British Politics Guide

[Kuchigakatai]

I haven't bothered reading this thread in like a month, but I came across this:

https://youtu.be/X_G-FBSf1UI
"Boris Johnson is a lying shit" - Fugue

A surprisingly nice-sounding diss track. Yes, it sounds like the kind of fugue work people like Bach used to write...

[KathTheDragon]

This is absolutely hilarious.

[Frislander]

I remember my dad showing this to me before the election (because we move in the kinds of musical circles where this stuff spreads like hotcakes), oh happy times were they.

[alice]

Regarding Scottish independence: the political case is clear and unarguable, the economic case less so; although once we're dragged out of the EU against our will the economic case for staying in the UK will get much weaker, as Zompist explained very well. Events in Northern Ireland will doubtless have some influence too if the Unionist position weakens. As much as it would like to, the Government can't just ignore these things and hope they'll go away, and it's setting things up for a very large bite on the backside.

[chris_notts]

Another crucial question is exactly what happens with citizenship. Presumably long-term residents of Scotland would gain new Scottish citizenship, but would they have a residual claim to UK citizenship? Speaking as someone who'd be in what's left of the UK, I would deeply resent any non-reciprocal arrangement. That is, if Scottish citizens can also claim UK citizenship, then British citizens should be able to claim Scottish citizenship. And if Scottish citizens can freely work and travel in the UK, then UK citizens must be free to work and travel in Scotland. An arrangement similar to the existing CTA with Ireland would be fine, but if Scotland doesn't want that then any restrictions imposed by Scotland should be mirrored by the UK, and similarly for the right to dual citizenship.

Anything else would mean that Scottish citizens were claiming for themselves some kind of privileged status - turning Scotland into a private preserve for themselves while retaining unfair access to the country they'd left.

[Richard W]

Another crucial question is exactly what happens with citizenship.

According to the Scottish government, all British citizens born in Scotland and all British citizens habitually resident in Scotland would automatically be considered Scottish in the event of independence, whilst anyone with a Scottish parent or grandparent or who had lived in Scotland for 10 years and had ongoing connection to Scotland would be able to apply for citizenship.

(source: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/ar ... n-scottish)

I would expect that birth in Scotland would no more be a partial qualification for English citizenship than birth in Dublin (in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland), while having a parent born in England would (continue to) be a partial qualification for English citizenship. I strongly suspect that a certificate of naturalisation or registration as British would have to be accompanied by evidence of non-residence in Scotland to provide evidence of being an English citizen. (This is consonant with the Home Office policy of demanding with menaces that newly naturalised citizens surrender evidence that their children born British were born British.) I can imagine Scottish citizens resident in the rUK who had hitherto been British citizens would be granted indefinite leave to remain - they could then apply for naturalisation immediately. (There's plenty of scope for storing up trouble here.) That concession might even apply to those residents of England rendered stateless by the Scottish government.

[alice]

the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Just to clarify, do you mean:

"the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", which legally exists

or

"the United Kingdom of Great Britain, plus Ireland", neither part of which legally exists

or perhaps

"the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, plus the Republic of Ireland", both parts of which legally exist

?

[Richard W]

the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Just to clarify, do you mean:

"the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", which legally exists

or

"the United Kingdom of Great Britain, plus Ireland", neither part of which legally exists

or perhaps

"the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, plus the Republic of Ireland", both parts of which legally exist

?

No, I meant what I said, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, which existed from 1801 to 1921.

[Owain]

The first round of the Labour leadership and deputy leadership elections are over.
Leader:
Starmer 89
Long-Bailey 33
Nandy 31
Phillips 23
Thornberry 23
Lewis (OUT) 5

Deputy Leader:
Rayner 88
Murray 34
Butler 29
Allin-Khan 23
Burgon 22
Mahmood (OUT) 3

Mahmood withdrew a while back, Lewis earlier today. Thornberry, Butler, Allin-Khan, and Burgon all only hit the 22 MP/MEP nominations they needed to go forward today.

In the next round, people need to either get the support of 5% of constituency parties (33) or at least 3 affiliates representing at least 5% of the affiliate membership at least two of which must be trade unions.
In practice for the latter one big union is what matters - Unison has endorsed Starmer/Rayner, Unite will almost certainly go for Long-Bailey (reluctantly - they and the Chris Williamson type cranks tried to draft corrupt racist [not - or at least not just - anti-Semitism this time, he defended blackface] Ian Lavery and then former Blair minister Barry Gardiner to represent the true spirit of Corbyn's left-wing project) and Burgon, while GMB may go for Nandy and USDAW is likely to go for Starmer (for deputy, I think Murray might get USDAW but I have no real clue with GMB) - keen eyed observers will note there is little sign of the fact Long-Bailey and Rayner are running as a ticket in these so far.
Philips and Thornberry will need CLPs, as I suspect will Butler and Allin-Khan, and Nandy if she doesn't get the GMB.

[mèþru]

Reading about them, the only one I can say I like among those still running is Allin-Khan, although I didn't read much about her.

[Raphael]

...and they're out. Thoughts?

[chris_notts]

...and they're out. Thoughts?

The b*****s who completely ignored the opinions of not just the 48% who voted remain, but also some percentage of those who voted Leave but didn't want a hard break with Europe, are now calling again for unity and national healing by everyone capitulating to their vision for the future of the UK. My thoughts on this: I hope they all drown in their own vomit after spending the night celebrating Brexit.

[chris_notts]

This is good: https://chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.co ... mourn.html

[chris_notts]

Also this: http://gladstonediaries.blogspot.com/20 ... ge-of.html

[KathTheDragon]

the opinions of not just the 48% who voted remain, but also some percentage of those who voted Leave but didn't want a hard break with Europe

And also the nearly 50% of all Brits who did not or could not make their opinions known in the referendum. And speaking of, when did the referendum magically become legally binding?

[Darren]

the opinions of not just the 48% who voted remain, but also some percentage of those who voted Leave but didn't want a hard break with Europe

And also the nearly 50% of all Brits who did not or could not make their opinions known in the referendum. And speaking of, when did the referendum magically become legally binding?

How about the 52% who voted to leave? It might not be legally binding, but there's no point in having a referendum if it isn't used as the basis for action. A referendum is intended to find out the will of the people, which it did; and the government is supposed to act on the will of the people, which they have. Those who voted leave knew that there was a chance of a hard Brexit but they still chose to leave. Then Boris was elected by a clear majority with his clear policy of leaving the EU no matter what (although I admit a lot of people probably voted against Corbyn rather than for Boris, it's still a big majority). If a majority of people actively wanted to stay in the EU, they should have voted to. If, as the results suggest, they're a minority, that's just how democracy works. The people who were unable to vote are I suspect a very small minority and would be distributed in the way the rest of the population was.

[chris_notts]

the opinions of not just the 48% who voted remain, but also some percentage of those who voted Leave but didn't want a hard break with Europe

And also the nearly 50% of all Brits who did not or could not make their opinions known in the referendum. And speaking of, when did the referendum magically become legally binding?

How about the 52% who voted to leave? It might not be legally binding, but there's no point in having a referendum if it isn't used as the basis for action. A referendum is intended to find out the will of the people, which it did; and the government is supposed to act on the will of the people, which they have. Those who voted leave knew that there was a chance of a hard Brexit but they still chose to leave. Then Boris was elected by a clear majority with his clear policy of leaving the EU no matter what (although I admit a lot of people probably voted against Corbyn rather than for Boris, it's still a big majority). If a majority of people actively wanted to stay in the EU, they should have voted to. If, as the results suggest, they're a minority, that's just how democracy works. The people who were unable to vote are I suspect a very small minority and would be distributed in the way the rest of the population was.

The issue is what the 52% were voting for. They were voting against the status quo, that's clear, but what Boris seems intent on doing was not promised by any of the major Leave campaigners during the referendum, since it amounts to a very hard Brexit at the end of the transition period. And Boris' recent victory was 43.6% of the vote... and I'm not aware of any poll showing a majority in favour of the kind of hard break that Boris is pursuing.

The divisions in this country are primarily the fault of the hard Leavers, which is why it's so rich that they call for unity. One might have expected, given the narrowness of the result, that some form of "soft Leave" would be the sensible outcome. But instead what we got was an extreme agenda that no-one advocated during the referendum itself being pushed, and anyone advocating a softer course, or pointed out the challenges inherent in such an extreme course, being called a traitor, and vague threats of uprising if we didn't do everything that these "men of the people", sons of aristocrats and bankers, say we should do. It was the extremists on the Leave side who created this division, because they made it impossible for many people to "compromise" with them, since no compromise was offered and the demands became more and more extreme with post-hoc justifications and constant rewriting of history. They created a situation where the only choices were surrender or resist, and that's why we had deadlock for so long.

These are the kind of people we're dealing with, and why those of us on the other side won't just fall into line and accept that the lunatics are running the asylum:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... eu-loyalty

We're led by a cabal of Brexit McCarthyites and idiots who somehow regard the dying days of the British empire as a good place to return to, headed by a lying psychopathic racist. Rule Britannia.

[chris_notts]

The one good thing about the election result is that Boris can't blame the other side anymore. When he makes a mess of the whole thing, which he's already well on the way to doing, he'll have no-one else to blame but himself. No doubt he'll try to blame the EU as well for having the temerity to stand up for their own interests, but I still have hope that the majority won't fall for it.

What does scare me though is how the minority will react. My wife is an EU national so I've experienced first-hand how the xenophobic tribes of Brexit think it's acceptable to act now: my wife has had people literally stop and tell her to "go home" unprovoked on the street, for no reason, just because they heard her non-native accent. They don't care that she came here legally, that she's lived her for more than a decade, is married to a British person, or is the mother to a British citizen. They won, so now they get to abuse and attack foreigners as much as they like. And I am scared that when the promised uplands of Brexit turn out to be freezing to death on the slopes of Everest without shelter, that some of these people will go beyond just verbally abusing immigrants.

And even if he wanted to, how does a PM who calls Muslim women letterboxes and bank robbers and talks of black people with watermelon smiles have any moral authority to stand up to such people?

EDIT: I should say that I work in a very international business, and I know from colleagues that it's not just my wife. And it's not even just EU citizens I work with: the guy who sits next to me at work was born in the UK but is from an Arabic family, and he's seen a big uptick in racist abuse and threats since the referendum result as well. Apparently you're not British enough, even with a British passport, if you're brown and bearded.

[Moose-tache]

The one good thing about the election result is that Boris can't blame the other side anymore. When he makes a mess of the whole thing, which he's already well on the way to doing, he'll have no-one else to blame but himself. No doubt he'll try to blame the EU as well for having the temerity to stand up for their own interests, but I still have hope that the majority won't fall for it.

Have you... met England? The Tories could blame the ghost of Oliver Cromwell and get away with it, and as for "the majority falling for it," since when did the Conservatives need a majority to rule the country?
On a serious note, I fear you are right on the money about xenophobia. When Brexit inevitably doesn't turn out to be all pudding and no broccoli they will blame everyone but themselves, because they can't even comprehend that Brexit was a terrible idea. Immigrants (especially EU immigrants, but tellingly not exclusively EU immigrants) will be the most obvious target.

[alice]

Pertinent