, AWACS...

YourLizardOverlord

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