UK Politics Thread

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Re: UK Politics Thread

Postby cmsellers » Sat Feb 18, 2017 4:00 am

So Tony Blair is trying to create a mass movement against Brexit. While I agree with his goals (I've argued before that the British parliament is under no obligation to respect a non-binding referendum and in fact should not), Tony Blair, really? If there's a second referendum do you really want Tony Blair leading the Remain side?
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Re: UK Politics Thread

Postby Marcuse » Sat Feb 18, 2017 2:45 pm

cmsellers wrote:So Tony Blair is trying to create a mass movement against Brexit. While I agree with his goals (I've argued before that the British parliament is under no obligation to respect a non-binding referendum and in fact should not), Tony Blair, really? If there's a second referendum do you really want Tony Blair leading the Remain side?


It's a publicity stunt. Teresa May is aiming to invoke article 50 by the end of next month (March 2017), so unless he can do the reverse work UKIP took a couple of decades to achieve in the space of a month and a half, then Brexit is currently irreversible. It would be one thing if he was arguing for the terms of Brexit, another for him to say that the public can "change their minds" and just not do it at all because as far as I can see, that's not going to happen. Even Kier Starmer said his comments were "unhelpful", and he's the Labour Shadow Brexit Secretary.
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Re: UK Politics Thread

Postby Anglerphobe » Fri Feb 24, 2017 8:52 pm

It's been a bit of a day. The double by-election night of Copeland and Stoke-on-Trent central resulted in a rather remarkable Tory victory in the former and a rather unremarkable Labour victory in the latter. Both seats have been considered Labour's safe territory for decades (which include the previous dire patch of unelectable Labour parties) and the loss of an Opposition seat to a Governing Party in a by-election is an exceptionally rare event. This was the first in decades.

Labour are in a fairly abject condition at the moment. Bafflingly, it is still being hailed as a sort of partial victory by Jeremy Corbyn and his devotees that Stoke held out against the challenge of UKIP leader Paul Nuttall despite the fact that their majority declined compared to previous elections in constituency and, of course, that they lost elsewhere. I will note here, for posterity, that Corbyn remains adamant that his leadership is not the reason for Labour's dismal performance of late and has implied no change of Party direction. Most other Labour figures seem to be refusing to pass comment yet.

The election of Trudy Harrison in the Copeland by-election has been hailed by quite a few people (including Theresa May) as a triumph of May's Conservative government and its appeal to the working class, which I think it is not. I see it very much as a failure of Labour more than a triumph of the Tories. Copeland is an area which owes a fair chunk of its employment to the Sellafield plant, a nuclear site which provides some thousands of jobs in the area. Jeremy Corbyn has been publicly, and quite notoriously, opposed to the expansion of nuclear energy in the UK and thus to potential growth of the area's largest single employer. This alone seems like the chief reason for his Party's failure in the constituency. It was born of a catastrophe of Labour's appeal. Harrison and the Tories have simply stolen a dropped ball.
All in all, a very handsome set of results for Theresa May. Labour continue to spiral and UKIP have faltered before one of the seats they expected a decent chance of stealing.
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Re: UK Politics Thread

Postby Krashlia » Sat Feb 25, 2017 5:59 pm

...geez that sounds familiar.
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Re: UK Politics Thread

Postby cmsellers » Sun Mar 05, 2017 11:01 pm

So Northern Ireland just held a historic election. Confusingly, the number of MPs was reduced, leading to no party gaining seats, however the party that did best relative to the last election is Sinn Fein. Nationalists don't have a majority due to the seats held by the nonsectarian Alliance (8), Green(2), and Trotskyite(1) parties, but for the first time the unionists don't hold a majority.

As someone who isn't from the British Isles, the exciting thing about this is that the socially-conservative Democratic Unionist Party has only 28 seats. The DUP had previously used a rule designed to protect minority political interests in order to block marriage equality (something I've long found infuriating), however it takes 30 MPs to use. A socially conservative splinter party holds one seat, however the remaining seats (except the Troskyite one which doesn't care about social issues) are all held by socially liberal parties. Some of them have socially conservative members judging by the fact that votes on marriage equality have consistently had more "No" votes than the DUP has MPs, however it appears that none of them have signed onto the DUP petitions of concern against marriage equality previously. I'm not sure why that is, but if it's because of beliefs about procedure or lobbying from their parties, marriage equality may come at last to Northern Ireland.
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Re: UK Politics Thread

Postby gisambards » Mon Mar 06, 2017 12:04 am

In order to prove what a great guy he is, Jeremy Corbyn has released his tax returns:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39175570
However, around £37,000 appears to have been omitted from the document. Incompetent attempt to be honest, or incompetent attempt to lie? It's anyone's guess.
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Re: UK Politics Thread

Postby Marcuse » Mon Mar 06, 2017 9:16 pm

gisambards wrote:In order to prove what a great guy he is, Jeremy Corbyn has released his tax returns:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39175570
However, around £37,000 appears to have been omitted from the document. Incompetent attempt to be honest, or incompetent attempt to lie? It's anyone's guess.


From what I heard, this amount was the amount he got for being leader of the opposition, which has been obscurely entered as a benefit. He's mainly just incompetent in general, but I don't think he's being deliberately dishonest here. The media did kinda pounce on it a little too fast if it was included in the report but not in the place one might expect it.

CMSellers wrote:As someone who isn't from the British Isles, the exciting thing about this is that the socially-conservative Democratic Unionist Party has only 28 seats.


They have three weeks to form a coherent government that represents both the unionist and republican communities, or power reverts to Westminster. The last time that happened it took five years for it to return, so I think they have bigger issues to resolve right now than who can promote a social progressive agenda.
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Re: UK Politics Thread

Postby gisambards » Mon Mar 06, 2017 9:29 pm

Marcuse wrote:From what I heard, this amount was the amount he got for being leader of the opposition, which has been obscurely entered as a benefit. He's mainly just incompetent in general, but I don't think he's being deliberately dishonest here. The media did kinda pounce on it a little too fast if it was included in the report but not in the place one might expect it.

I can't help but wonder if there's a little cynicism to it though, given that he has been criticised in the past for describing himself as 'not wealthy' while having such a large salary. The leaders' salary should be in the salary section of the document, not the pensions and benefits - and it seems highly unlikely to me that an accountancy firm would of its own volition divide his salary up and put part of it in a different section - and so while the money isn't missing and I certainly doubt he's dodging taxes, I think it was deliberately moved out of the salary section just to make it look like his salary's smaller than it is.
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Re: UK Politics Thread

Postby Marcuse » Mon Mar 06, 2017 11:59 pm

Absolutely, though that's not really more than I expect for a politician. I would have been more receptive to a story in the media about Corbyn burying part of his income to seem poorer because that really shows his attitude towards economics. He wants to be poor because he thinks it makes him more moral, and that's really a toxic approach to have if you're trying to be in control of the economy of the entire country.
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Re: UK Politics Thread

Postby CarrieVS » Mon Mar 13, 2017 2:43 pm

Clearly we need a referendum on whether to have a referendum.

Nicola Sturgeon confirms she's going to ask for a Scottish Independence referendum. Again. It's not known whether it will be allowed but apparently a 'spokesperson' has said that "a majority of people in Scotland do not want a second independence referendum".
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Re: UK Politics Thread

Postby gisambards » Mon Mar 13, 2017 11:37 pm

Green light on Brexit:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39262081
The legislature has finally given its go ahead, and so the government can now trigger Article 50. Personally, I think this is probably for the best. I am still opposed to Brexit, but if it's happening I'd rather it was done efficiently and with as little hassle as possible. The Houses wouldn't have been able to stop it, so all the back-and-forth was just pointlessly delaying the inevitable.
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Re: UK Politics Thread

Postby CarrieVS » Thu Mar 16, 2017 4:58 pm

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Re: UK Politics Thread

Postby cmsellers » Thu Mar 16, 2017 5:08 pm

CarrieVS wrote:Indyref2 is rejected. Thankfully.

Not rejected, just delayed until after Brexit is finalized.

I find this quote interesting, by the way.

Theresa May wrote:It would be unfair to the people of Scotland that they would be being asked to make a crucial decision without the information they need to make that decision.

Wasn't that exactly what happened with Brexit?

I assume this means there will be a second referendum on Brexit when the final details become known?

Theresa, May I?
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Re: UK Politics Thread

Postby gisambards » Thu Mar 16, 2017 5:55 pm

cmsellers wrote:I find this quote interesting, by the way.

Theresa May wrote:It would be unfair to the people of Scotland that they would be being asked to make a crucial decision without the information they need to make that decision.

Wasn't that exactly what happened with Brexit?

I assume this means there will be a second referendum on Brexit when the final details become known?


Final details of what? It's simply incorrect to say that the British people did not have the information required to make the decision whether or not to leave the EU, which is all the referendum was asking.
Whereas if Indyref2 were to happen now, it would be almost impossible for the Scottish to predict the benefits of leaving or remaining part of the UK, because they have no way of knowing how the Brexit negotiations will turn out. When we voted on the EU, we knew what the situation with the EU was. Scotland right now don't know what the situation with Britain is going to be.
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Re: UK Politics Thread

Postby cmsellers » Thu Mar 16, 2017 6:07 pm

gisambards wrote:Final details of what? It's simply incorrect to say that the British people did not have the information required to make the decision whether or not to leave the EU, which is all the referendum was asking.

Well, they didn't. The "Leave" side promised a lot of things which they won't be able to deliver on. When Ms. May is done her negotiations, we'll know exactly which ones they are.
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