British Politics Thread

They are? I only left out the part where I answered LSBK's question from the top of the previous site....

edited 27th Apr '17 3:44:39 PM by Swanpride

x4You are "getting complained about" because you're making a massive generalisation about this country.

Now, there are cases when complaining about generalisations is silly (for example when the group in question tolerates or wilfully ignores the behaviour), but this is not one of those. You are taking a behaviour that applies to some Britons (as DBL said, it's the view of conservative Britons, and the established papers/media, who tend to be conservative, see UsefulNotes.British Newspapers) and applying it to the whole country. That includes those who hold different or opposing views, who are typically equal or greater in number. In fact, "your" observation was first made by critics of said conservative media.

And the conservatives have a majority not because they're more popular, but because they're more popular with people who vote. Note the previous posts about how many young people have been de-registered. Also note that older and richer people (both groups which tend to vote conservative) have a much easier time voting as their working hours are shorter and more consistent (making it easier to get to the polls), they're more likely to vote via post or from abroad (which is far less effort), and younger and poorer people have to change address more often (making it harder to get reminders to vote and stay registered).

edited 27th Apr '17 3:49:56 PM by Bisected8

I have pointed out multiple times my issues with the way the referendum was conducted...but that is an ENTIRELY different topic. I was answering a question regarding the position of the UK in the EU, especially regarding to negotiations. As I said, we won't negotiate with the 48% and apparently even the upcoming election will do little to ensure that we get another bunch of politicians on the other side of the table.

For the record, I have no issue with the common Brit. Why should I, they tend to be very friendly and polite people. But I have a lot of issues with how the UK behaved in the EU and how the UK as a state has manipulated the European mainland for centuries for its own gain. France was right when it was against the UK joining...but then it might be better this way. Now everything which will happen will be on the UK.

edited 27th Apr '17 3:53:08 PM by Swanpride

You are generalising to exaggerate a point. It's not that you don't have valid points contained within your posts, it's that you ruin them with exaggerations that are taken to such extremities that you're distorting facts into fallacies.

The vast majority of British people who post here have absolutely no problem discussing the problems with current and historic British actions and beliefs. We all make this mistake at one point or another. You've recently been losing the clarity and focus of the valid parts of your post is all I'm saying.

edited 27th Jan '18 2:54:13 PM by Wyldchyld

I think that the distinction that's being missed here is the one between the UK (people) and the UK (government). It's the same semantic thing that's come up in both the Russia and Israel threads and ended up with people typing "Russian government" instead of "Russia", and "Israeli government" instead of "Israel".

Though the language thing is interesting, I think that is a nation wide issue, with an immigrant and an expat being seen as very different things, I'd note however that not all Brits abroad are expats, it is generally taken to refer to little englander retirees who retire to Spain or France after having lived their lives in the UK, a student who studies abroad or someone who immigrates to work would not be commonly seen as an expat.

edited 27th Apr '17 5:33:30 PM by Silasw

Granting the UK all of those privileges to get them to join the EU was, in hindsight, a case of It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time.

It was already enough that they were geographically separated from the rest of Europe by being an island nation. Granting them "special snowflake" status also allowed them to remain somewhat aloof from the rest of the EU. The UK was never really compelled to integrate or cooperate. Couple that with decades of Murdoch media pushing nationalism and xenophobia and good old fashioned nostalgia for Great Britain's glory days...

And yet many in the UK still wanted to remain a part of the EU even though so many forces were pushing for them to want a separate UK. It's truly unfortunate that they ultimately weren't able to keep the UK in the EU.

edited 27th Apr '17 8:37:46 PM by M84

What exactly did the UK (government) get out of this? Was it just trying to rile people up so that when the referendum failed they could say "We Tried" and score browny points? I got that impression from combing this thread, but in that case you'd think they would have just caved by now.

edited 27th Apr '17 9:03:58 PM by LSBK

That's more or less why David Cameron pushed for the referendum in the first place.

It backfired, to put it lightly.

edited 27th Apr '17 8:56:07 PM by M84

Initially they did it so as to have an out for their own mistakes, if they screwed with people's pensions they'd blame the EU, etc... It also made a great cover for their own unpopular desicions, Turkey might join the EU? Blame the rest of the EU and ignore the fact that we're the ones in favour of Turkey joining. the papers went with it in part for the sales but mainly because their owners have influence at Westminster but not Brussels, they hated the EU for not bowing at the feet of them and their bellow press Barons.

But after a while it becomes self-sustaining, that's why the refureuendum happened, multiple governments had spent so long blaming the EU for every mistake they made that they couldn't get away with it anymore, the anti-EU sentiment they had cultivated to keep themselves in power now threatened to throw them out of power unless they delivered.

The hope was that the referendum would be a minor victory for Remain (16 year olds were not given the vote deliberately so as to avoid the possibility of a solid Remain victory), but then an anti-Cameron faction of the Tories decided to try and bring about a razor-thin victory for Remain so as to oust Cameron, they campaigned for Leave. Then it all blew up, all the carful plans for a tight Remain victory fell apart and Leave won, suddenly nobody knew what to do, they were going to loose their scapegoat, Cameron had gone but managed to get the last laugh and Boris and his allies found themselves unable to get control of 10 Downing Street due to inflighting giving the leadership election to May.

edited 27th Apr '17 8:59:32 PM by Silasw

Cameron appears to have been going for the "Well, both sides clearly have a significant presence, but as you can see, Remain won, so we're staying in the EU." I think he was trying to shut the Brexit people up, except as we can tell, the really loud Brexiters would have never shut up about how they were being ignored.

The British government in general right now is having a severe problem with identifying what they actually want to do. The Tories obviously have an agenda that no one outside the party actually wants, Labour crippled themselves right when they could have created a huge advantage, the Lib Dems are functionally a nonentity, UKIP is insane and so on. When the most sane parts of the government are the Scottish Nationalist Party and the House of Lords, something is seriously out of whack.

Of course, Labour is trying to make themselves look sane right now, being the only party that apparently expected a snap election and prepared for it.

I meant to ask about that, is the normal voting age 16, but they just got away with upping it for the referendum?

And all of this confusion is exactly what the UK government does not need right now, what with Brexit negotiations under way. They've got less than two years to get their shit together, after all.

edited 27th Apr '17 9:08:26 PM by M84

Nah it's 18, but there is a precedent for lowering it for nation changing desicions, as it was temporarily lowered to 16 for the Scottish referendum. It was campaigned for with the EU referendum especially as the two year negotiation period meant that anyone 16 at the time of the vote would be of voting age by the time negotiations finished.

edited 27th Apr '17 9:24:06 PM by Silasw

Ah, okay then. So how transparently obvious was all of the shenanigans? Was there an air of "okay, this is plausible" or was it as poorly justified as voter suppression in the US?

edited 28th Apr '17 12:42:15 AM by LSBK

For the politically focused it's been out in the open for years, to low information voters it's completely invisible, especially as nobody has ever publicly outed the entire rotten system of EU blaming (not that they could, they'd face a press blackout if the tried, including from the BBC). Low information voters think that the EU is responsible for their pension being cut.

The only super obvious bit was Boris' play, but only in part, everyone knows that he went Leave to oust Cameron and become leader, but I'm not sure if the fact that he was hoping for a narrow Remain win is well known (though it's obvious if you pay attention).

Governments in general have also a habit to bump unpopular decisions up to EU level...when the other countries agree they can just say "well. WE didn't want this, but the EU forced us" even if it was their idea in the first place.

The addition of the Eastern European states is a typical example for this. Most EU countries were against it because they felt that those states weren't economically ready yet. So they found a compromise: They would agree to the addition, but in turn the core EU-Countries had the right to NOT allow immigration from those countries for a few years, in order to give them time to prop up the economies in question enough that there wouldn't be a mass exodus from the east. Most EU countries did with the exception of Sweden and the UK. So the UK did get a high number of eastern European immigrants, but that was not on the EU, it was the decision of its own Politicians which lead to it.

The real tragic of Brexit is that the disfranchised actually voted for what they wanted to get rid off. They felt left behind by London, but most of the newer production plants in the UK are there because of the EU. They wanted less immigration, but leaving the EU will it more difficult for the UK to control immigration instead of easier, and it will make it more difficult for the UK to get rid of unwanted asylum seekers (because one of the many contracts which will no longer apply to the UK is the Dublin Agreement). They were terrified of the notion that Turkey would join the EU, now the UK makes shady deals with all kind of shady states, including Turkey.

edited 27th Apr '17 10:44:05 PM by Swanpride

May just had her 'strikes are wrong whilst negotiations are underway' moment.

As a reminder for anyone who missed the original.

There was an economic necessity for the rebate because the UK's economy really was that sick.

The UK isn't the only country with special perks that other EU members don't have. I completely understand why the other member states object to a few countries having perks the rest of them aren't allowed. It is divisive, unhelpful at the EU level, but also inside the country as well.

If I was able to change history, that's what I'd do - make sure the rebate to given the UK was done on a fixed-term basis that would undergo periodic reviews until certain pre-designed conditions (akin to the concept for converting to the Euro) were met that would rule the rebate to be no longer necessary.

edited 27th Jan '18 2:56:38 PM by Wyldchyld

Other countries with snowflake legislation includes Denmark and Sweden (having their own currency that, admittedly, follows the Euro at a fixed rate), Iceland (exempt from most EU fishing laws), and others. That's kind of a thing that happens when you try to take 27 nations with 27 different national interests under one umbrella - at some point you're going to run into places where local law and EU law rub up against one another.

Another Danish example is that the Danish government wanted closer police cooperation with the EU, but since this is a surrender of sovereign national powers, it actually needs to be voted on in a referendum. The Prime Minister (notoriously unpopular) staked his reputation on the referendum passing.

It failed with even bigger margins than Brexit.

Switzerland is especially snowflakey. It's not even in the EU, but still gets kind of included. Because geography and a shed load of logistical issues if it isn't kind of part of the club(ish). :/

In short: there really does need to be standardised rules for being a Satelite Snowflake with that as an acceptable outcome, rather than "become a member in time" thing. If there had been, Turkey could have been benched as one, and maybe things would have worked our better... (Dunno. But, we really should have seen the Asia Minor problem coming: it's not like the "Is Anatolia European?" question is even a new one. Also... being able to Snowflake members at need might be needed — Poland, Hungary... looking at you.)

edited 28th Apr '17 7:10:19 AM by Euodiachloris

I actually disagree there....some of those extra rules are simply needed in order to respect the special needs or the culture of a state. For example in the case of Switzerland, the idea that they are neutral is deeply ingrained in their history, hence their special status which allows them to not really being part of the EU is understandable. The whole currency issue is not something which should be forced imho, at least not yet. The rebates were just so annoying because for one, they ceased to be necessary some time ago and two, while the UK kept getting rebates, the narrative it tried to sell (quite successfully in its own country) was that it got constantly ripped off by the EU, when in reality it had the best deal out of all member countries. All privileges and then some, none of the downsides.

Iceland isn't part of the EU.

edited 28th Apr '17 7:23:15 AM by Khudzlin

So, it's OK when it's Switzerland, but the UK and anybody else can die in a fire of their own making when ambiguity crops up and things start going tits-up because lack of general guidelines. Got it. :/

I know part of the deal with Switzerland is just how much of a pain national referendums are. Because if one or two of the really backwoods cantons way up in the mountains refuses, the referendum fails. It's why Switzerland as a whole didn't give women the right to vote until 1991. Yes, it was just one Canton, Appenzell Innerrhoden, but women's voting rights only happened when they made it a Canton by Canton issue.

Appenzell didn't give the right to vote to women until 1991. Not Switzerland as a whole.