| This is not good 07:39 - Sep 27 with 2417 views | GlasgowBlue | Not good at all. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/cr “The former bodyguard of Ismail Haniyeh, leader of Hamas, was given asylum and citizenship in the UK — then “plotted” huge foiled terror attack targeting Jews in Europe last year.” “This is the story of how a known member of Hamas leader’s security team — with an apparent history of gun and gold smuggling — made his life in England before playing “essential” role in elaborate plot to murder Jews in Berlin or Vienna. And why you haven’t yet heard about it.” “ Although it was known when he received refugee status that he had worked for the leader of the terrorist organization and that he had previously been arrested in Egypt for operating a weapons-smuggling tunnel into Gaza, he was granted asylum in the UK.” “ Mr. X arrived in Britain in 2012, when he apparently left the Gaza Strip for the last time. In 2015, he applied for asylum, and the British Home Office granted him permanent residency while Theresa May served as UK Home Secretary. He was later granted British citizenship.” “ In an unusual move, a judge at a London magistrate's court granted Mr. X an order barring publication of his name for 100 years. The decision was amended only last Thursday after an application by the Sunday Times, with the court ruling that his name could be published only after the conclusion of the criminal proceedings against him being conducted concurrently in Britain. German security officials have warned that the involvement of Mr. X, who was able to travel freely across Europe using his British passport, reflects a dangerous shift in Hamas's tactics as the terrorist organization seeks to expand the reach of its terrorist activity beyond the Middle East and into Europe.” |  |
| |  |
| This is not good on 07:51 - Sep 27 with 1791 views | Benters | The Countries gone mate. |  |
|  |
| This is not good on 07:59 - Sep 27 with 1758 views | GlasgowBlue |
| This is not good on 07:51 - Sep 27 by Benters | The Countries gone mate. |
I think we should have a fair immigration system which gives shelter to those poor souls fleeing war and persecution. I’ve believed that all my life. But something is seriously wrong when we grant citizenship to known terrorists |  |
|  |
| This is not good on 08:08 - Sep 27 with 1718 views | Mullet | It’s a bit weird as well, given that was the era of “go home” vans wasn’t it? It’s almost like we need a completely broken system done away with and politicians on the right to stop using it as a cheap source of outrage etc. Criminals have always moved around the world to evade capture and reprisals, but the system shouldn’t help them either. |  |
|  |
| This is not good on 08:21 - Sep 27 with 1665 views | Churchman |
| This is not good on 07:59 - Sep 27 by GlasgowBlue | I think we should have a fair immigration system which gives shelter to those poor souls fleeing war and persecution. I’ve believed that all my life. But something is seriously wrong when we grant citizenship to known terrorists |
So why was that man granted citizenship here? There wasn’t exactly a lack of evidence as to what that thing is. How much has it cost the hard working taxpayer to date to deal with this and to extradite it to Germany? The Home Office granted it when Theresa May was Home Secretary. Micromanager by nature (and despised at HO) she would have seen and agreed it personally. I believe politicians like her should be facing legal action for decisions like this. Maybe they might look at politics,‘correctness’ and convenience less and what’s right and wrong more. Not that it means anything but this terrorist’s name can be found on the internet if anyone’s interested. |  | |  |
| This is not good on 08:57 - Sep 27 with 1527 views | balcombeblue |
| This is not good on 08:08 - Sep 27 by Mullet | It’s a bit weird as well, given that was the era of “go home” vans wasn’t it? It’s almost like we need a completely broken system done away with and politicians on the right to stop using it as a cheap source of outrage etc. Criminals have always moved around the world to evade capture and reprisals, but the system shouldn’t help them either. |
Parties a lot more to the right have garnered popularity because mainstream parties did nothing to address concerns around immigration, not the other way around. We have seen that across Europe in the last decade. That message hasn't got through to those other parties and hence where we are now. |  | |  |
| This is not good on 09:00 - Sep 27 with 1491 views | BanksterDebtSlave |
| This is not good on 07:51 - Sep 27 by Benters | The Countries gone mate. |
Do you think he arrived on a boat Benters? |  |
| "They break our legs and tell us to be grateful when they offer us crutches." | | Poll: | What you watching. |
|  |
| This is not good on 09:03 - Sep 27 with 1475 views | BanksterDebtSlave |
| This is not good on 08:21 - Sep 27 by Churchman | So why was that man granted citizenship here? There wasn’t exactly a lack of evidence as to what that thing is. How much has it cost the hard working taxpayer to date to deal with this and to extradite it to Germany? The Home Office granted it when Theresa May was Home Secretary. Micromanager by nature (and despised at HO) she would have seen and agreed it personally. I believe politicians like her should be facing legal action for decisions like this. Maybe they might look at politics,‘correctness’ and convenience less and what’s right and wrong more. Not that it means anything but this terrorist’s name can be found on the internet if anyone’s interested. |
It's hard not to think that our security forces thought he could be an 'asset.' There will likely be layers and layers to this story that we will never know! |  |
| "They break our legs and tell us to be grateful when they offer us crutches." | | Poll: | What you watching. |
|  |
| This is not good on 09:05 - Sep 27 with 1461 views | Benters |
| This is not good on 09:00 - Sep 27 by BanksterDebtSlave | Do you think he arrived on a boat Benters? |
Who Glasgow? |  |
|  | Login to get fewer ads
| This is not good on 09:23 - Sep 27 with 1382 views | Churchman |
| This is not good on 09:03 - Sep 27 by BanksterDebtSlave | It's hard not to think that our security forces thought he could be an 'asset.' There will likely be layers and layers to this story that we will never know! |
Yes, I’ve no doubt there’s all sorts of stuff under the bonnet we’ll never know about. |  | |  |
| This is not good on 09:52 - Sep 27 with 1303 views | ArnoldMoorhen |
| This is not good on 09:00 - Sep 27 by BanksterDebtSlave | Do you think he arrived on a boat Benters? |
There is something of an irony in the fact that all of the 100% Anglo Saxon patriots are descended from people who arrived on boats and were of fighting age. Another in the incredibly small possibility that anyone is 100% English, even in the most interbred communities of the Fens and the Broads. |  | |  |
| This is not good on 10:13 - Sep 27 with 1231 views | Mullet |
| This is not good on 08:57 - Sep 27 by balcombeblue | Parties a lot more to the right have garnered popularity because mainstream parties did nothing to address concerns around immigration, not the other way around. We have seen that across Europe in the last decade. That message hasn't got through to those other parties and hence where we are now. |
That’s not true. Right wing parties made it an issue to distract from their various failures, corruption and incompetence. They then let it run wild and unchecked in terms of media discourse and disinformation, many of the Tories happy to lean into it and then jump ship to maintain enough popularity to live off taxpayer money and donations from horrible people. However, you’re pushing the thread away from the failure of May et al. |  |
|  |
| This is not good on 10:28 - Sep 27 with 1155 views | homer_123 |
| This is not good on 08:57 - Sep 27 by balcombeblue | Parties a lot more to the right have garnered popularity because mainstream parties did nothing to address concerns around immigration, not the other way around. We have seen that across Europe in the last decade. That message hasn't got through to those other parties and hence where we are now. |
That's not at all correct: https://www.twtd.co.uk/forum/6 One very real example. The declining levels of social mobility (the ability to move yourself or your family up through social and economic ladders) in this country and the wider world has nothing to do with people arriving legally or illegally into this country. Yes, as you can see - that image beautifully demonstrates how 'immigration' is used to cover that issue. |  |
|  |
| This is not good on 10:32 - Sep 27 with 1126 views | lowhouseblue | the times is exposing lots of the flaws in the uk asylum system. this was a few weeks ago based on a whistle blower: https://www.thetimes.com/uk/la it isn't looking at the usual legal flaws but at the assessment process itself and the ways in which it now fails. the uk system is currently very dysfunctional. |  |
| And so as the loose-bowelled pigeon of time swoops low over the unsuspecting tourist of destiny, and the flatulent skunk of fate wanders into the air-conditioning system of eternity, I notice it's the end of the show |
|  |
| This is not good on 10:45 - Sep 27 with 1082 views | Guthrum | Tho there are a number of aspects which make this perhaps a bit more explicable. Hamas was not a proscribed organisation in the UK until 2021, so mere membership was not an issue. Hamas was, at that point, not a 'terrorist organisation' (in legal terms, at least). The Egyptian charges fairly explicitly relate to smuggling weapons into Gaza, which would have been part of his "official" duties and to that specific situation, not a wider terrorist threat. In 2012-15, everyone was concentrating upon al-Qaeda and the rise of Islamic State, which had no connection with his background in Hamas (different origins, theology and international backers). At that point there was mild sympathy for the idea of a two-state solution incorporating Hamas in some form. Put simply, there was no glaring reason to consider this man a notable threat. Once granted UK citizenship, it is not an easy thing to remove (c.f. Shamima Begum). If he had not committed any offence, there was no reason to detain him. Now, with the changed situation - particularly the attack on Israel and subsequent invasion of Gaza - he had become a potential threat. The security services were evidently keeping an eye out, hence his activities were picked up at the planning stage. The article is written to make the circumstances sound as dodgy as possible, but don't really reflect the change in environment and assumptions over nearly a decade and a half. |  |
|  |
| This is not good on 10:48 - Sep 27 with 1047 views | Swansea_Blue | Paywalled, but seems not good on the face of it. The silencing order is a bit strange - I wonder if this was someone we were trying to turn or use to gather intelligence on Hamas’ networks? The last para particularly important to our national conversation about military spend I’d have thought. It’s increasingly obvious counter-terrorism and high tech security is where the need is. Another big cyber attack last week on our institutions; Dyfed Powys Police this time. |  |
|  |
| This is not good on 10:50 - Sep 27 with 1009 views | Guthrum |
| This is not good on 08:21 - Sep 27 by Churchman | So why was that man granted citizenship here? There wasn’t exactly a lack of evidence as to what that thing is. How much has it cost the hard working taxpayer to date to deal with this and to extradite it to Germany? The Home Office granted it when Theresa May was Home Secretary. Micromanager by nature (and despised at HO) she would have seen and agreed it personally. I believe politicians like her should be facing legal action for decisions like this. Maybe they might look at politics,‘correctness’ and convenience less and what’s right and wrong more. Not that it means anything but this terrorist’s name can be found on the internet if anyone’s interested. |
As I explored elsewhere in the thread, tho a terrorist now, he would not have been regarded in the same light back in 2012-15, at the time the asylum decision was made. |  |
|  |
| This is not good on 10:59 - Sep 27 with 932 views | Guthrum |
| This is not good on 10:48 - Sep 27 by Swansea_Blue | Paywalled, but seems not good on the face of it. The silencing order is a bit strange - I wonder if this was someone we were trying to turn or use to gather intelligence on Hamas’ networks? The last para particularly important to our national conversation about military spend I’d have thought. It’s increasingly obvious counter-terrorism and high tech security is where the need is. Another big cyber attack last week on our institutions; Dyfed Powys Police this time. |
A lot of the issue with cyber-security is not any lack of money we're putting into it at the governmental/defence/security services level, but middle and senior management - particularly in large businesses - not understanding the problem, how to go about tackling it and being unwilling to commit resources to prevent something which hasn't happened to them yet (and if it does, they just move on to a new job). Until these people start taking cyber-scecurity seriously, rather than just as a drain upon budgets, an inconvenience, or as a mere technical issue which can be mechanically coded out of existence, then breaches will continue to be a common occurrence. |  |
|  |
| Was this a good idea at the time ? on 11:10 - Sep 27 with 882 views | WeWereZombies |
| This is not good on 10:45 - Sep 27 by Guthrum | Tho there are a number of aspects which make this perhaps a bit more explicable. Hamas was not a proscribed organisation in the UK until 2021, so mere membership was not an issue. Hamas was, at that point, not a 'terrorist organisation' (in legal terms, at least). The Egyptian charges fairly explicitly relate to smuggling weapons into Gaza, which would have been part of his "official" duties and to that specific situation, not a wider terrorist threat. In 2012-15, everyone was concentrating upon al-Qaeda and the rise of Islamic State, which had no connection with his background in Hamas (different origins, theology and international backers). At that point there was mild sympathy for the idea of a two-state solution incorporating Hamas in some form. Put simply, there was no glaring reason to consider this man a notable threat. Once granted UK citizenship, it is not an easy thing to remove (c.f. Shamima Begum). If he had not committed any offence, there was no reason to detain him. Now, with the changed situation - particularly the attack on Israel and subsequent invasion of Gaza - he had become a potential threat. The security services were evidently keeping an eye out, hence his activities were picked up at the planning stage. The article is written to make the circumstances sound as dodgy as possible, but don't really reflect the change in environment and assumptions over nearly a decade and a half. |
Indeed, consider the new leader of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who until 2016 was heading Jabhat al-Nusra when allied to al-Qaeda. Now he's meeting Trump and Ursula von der Leyen and...err...Putin. Diplomacy can seem like a thin rope ladder over a raging river full of crocodiles. [edit: Misleading thread title changed] [Post edited 27 Sep 11:13]
|  |
|  |
| This is not good on 11:14 - Sep 27 with 841 views | balcombeblue |
| This is not good on 10:13 - Sep 27 by Mullet | That’s not true. Right wing parties made it an issue to distract from their various failures, corruption and incompetence. They then let it run wild and unchecked in terms of media discourse and disinformation, many of the Tories happy to lean into it and then jump ship to maintain enough popularity to live off taxpayer money and donations from horrible people. However, you’re pushing the thread away from the failure of May et al. |
I'm happy to discuss the failures of May and the following governments, but that's also been proven at the ballot box. There seems to be a view that Reform gathers voters from disaffected right wing voters only, which is simply not true. Similarly with the Brexit vote. On the subject of failure, corruption and incompetence I think it's worth adding Starmer and his cabinet to that list. |  | |  |
| Was this a good idea at the time ? on 11:21 - Sep 27 with 797 views | WeWereZombies |
| This is not good on 11:14 - Sep 27 by balcombeblue | I'm happy to discuss the failures of May and the following governments, but that's also been proven at the ballot box. There seems to be a view that Reform gathers voters from disaffected right wing voters only, which is simply not true. Similarly with the Brexit vote. On the subject of failure, corruption and incompetence I think it's worth adding Starmer and his cabinet to that list. |
I think only the very gullible would regard Starmer's two years of right of centre socialism as a failure. There was a heck of a lot to put right and he was anything but incompetent, although I will grant you that there was more than a whiff of moral corruption about the appointment of Mandelson. The Starmer administration did a lot of good work to make the progress we now see, and desperately need, under Burnham possible. [Post edited 27 Sep 11:53]
|  |
|  |
| This is not good on 11:28 - Sep 27 with 743 views | lowhouseblue |
| This is not good on 11:14 - Sep 27 by balcombeblue | I'm happy to discuss the failures of May and the following governments, but that's also been proven at the ballot box. There seems to be a view that Reform gathers voters from disaffected right wing voters only, which is simply not true. Similarly with the Brexit vote. On the subject of failure, corruption and incompetence I think it's worth adding Starmer and his cabinet to that list. |
the argument that concerns about immigration have been invented by right wing parties runs counter to all the polling and election data. the almost exact opposite is true. parties on the right have grown because of a collapse of trust in the tories. from cameron onwards, despite their promises, they ignored the number one policy priority for a majority of the electorate. the boris wave has been a political disaster in terms of collapsing trust in mainstream politics, the policy had no democratic mandate, and in terms of damaging the previously predominantly positive views about immigration across electors. boris was a chancer with little understanding of consequences and nothing illustrates that better. |  |
| And so as the loose-bowelled pigeon of time swoops low over the unsuspecting tourist of destiny, and the flatulent skunk of fate wanders into the air-conditioning system of eternity, I notice it's the end of the show |
|  |
| This is not good on 11:30 - Sep 27 with 719 views | itfcjoe | “ In an unusual move, a judge at a London magistrate's court granted Mr. X an order barring publication of his name for 100 years. The decision was amended only last Thursday after an application by the Sunday Times, with the court ruling that his name could be published only after the conclusion of the criminal proceedings against him being conducted concurrently in Britain.“ I hated the headline at the time, but it’s sometimes hard to argue that the courts are the enemy of the country when you see things like this happening |  |
|  |
| This is not good on 11:33 - Sep 27 with 682 views | BelsteadCav | The Home office is corrupt It’s scary to think who else they’ve let in and are walking around |  |
|  |
| This is not good on 11:33 - Sep 27 with 682 views | J2BLUE |
| This is not good on 11:28 - Sep 27 by lowhouseblue | the argument that concerns about immigration have been invented by right wing parties runs counter to all the polling and election data. the almost exact opposite is true. parties on the right have grown because of a collapse of trust in the tories. from cameron onwards, despite their promises, they ignored the number one policy priority for a majority of the electorate. the boris wave has been a political disaster in terms of collapsing trust in mainstream politics, the policy had no democratic mandate, and in terms of damaging the previously predominantly positive views about immigration across electors. boris was a chancer with little understanding of consequences and nothing illustrates that better. |
Completely agree. Make meaningful progress on immigration and Reform/Restore have nothing else. |  | |  |
| This is not good on 11:37 - Sep 27 with 641 views | Ryorry |
| This is not good on 10:59 - Sep 27 by Guthrum | A lot of the issue with cyber-security is not any lack of money we're putting into it at the governmental/defence/security services level, but middle and senior management - particularly in large businesses - not understanding the problem, how to go about tackling it and being unwilling to commit resources to prevent something which hasn't happened to them yet (and if it does, they just move on to a new job). Until these people start taking cyber-scecurity seriously, rather than just as a drain upon budgets, an inconvenience, or as a mere technical issue which can be mechanically coded out of existence, then breaches will continue to be a common occurrence. |
With obviously solid experts (including top brasses) regularly explaining this on mainstream media in a very concise and easily understandable way that even oldies like me can take in quickly, that's pretty scandalous neglect by that so-called "top" management. |  |
|  |
| |