The UN and Mrs May(be)

[Workingman]

At a UN summit in New York, she will call for a greater distinction between refugees and people trying to enter a country for economic reasons.

The PM will also say refugees should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach and stress that nations have a right to control their borders.

What!

She should know that those things are already enshrined in International Law. Maybe when she was Home Secretary she should have applied them, without fear or favour, and persuaded others of the political elite around the world to do the same. It is because politicians failed to deal with these intertwined problems that we find ourselves with the mess we have today.

I am all for her applying them when she gets home from her jolly. I will even support her applying them retrospectively, after all, politicians have become quite fond of retrospective action with some laws.

[Suff]

She was home secretary, not PM. Now she's PM, she can say pretty much what she thinks. Within reason.

It's going to be an interesting ride anyway. To the new H/S. Do as I say, not as I did.... That'll be an interesting discussion.

[Kaz]

What Suff said!

[Workingman]

I am pretty sure I said that May was Home Sec when she did not apply the laws. May(be) now she is PM she has seen the light - a bit late though, isn't it?

[Suff]

You certainly did WM. But the point is that the H/S is following the party line lead by the PM. When the H/S becomes the PM there is a choice to change direction and even to voice dissent for the previous regime which the H/S was obliged to follow.

I'm sure there will be more said on this in the following weeks. But, in short, attitudes are changing and that could be a good thing.

[Kaz]

Absolutely a change of direction, away from privilege and towards a meritocracy - her first speech out in Downing Street made that very clear! Her new cabinet also has more state school and grammar school educated than private - a big change from the Cameron days.

[Workingman]

Oh dear, I thought that the party line when May was Home Sec was to reduce immigration to the tens of thousands, not a 300,000 net increase year-on-year. I am absolutely certain that Cameron gave a cast-iron guarantee that would be the case.

Had May applied the laws as they stand, and which she is now telling the UN it could/should/must do, the net number would be much lower. Are we saying that she was a maverick and went against the PM and the party, or is it that they were all lying to us?

[Suff]

What Cameron said to us and what he said to his team need not be the same thing. In that I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

If she is now saying "we'll apply these laws to the letter" and as H/S she did not, then I'd say that this was because she requested to do so and the request was denied, for whatever reason.

Until she does not apply those rules, after stating she will, I will believe that her direction was not to. After all sending people back was not part of Cameron's "social" world and telling the ECHR to go stuff themselves was not either.

Time will tell and I'm not willing to crucify her in the first instance. Everyone has to have a chance to prove they mean what they say. After that it's all up to them.

[Workingman]

I am not crucifying her. What I am saying is that when she was in a position to do so she did not act, but now she is out and about telling everybody else what they should do.

If what she is saying now were her true convictions as Home Sec she should either have implemented them or resigned. However, if she has been converted on the road to Damascus that's fine, but come out and say so. Either option point her out to be useless, duplicitous, or both.

Many of us were saying what May is now championing way back before May was Home Sec but we were shouted down as racist, xenophobic bigots of the first order so you will have to excuse me if I find that politicians are a lot less attractive than the bottom feeders of the murkiest ponds.

[Suff]

I'm with you on the bottom feeders. However my point is slightly different. As Home Secretary she was authorised to follow the party line which was driven by the PM. As PM she is Enabled to do what she wants.

I don't think a good Home Secretary has to resign because S/He holds different values to the PM. You can do as good a job as you are allowed and not have to resign. Unless what you are being asked to do goes fundamentally against your beliefs. May was doing as much as she was allowed to do and if you believe that others might no do so well you would not resign.

Now she's demanding that her H/S does what She wants. A different angle and a different story.

I'll give her a year before I write her off as disingenuous.