This is a good article from @bearlypolitics.co.uk albeit surely uncomfortable reading for everyone on all sides in the UK. Firstly, we should all admire the directness and economy in his writing. 1
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The ludicrous idea that we have ever “stood alone” or the equally ridiculous idea that we can successfully “stand alone” now needs to be challenged over and over and over again It’s always good when articulate people do so
aug 23, 2025, 6:38 pm • 17 6 • view
I agree. The Bear is well worth it.
aug 23, 2025, 7:38 pm • 3 1 • view
Central thesis: The UK is dependent on migrant labour (and indeed on trade). It can't feed or run itself otherwise. But it doesn't plan for that. Indeed, its politics actively seem to work against its own interests. 2
aug 23, 2025, 12:24 pm • 24 3 • view
(Before anyone in Ireland gets too cocky, we do process asylum seekers better, productivity is high in all groups, and we can feed ourselves, but the *planning* is even worse in Ireland. This is reducing the amount quality of life for people, not immigrant engineers in Google.) 3
aug 23, 2025, 12:24 pm • 19 2 • view
Leaving Europe has cut off access to a very large, skilled and flexible workforce. That was a stupid thing to do for a country like Britain. But what happened next is a reflection of the UK' s policy choices. Migrants are not to blame. 4
aug 23, 2025, 12:24 pm • 29 11 • view
This is correct, and not widely understood in the UK And it is that misunderstood history of the UK that has led to the Europhobia that characterised Brexit. There was no "buccaneering Britain" turning towards "the high seas" and "our friends in the Commonwealth". 5
aug 23, 2025, 12:24 pm • 29 6 • view
That is a warped memory of Britain's Imperial experience and the seed of the exceptionalism that it destroying efforts to join 🇪🇺 and become part of our community today. Anyhow, tight writing, Bear, well done! Do have a read. Ends
aug 23, 2025, 12:24 pm • 24 3 • view
Might interest @chrisgrey.bsky.social @debbieeade.bsky.social @madridcorro.bsky.social
aug 23, 2025, 12:24 pm • 4 0 • view
Thanks Niall, it's a good read and is very honest about the UK's continuing dependence on migrants, like all wealthy countries, but which most seem to be in denial about, which is grist to the mill of the far right, who will only make matters MUCH worse.
aug 23, 2025, 2:42 pm • 10 1 • view
Britain's looting of the Empire over the centuries has been well covered by many historians, a recent and justifiably popular example of which is this book I'd recommend:
aug 23, 2025, 2:42 pm • 8 1 • view
It's very true. Nobody gets this exactly right and we all need to learn .
aug 23, 2025, 3:03 pm • 2 0 • view
Brexit was revelatory for me in showing the inability of the British state & political-media class to manage a serious, mature debate about the country's future. I'd grown up believing the UK was at least a "serious" country with rational (if sometimes dogmatic) government. That myth was blown.
aug 23, 2025, 12:55 pm • 25 4 • view
I think that's fair. Even the Commission had different expectations, and was caught off guard by how unprepared. And shallow David Davies and Co. were. And they were reelected.
aug 23, 2025, 12:59 pm • 13 0 • view
As @rolandmcs.bsky.social always used to say, Brexiteers were good at politics but terrible at policy (while Remainers had the opposite problem). But the fact that unserious Davis & co could even be in government in the first place shows the decline of British politics and media since the 1990s.
aug 23, 2025, 1:04 pm • 17 4 • view
Social care workers should be paid more & Gov should invest in training of personnel in many fields but I doubt that would make a dent on the need for immigrants (there’s research on this by King’s College) also same happened in the 1950s. Btw, the immigration numbers are tiny!! No, it’s not high!
aug 23, 2025, 3:15 pm • 2 1 • view
Is it?
aug 23, 2025, 12:49 pm • 0 0 • view
The Bear is a bit broadbrush wrt stuff like energy and industry in the piece. Two things can be true at the same time, dontcha know. The tragedy is the homemade wealth was plundered just as the wealth of the empire was.
aug 23, 2025, 12:53 pm • 1 0 • view
At base, I reckon it's a fair point. But as to my point, the idea that there is an imperial alternative to Europe, or that the UK had ever stood alone, is the exceptionalist fantasy that has bred Brexit.
aug 23, 2025, 12:57 pm • 0 0 • view
The commonwealth gibberish always did my head in. All those lads and lasses who have a day off every year to celebrate booting us out. Yeah, they're gonna indulge that particular fantasy. The level of delusional thinking is really quite spectacular.
aug 23, 2025, 1:08 pm • 4 1 • view
I don’t know about everywhere, as there is no single system in Britain, but here in Scotland we have increased the number of medical students dramatically. I am now teaching almost double the number of students compared with 5 years ago and the increase is in home (ie Scottish) students. The utter
aug 24, 2025, 8:47 am • 10 3 • view
It doesn't have to be one or the other. But it's good to give kids a chance to become medical professionals.
aug 24, 2025, 9:54 am • 3 0 • view
It is. And we also have widening participation scheme to admit people from different backgrounds. Personally I have no problem with immigration, but I recognise the issue of taking too many individuals from countries that can’t replace them easily.
aug 24, 2025, 10:11 am • 5 1 • view
… mess is the over centralised government and its lack of reach beyond the South. One of the problems of using migrant nurses say, is that the country that trained them at vast cost loses them so easily.
aug 24, 2025, 8:47 am • 5 1 • view
Don't agree with you here Niall. Our asylum seekers processing system has all but virtually collapsed with the strain it's under. x.com/Independent_...
aug 23, 2025, 2:00 pm • 1 0 • view
That's a different thing. The processing is working very well.
aug 23, 2025, 2:37 pm • 0 0 • view
How so ?.
aug 24, 2025, 12:50 am • 0 0 • view
Pretty sure Bear is a she, not a he…
aug 23, 2025, 9:05 pm • 2 0 • view
Feck. Is that the case, @bearlypolitics.co.uk ?
aug 23, 2025, 9:55 pm • 1 0 • view
Nope - very much a he-bear. 🐻
aug 23, 2025, 9:58 pm • 3 0 • view
Oops. Apologies, my bad. Was sure I’d read otherwise on your substack. ☹️
aug 23, 2025, 10:21 pm • 2 0 • view
Excellent article and your commentary is a great bonus. Thanks Niall.
aug 23, 2025, 6:31 pm • 2 0 • view
Cheers Austen
aug 23, 2025, 7:15 pm • 2 0 • view
True, we never were but oddly, I think if we fully implement all the governments plans to electrify Britain and modernise energy production and distribution, we could actually be independent, the hard bit is dragging the the anti's kicking and screaming into something they don't understand.
aug 23, 2025, 8:46 pm • 2 0 • view
I don’t disagree with anything in the article. What’s happening now is a cynical attack on democracy as part of the most recent iteration of neoliberalism. To exploit Europe requires the same divisions as US. Stopping American money in politics is a necessary defense of democracy.
aug 23, 2025, 12:56 pm • 9 1 • view
An excellent article. The truth is that the UK always has been, is, and will continue to be competing for immigrants to fill the gaps in our workforce. Better to admit this and manage the situation transparently rather than bury our heads in the sand.
aug 23, 2025, 2:13 pm • 11 1 • view
Agreed. This honesty is missing from all our politics
aug 23, 2025, 2:47 pm • 3 0 • view
Not uncomfortable reading at all. We may differ on a few details, but the main thrust is the kind of thing I've been saying for decades. The uncomfortable part is the failure to deliver.
aug 23, 2025, 7:49 pm • 7 2 • view
Good stuff
aug 23, 2025, 7:59 pm • 1 0 • view
One of the key arguments in the piece is that employers should 'fix the pay'. Why would they do that when large scale unmanaged immigration (FOM + post 2020) allowed large numbers of lower cost workers into the country. Now, for the first time in years, 'real' wages are increasing in the UK 🤔
aug 24, 2025, 6:27 am • 0 0 • view
The whole world idea of the nation state is fundamentally dishonest. States based on mythologised culture that cannot feed or defend themselves are artificial. That is why the EU is actually not a threat to its member nation states but necessary for their perpetuation.
aug 23, 2025, 1:15 pm • 22 3 • view
Excellent and interesting point.
aug 23, 2025, 1:20 pm • 2 0 • view
The physical things like food security and defence are absolute and cannot be overcome by opinion. The cultural basis for a nation state is partly real but partly artificially cultivated and far removed from people‘s real daily behaviour.
aug 23, 2025, 1:28 pm • 2 0 • view
The nation state comes only from wanting it and then organising its existence, which involves doing so collectively with other states to overcome the physical constraints.
aug 23, 2025, 1:30 pm • 3 0 • view
If you wanted to design states that could afford an insular mentality, you would have to ignore cultural boundaries to give them enough agricultural land, a large enough population for defence and easily defensible borders.
aug 23, 2025, 1:38 pm • 2 0 • view
And supplies within their geographic footprint of all necessary raw materials…
aug 23, 2025, 7:28 pm • 2 0 • view
great point. Ireland & UK joined the EEC at the same time but went on very different journeys. Ireland discovered a 21st century notion of nationhood that is not rooted in borders, customs or currency.
aug 24, 2025, 10:10 am • 1 0 • view
Irelands heading for trouble too. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Du...
aug 24, 2025, 10:42 am • 1 0 • view
Those people will never be placated. You need a scheme that fulfils needs and suits society, not racists.
aug 24, 2025, 12:44 pm • 2 0 • view
Same tactics the brexity types but Irish voters didn't bite. despite müsks best efforts to promote them.
aug 24, 2025, 5:06 pm • 0 0 • view
Not yet. Meloni, Farage, AFD leading in polls. RN in France….
aug 24, 2025, 5:11 pm • 1 0 • view
Staat vigilant
aug 24, 2025, 7:20 pm • 0 0 • view
« That is why the EU is actually not a threat to its member nation states but necessary for their perpetuation. » Yep. But in a very different form. EU citizenship is already essential, as Brexit has demonstrated. In Europe, the Nation-State as we knew it, is only a memory.⬇️
aug 24, 2025, 7:12 am • 7 1 • view
➡️ I guess that the deeply changing today’s period (war in Europe, climate change, hyperinnovation) will make us more and more European. However, we are still a long way from the finish line.⤴️
aug 24, 2025, 7:12 am • 5 0 • view
Very good article & associated thread. A total 'agree' on all of it.
aug 23, 2025, 2:02 pm • 4 1 • view
Good afternoon Niall. Yes, it is a good article. Have reposted.
aug 23, 2025, 12:50 pm • 2 0 • view
What! No plucky blitz spirit?
aug 24, 2025, 6:17 am • 3 1 • view
Thank you for your very thorough analysis and feedback.
aug 23, 2025, 8:26 pm • 4 0 • view
this part is very weak tho, immigrants don't cause those problems, indeed wo them they'd be worse, and people are wrong to attribute their upset at rapid change in their communities to then, it's inherent to capitalism, everything is changing all the time with or without immigrants
aug 23, 2025, 3:02 pm • 4 0 • view
The point is if you don't build enough houses, schools and other premises, you end up with shortages, and problems. That's not the migrants', fault, but the government's
aug 23, 2025, 3:08 pm • 6 0 • view
ofc I agree but he doesn't seem to be saying that.
aug 23, 2025, 3:09 pm • 2 0 • view
This is like the “secret alien visitors built the pyramids” fantasy (it was humans); the problem is 🤬 capitalism and the profit motive, witness the current 🇬🇧 water industry for example…
aug 23, 2025, 7:32 pm • 1 0 • view