Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing schizophrenic immigration policy. Now I want to preface this by saying, the article I am going to quote goes to a very political place and while I will admit the channel has kind of skewed a little more political over the past roughly year, that isn't the thrust of this video, but political concerns can bleed over into policy and that's the reason for the video. I think once you get to the conclusion you will understand where I am coming from. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Rift grows amid reshuffle talk. Quoting directly: "Any Coalition Party dissatisfied with being in government should consider stepping down and joining the opposition, said Anusorn Iamsa-ard, a Phue Thai Party list MP. His comment followed remarks on Friday by Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul who also leads Bhumjaithai, the second largest Coalition Party. He said he was ready to join the opposition if the Bhumjaithai Party is removed from overseeing the Interior Ministry." Mr. Anutin earlier indicated that control over the Interior portfolio was part of the agreement underpinning Bhumjaithai’s participation in the Pheu Thai-led coalition government. However, Mr. Anutin said he remains confident he will retain the Interior Ministry post.” Yeah and I don't think he is being falsely confident or anything there. One, I think as I discussed in other videos, I think the Press has gotten a hold, we are in low season right now. There is not a lot really; this government survived the no confidence, or you can say the Prime Minister herself survived the no confidence vote. In my mind, the coalition government survived the no confidence vote. I don't know why there seems to be this sort of impetus or desire on certain people's parts or in the press to start picking apart the Coalition. I don't think it is doing anybody any good and frankly it makes the most sense for stability and it is in line with I think what a broad cross-section of the Thai people primarily want. I am not saying it's everybody's first choice but in this Parliament as it is now set up, these Coalition Governments are oftentimes everybody's second or third choice but the Coalition Parties are able to affect policy and get things done that at the end of the day kind of culminates in something that everybody can, there is kind of almost a general consensus that okay, we can all agree with this, we can all live with this type of thing. Now there are some that don't want to operate under that rubric, but I don't see how they are going to do otherwise, because of just the nature of the Parliament as it is right now. I mean this Coalition Government to my mind is currently the natural coalition you are going to come up with because I don't see how anything fits together otherwise.

Now I've been surprised before and politics makes strange bed fellows and my gosh Thai politics, that is strange bed fellows. You are talking about beds in weird sizes and shapes and forms. So I could maybe see a shake up, but I think it is unlikely. But the point more to the video is, would shaking everything up at the Interior Ministry be a great idea right now? Because as we discussed in other videos that I am making or have made contemporaneously with this one, for example the DTV Visa got rolled out and it was entirely in brainchild of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The results of which is it has been the weirdest thing I have ever seen in Thai Immigration. And one of the major sticking points presently is there is all kinds of banking problems associated with it - which I have gotten into in other videos - and now there are all kinds of issues with banking associated with anyone who is not on a standard non-Immigrant Visa. Well again this is a byproduct of the fact that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs created a Visa on their own which I guess in a sense they can do, but then they are not in charge of administering Immigration locally. Now you could say that, "oh well, this is an argument in favour of why everybody should be in lock step, but no, actually in point of fact, it was a bad idea in the first place for any one agency to simply come up with a new visa on their own without coming to a consensus. Again if anything and I voiced my personal if you will affinity, I don’t mean that in a personal sense, but sort of political affinity for Mr. Anutin, mostly I like him because he tends to be right of centrist and he tends to be on sort of the side of stability and whatever, is pragmatic and he can get everybody down the road and something everybody can live with, something that hopefully benefits, maximal benefit kind of, he is kind of a utilitarian in a way; what benefits the most amount of people hurts the least amount and everybody can live with. And frankly, that has been the one slightly bright spot in all of Thai Immigration jurisprudence if you will or policy if you will, for roughly the past 2 years because it has been a rocky up and down. And I'm here to tell you, I have watched this closely and it has had a tremendous impact on me: the back and forth, these visas work, these don’t work. We didn't have any of that for like 5 years. Now again, you can say what you will about the military government, it was what it was, but we had stability in terms of policy and then even after that under Anutin in the Interior at least within Thailand, we had some levels of stability with regard to policy on immigration at least internally. Then the other Coalition Party started coming along with all these new ideas and coming up with this, that and the other thing, but it didn't for one thing take into account the system as it is. It just sort of came up with an entirely new idea without looking at, “is it fit to purpose, will it work?” - I'm thinking of the LTR Visa too. People ask us about that all the time and in many cases, people think they are eligible for it because the government has presented it in such a way that it looks like many people are eligible for it, they get very frustrated when it turns out they're not really eligible for it. Then aspects of the tax regime associated with it, which look one way and then as a practical matter as I have told many people likely will be applied in a very different manner than people think it will be, all of this stuff leads to consternation. It leads to confusion especially amongst the expat and the perspective tourist or investor or so-called “digital nomad” public who look at all this stuff and scratch their head or pull their hair completely out, because everything's running in a million different directions and the thing that I keep noticing is most of this trend has occurred since we've seen this new government. And say what you will about Mr. Anutin, he is a through-line back to before this new government and he has continued to kind of have a stable outlook on how things should be applied. So is this the right time to have more chaos in the immigration system especially as right now, and moving through the next roughly 60 days, is when people decide to travel to Thailand and having a bunch of reports out there about people having all kinds of problems and headaches and hassles associated with Thai Immigration, is that the best thing for Thailand at the time when people are booking their high season flights and possible trips here?

My personal opinion is I don't think it is. Now to be clear I'm not leveling criticism directly at the other Coalition parties, party or parties, even the Prime Minister. I do think this is more being stirred up sort of on the sidelines especially among the press. I think personally the Coalition itself looks to be rather stable, at least Mr. Anutin and Ms. Paetongtarn seem to be able to get along pretty well politically. From where I sit, they really do. It looks like other people who are trying to stir up this consternation but wherever the consternation is coming from, its effect is it could have a tremendously detrimental impact on Thailand.