British Politics Thread

You guys cut your nose to spite your face. Even here in Greece, the grand temple of bad decisions, we were not irrational enough to leave the EU.

EU citizens could face a policy of "deliberate hostility" should the UK government fail to get favorable treatment for its citizens in the EU.

Translation: "Threatening innocent people is the only leverage we have since we're fucking morons who didn't have an actual plan for Brexit! And we're firing and driving away all of the people who actually know how to negotiate worth shit!"

edited 17th Jan '17 11:17:49 AM by M84

Alternatively: you've spent seven years whittling away the ability of the government to do anything through your constant drive for austerity. And now you want us to perform the biggest political, economic and cultural shift since WWII?

Look over there: there's a whole flock of chickens arriving and they are looking for somewhere to roost.

Don't be fooled: Tory cuts have made it such that the ability of the government to fulfil even the basic functions is under threat. This so called hostile environment isn't a threat per se. It's not deliberate. It's a consequence of a political calculation forced in times of austerity.

Put it this way: You have finite and diminishing resources in the home office. You have two things you can choose to prioritise.

1. Try to help the thousands of EU citizens who are panicking about their status having not had to worry about that for the last thirty years. Sorting each one out requires individual attention and compassion.

2. Make sure there will be no passport backlog for the hundreds of thousands of British who need them renewed for their summer holidays this year. Most just need rubber stamping.

Failing to achieve number 1 amounts to several individual tragedies. Failing to achieve 2 will result in a political scandal as the press report on the thousands of Brits forced to cancel their holidays because of government incompetence. And that will almost certainly cost you your job and career.

The solution is sadly obvious - and one hostile environment is created.

Good grief. I honestly thought I couldn't be more contemptuous of the Tories, but they continue to surprise me. I have no doubt that Theresa May will join her predecessor as one of the worst Prime Ministers in UK history.

Almost two decades into this century, and they're trying for the record "largest string of consecutive, dismal failures". -_-

I really, really, really, really hope this won't go down as being up there with the South Sea Bubble for total lunacy in governance. >_< We're still paying for that cock-up; we can't afford another one!

edited 17th Jan '17 3:17:49 PM by Euodiachloris

Question Time is back on tomorrow... almost time to find out if the fucking mob is just as stupid as ever

If that really is the case, then it won't matter if the EU does cave. The UK is going to screw over the EU immigrants who are stuck in the UK no matter what.

As far as I am concerned, the number one reason why Brexit will be a disaster is because the politicians are flat out refusing to increase the size of the civil service.

Firstly it shows how much denial the government is currently in. They honestly seem to believe that negotiating Brexit can be done by a few bold and tough negotiators and it will all be done cleanly with the minimal of fuss. Two years? Pah! We can sort this little tiff in two months tops. It's from denial that negotiating tactics such as "have cake and eat it" and "walk in with gun to own head" come from.

Secondly it all but guarantees that Brexit will be a messy one. This is a forty year marriage that needs to be unwound. We are going to be finding bits of the EU stuck in our legal system for decades. There are going to be so many standards and regulations to take over and enforce. This can't be done without more resources. As it is, expect the UK to turn into the wild west as you can bet your bottom dollar that if there is a loophole in the law because some now missing EU legislation; then that loophole will be exploited.

I think May's speech was the most telling when she claimed that they had to leave the EU to leave the European Court of Justice, and that whatever deal is negotiated with the EU, it won't include returning to the ECJ.

When in charge of the Home Office, she made no secret about wanting human rights legislation torn up. It's been one of her missions. Other people might be obsessed with immigration, but my suspicion is that she's bounced onto that band wagon to obfuscate her primary goal of tearing up workers rights in this country.

May is the same woman who wants the right to lock up "terror suspects" indefinitely without a trial or any legal rights of any kind, with no evidence needed for such confinement. Just "suspicion" which could mean anything the given policeperson wants.

I've referred to her as a Stalinist ever since and that hasn't changed, nor will it. She is a monstrous totalitarian, and she terrifies me.

But guys, we might be panicking over nothing. At least we get our democracy back from those unelected Brussels bureaucrats right?

Like our head of state who gets to rule the country because she was born to the right family. And the 92 aristocrats who get to vote on legislation because they were born to the right families as well. Oh, and the 26 bishops who get to vote on legislation. You know, because God said that's ok I guess.

Then there's the remaining 689 (and rising every year) lords who are eligible to vote on legislation for the rest of their life because they were pals with one particular government once.

Then that leaves us with the good old Commons, currently controlled by people elected by about a third of the people who voted.

Yeah, who do those Europeans think they are, interfering with Great British democracy?

And then there's the fact it's apparently terrible when the British Courts use British Law to assert the sovereignty of the British Parliament.

And, worse, just to emphasise how crazy things are in the UK: that unelected, toff-riddled House of Lords is currently more in tune with, and protective of, the rights of ordinary people than the Tory ministers, leading to Cameron to kick off the process of de-powering the House of Lords solely so that the Lords could no longer act as a brake to the draconian and abusive legislation they were trying to ram through the system.

Remember, there is no point in reforming the House of Lords if it has first been reduced to a puppet show. The powers it has should be protected if reform to an elected upper chamber that acts as a check on the power of the Commons is the plan.

edited 18th Jan '17 5:05:31 PM by Wyldchyld

Yeah. The irony of Lords actually making the arguments I want them to over the last few years despite my hatred of how they're made up is not lost on me, I assure you :p

, Kind of reminds me of this:

And as for Theresa May...I wonder if someday she'll be referred to as "The PM who almost made us want David Cameron back".

I mean, here in the States, some people (me included) would gladly take another term or two of Dubya rather than Trump. Heck, some people (again me included) would gladly vote for Nixon over Trump if he came back from the dead and ran for office.

edited 18th Jan '17 6:16:12 PM by M84

Hell, she's already the PM that makes me want Cameron back. I miss the days when Cameron was the PM we were moaning about.

Cameron goes down as the worst PM since at least Eden because ultimately he was too weak to control his backbenchers, and then shat himself over a massively overstated risk he thought there was from UKIP to his vote share at the last election.

May will do everything in her power to eviscerate as many rights and protections for every demographic she possibly can in her tenure.

It's funny, five years ago I was one of the most anti-SNP folk you would have found. And here I am, a member of the party who regrets voting No in 2014 more than anything I can think of. How things change over the course of a year ^_^

edited 18th Jan '17 8:00:26 PM by Marlfox24

Is it actually true that the referendum in 2014 was manipulated (ie by people talking to the old people who went to the ballots and warning them that they would loose their pensions if they voted leave, as well as whole ballot boxes being discarded)? I have heard some Scots claim this, but I tend to be careful with rumors like this from the looser side.

edited 18th Jan '17 10:19:00 PM by Swanpride

While I know the Scottish independence referendum was a very serious matter, I can't help but find the Last Week Tonight segment covering it Actually Pretty Funny.

edited 18th Jan '17 10:31:47 PM by M84

There have been no serious reports of fraud so I think you were probably just hearing ramblings from Scottish ultranationalists who couldn't accept loosing.

I mean there's plenty to complain about when it comes to the promises made by the union side, but actual ballot stuffing and voter intimidation so the stuff of fantasy.

edited 18th Jan '17 10:35:27 PM by Silasw

The biggest lie of course was their slogan "Better Together". In the wake of the Brexit, it's just a bad joke.

edited 18th Jan '17 10:38:27 PM by M84

What's even more bitterly hilarious is that the British themselves helped draft that human rights charter. It was written after WW 2 and was just retroactively incorporated into the European Union.

The British are railing at the injustice of a legal framework they helped draft.

Just because it has 'European' in it.

Ugh, that reminds me way too much of the GOP's hatred of "Obamacare" aka the ACA. Which was based on a healthcare plan that Mitt Romney pushed through as a governor for his state. It's a Republican healthcare plan.

edited 19th Jan '17 1:45:10 AM by M84

Lol...that reminds me of a similar advertising which run in Germany a couple of years ago. In this one a guy is sitting in a bar and is talking in what we call in Germany "Stammtischgeschwätz"....you know, the peacocking people who pay zero attention to politics but have an opinion about everything like to do. Anyway, he keeps complaining that the EU has never done anything for the Germans and then everyone in the room starts to list what it actually has done...the difference was that this spot was sponsored by the German Government itself. Telling, isn't it?