British Politics Guide

[Raphael]

If Labour voters are, on average, a bigger majority in cities than Tory voters are in the countryside, then no gerrymandering is needed to disadvantage Labour. We can see this if we use a really simplified model:

Suppose there are only 120,000 voters in the UK, and they all vote either Labour or Tories, and live in just 2 House of Commons constituencies, Highrisingham and Cowsheepshire. Highrisingham is a town with 50,000 Labour voters and 10,000 Tory voters, and Cowsheepshire is a patch of countryside with 40,000 Tory voters and 20,000 Labour voters. See? Although, in this model, the country as a whole has 70,000 Labour voters and only 50,000 Tory voters, each party gets one seat. I guess something like that might be part of the explanation.

[Moose-tache]

This is a well-known phenomenon, but it alone does not explain the situation. When the Wisconsin state government redrew their districts in 2011, they gerrymandered the hell out of it to disadvantage liberal voters. They blamed it on this geographic gerrymandering that liberal voters do to themselves. So the NYT did thousands of computer simulations with randomized but valid districts, and could not replicate the level of asymmetry achieved by the state's districting plan, more-or-less proving that it was deliberate.

In the UK, the Tories benefit from geographic self-gerrymandering, but not enough to win a majority with just over a third of the votes as they've done in the past. Travesties like that usually arise form the spoiler effect. This is one reason why the Conservative Party was so vehemently against proportional representation in 2011. Until UKIP, the spoiler effect mostly affected liberals, moderates, and filthy Celts.

[Raphael]

No disagreement there, Moose-tache.

[Frislander]

The thing is though I would like to specifically caution that we can't make any definitive statements that this is indeed the case until someone does an actual comprehensive survey/one of us finds such a survey.

[mèþru]

I just found out about a high court decision that harms trans teens. I wonder how legally binding a ruling against the NHS by a court is?

[dewrad]

I just found out about a high court decision that harms trans teens. I wonder how legally binding a ruling against the NHS by a court is?

It’s a High Court decision, not an opinion handed down by a part-time volunteer magistrate somewhere im Nowhereshire. It’s about as legally binding as you can get short of statute.

[mèþru]

I'm just not familiar with how the justice system in UK works. I've never heard of a high court before.

That's pretty bad news for any teen who is trans or questioning.

[Moose-tache]

For the curious: this decision forbids the NHS from providing puberty-blocking drugs to under-16s.

On the one hand, there probably is a cut-and-dry legal answer to whether or not minors can consent to medication that may have some long-term consequences (the idea of puberty blockers is that they are mostly reversible: once you stop taking them puberty resumes, but it's not clear that there are no consequences). On the other hand, the case seems to have revolved around the emotional consequences of transitioning. A woman who gave testimony said she was "heartbroken" when she realized as an adult that she had made decisions she was not emotionally prepared to make, and had to detransition as an adult. I'm not sure how this stacks up the the "heartbreak" of trans teens who do want to transition and are unable to do so until after puberty, but no doubt others can shed more light on this than I.

Here in the US, transitioning as a minor usually involves extensive psychological screening, and I hope that the medical professionals doing this work can tell the difference between a trans teen and a confused one. I imagine the NHS would have at least as much oversight as the US, so I wonder: are these psychiatrists doing their job reliably? And if so, how serious is the threat of regretting transition later in life? When the likelihood of regret is deemed to be low, we routinely perform irreversible surgery on minors.

[mèþru]

Note: as I am non-binary I am super super biased against all the people who hate me or consider getting rid of things that help people like me acceptable losses

The only reliable diagnosis for a person to be a trans is pretty much themselves thinking that they are. Psychiatrists mainly rely on self-perception. Some people try to gatekeep transness, saying that you must be dysphoric or confirm to gender stereotypes. These positions are controversial within the trans community (bit of an understatement really). The second is not accepted by those who also accept non-binary folk. While definitely many people have self-identified as trans and later in life feel they are actually cisgender, this is rare. Also some detransitioners are in fact only pretending as a means of going back into the closet. Some countries in Europe, such as Sweden, require someone to "prove" transness to qualify for surgery, but there is no actual method so they require people to act out stereotypes, causing many trans people in Europe to seek surgery in the US.

The entire logic used in the court doesn't make sense because the puberty blocker does nothing except delay puberty for as long as prescribed. Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is essentially a manmade puberty. All of her arguments really apply to HRT, not the puberty blockers. Her problem was that she had the traumatic experience of experiencing the wrong puberty, an irreversible process, and now she has made the courts pledge that they will force the same experience on every trans teen because less than 1% of them may regret it.

[dewrad]

I'm just not familiar with how the justice system in UK works. I've never heard of a high court before.

That's pretty bad news for any teen who is trans or questioning.

That is, I suppose, a matter of opinion. The actual judgement makes for some interesting reading. At its crux, the judgement is basically concerned with the treatment of gender dysphoria and informed consent: it has nothing to say about people who identify as trans and doesn't place any restrictions upon their existing rights. It's nothing really new in UK law- it essentially just confirms again the Gillick test, which has been good law since the 1985 leading decision.

[mèþru]

It places a restriction on their previous right not to go through a traumatic, irreversible puberty of a gender they don't identify with that they will have to live with the rest of their life.

I don't see how it can be a mere matter of opinion unless if one is willing to consider that only cis people's gender identity is valid before turning 18. Which basically is saying either the jury is still out on whether trans people should be considered equals or that the jury is in and the answer is no.

[dewrad]

It places a restriction on their previous right not to go through a traumatic, irreversible puberty of a gender they don't identify with that they will have to live with the rest of their life.

I haven't made myself clear, I'm afraid. When I say "[it] doesn't place any restrictions upon their existing rights", I'm only talking in a legal sense. The "right not to go through a traumatic, irreversible puberty of a gender they don't identify with that they will have to live with the rest of their life" does not and has not ever existed in UK law.

Equally, one could say that the judgement protects children from undergoing irreversible medically-induced bodily changes leading to severe iatrogenic conditions later in life. Does the "right" of a trans child to not undergo the puberty of their biological sex trump the "right" of a mentally ill child who mistakenly self-identifies as trans to not undergo a medical intervention the long-term effects of which are not yet understood? And, indeed, vice versa? If we had 100% confidence that puberty blockers were 100% reversible (which we don't, there aren't enough longitudinal studies supporting this), then there would be little conflict here.

It is worth pointing out that the judgement, as linked in my previous post, does not impose a blanket prohibition on administering puberty blockers to children under 16 for the treatment of gender dysphoria. I quote para 151 of the ratio below, highlighting the relevant passages:

A child under 16 may only consent to the use of medication intended to suppress puberty where he or she is competent to understand the nature of the treatment. That includes an understanding of the immediate and long-term consequences of the treatment, the limited evidence available as to its efficacy or purpose, the fact that the vast majority of patients proceed to the use of cross-sex hormones, and its potential life changing consequences for a child. There will be enormous difficulties in a child under 16 understanding and weighing up this information and deciding whether to consent to the use of puberty blocking medication. It is highly unlikely that a child aged 13 or under would be competent to give consent to the administration of puberty blockers. It is doubtful that a child aged 14 or 15 could understand and weigh the long-term risks and consequences of the administration of puberty blockers."

The judgement basically states that in order to be prescribed puberty blockers, a child must be Gillick competent, which is already established law. Gillick competence is not presumed (unlike mental capacity in UK law), it needs to be established.

I don't see how it can be a mere matter of opinion unless if one is willing to consider that only cis people's gender identity is valid before turning 18. Which basically is saying either the jury is still out on whether trans people should be considered equals or that the jury is in and the answer is no.

I'll be honest with you, I'm not really willing to engage in this particular line further. Not my circus, not my monkeys. I work as a paralegal currently (in a totally different field, however!), and I've become a bit of a legal nerd. The judgement interests me, that's all: I don't have a dog in this fight.

[Raphael]

So it looks like they have some kind of deal.

[Raphael]

The States Assembly of Guernsey voted for the Brexit Deal:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-guernsey-55462160

I wonder what happens if Sark votes against it.

[Raphael]

This Brexit thing seems to be working out just fine:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56017419

[Linguoboy]

This Brexit thing seems to be working out just fine:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56017419

I think you're being sarcastic, but honestly that is kind of my takeaway from that article: Yeah, they lost some trading and some jobs, but they expect to have an agreement with Brussels before long and meanwhile they're seeking new opportunities elsewhere but they don't expect to realise the benefits of that overnight. It's rocky, but not catastrophic.

[Frislander]

This Brexit thing seems to be working out just fine:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56017419

I think you're being sarcastic, but honestly that is kind of my takeaway from that article: Yeah, they lost some trading and some jobs, but they expect to have an agreement with Brussels before long and meanwhile they're seeking new opportunities elsewhere but they don't expect to realise the benefits of that overnight. It's rocky, but not catastrophic.

Well, being real here it's only turning out not catastrophic if you're not involved in exporting anything to the EU, or you don't live in Northern Ireland.

Also in principle this is a problem for the Brexiteer movement anyway, because they promised that things would be much better than they were once Brexit was done, no problems whatsoever! "Our economy has shrunk but it hasn't shrunk as much as it could have" is not a validation of those promises.

Meanwhile in other news the media in this country has gone as bananas as we knew it would when Prince Philip shuffled off this mortal coil. I'm of course rather frustrated by this, not so much because I don't feel any sympathy with the royal family at all at this time (because on a human level losing a loved one is sad in any case), but largely because the media (especially the BBC) is kinda terrible at covering Royal affairs, they'll allot 4 hours in the afternoon/evening on BBC2 plus extend the national evening news to a full hour as well on BBC1 and talk about nowt but Prince Philip on it but that doesn't mean they have 4 hours of material, and royal correspondents like Nicholas Witchell are kinda infuriating in how little they often have to go on and how they often end up just repeating general points which had been in the public domain for ages (and royal correspondents are at the good end of the spectrum, the BBC doesn't generally go in for the sort of hacks that go "I met Princess Anne when she visited my local school/hospital/stables/etc. and that makes me an expert on all matters royal"). Also I know there will be people who are even less enamoured by the royals than me who will only be left hating the royal family and by extension "mainstream media" even more as a result, only further deepening the rifts already extant in the British political landscape.

[Linguoboy]

This Brexit thing seems to be working out just fine:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56017419

I think you're being sarcastic, but honestly that is kind of my takeaway from that article: Yeah, they lost some trading and some jobs, but they expect to have an agreement with Brussels before long and meanwhile they're seeking new opportunities elsewhere but they don't expect to realise the benefits of that overnight. It's rocky, but not catastrophic.

Well, being real here it's only turning out not catastrophic if you're not involved in exporting anything to the EU, or you don't live in Northern Ireland.

When I wrote that I wasn’t referring to all of Brexit but only to the points covered in that article, which don’t include exporting or Northern Ireland. Concerning the latter, it’s only within the last week that violence has reerupted. Two months ago I was still guardedly hopeful this wouldn’t happen.

Also in principle this is a problem for the Brexiteer movement anyway, because they promised that things would be much better than they were once Brexit was done, no problems whatsoever! "Our economy has shrunk but it hasn't shrunk as much as it could have" is not a validation of those promises.

Is it though? Brexit is a fait accompli. Is there really even a “Brexiteer movement” as such any more? If so, what exactly is their political programme and how does Brexit not being a smashing success in the midst of a global pandemic (while also not being the catastrophic failure many Leaviteers predicted) derail it?

[Frislander]

I think you're being sarcastic, but honestly that is kind of my takeaway from that article: Yeah, they lost some trading and some jobs, but they expect to have an agreement with Brussels before long and meanwhile they're seeking new opportunities elsewhere but they don't expect to realise the benefits of that overnight. It's rocky, but not catastrophic.

Well, being real here it's only turning out not catastrophic if you're not involved in exporting anything to the EU, or you don't live in Northern Ireland.

When I wrote that I wasn’t referring to all of Brexit but only to the points covered in that article, which don’t include exporting or Northern Ireland. Concerning the latter, it’s only within the last week that violence has reerupted. Two months ago I was still guardedly hopeful this wouldn’t happen.

Fair, though it's not like the Remain side

Also in principle this is a problem for the Brexiteer movement anyway, because they promised that things would be much better than they were once Brexit was done, no problems whatsoever! "Our economy has shrunk but it hasn't shrunk as much as it could have" is not a validation of those promises.

Is it though? Brexit is a fait accompli. Is there really even a “Brexiteer movement” as such any more? If so, what exactly is their political programme and how does Brexit not being a smashing success in the midst of a global pandemic (while also not being the catastrophic failure many Leaviteers predicted) derail it?

The Brexiteer movement very much still exists - it's just they've shifted gears to claiming that the problems of Brexit are due to unique impositions by the EU out of spite (instead of the automatic applications of standard rules towards third countries that we helped write when we were a member). It's a diffuse movement sure by this point, but it's very much around.

[Vijay]

Meanwhile in other news the media in this country has gone as bananas as we knew it would when Prince Philip shuffled off this mortal coil.

I've heard this resulted in a lot of complaints from people in Britain. Is that true?