UK Politics Thread VIII—Can't Let EU Go

[Trumptonium1]

Michael Portillo has described Chris Grayling as probably the "most incompetent minister of all time". I never thought the day would come when Michael Portillo would think the same way as I do.

No doubt all you history buffs can come up with a minister who was more incompetent.

Michael Portillo is a committed pro-Brexit Thatcherite who believes in low taxes and extensive state investment into infrastructure and homes as opposed to transfer spending for the poor, the old and failing corporations.

Of course he's going to consider Grayling a moron when he wasted his entire term doing pretty much nothing of value. Portillo spent his entire career complaining about the fact that Heathrow's third runway has been talked about since he was a child. We're still nowhere near it 24 years after his seat loss. He's very clear if he was in power HS2 would begin the same day.

[Hirota]

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/34/contents/enacted/data.htm

The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018

Tories did attempt to block it.

Are you sure? This release from January 2018 - 9 months previous suggests they were working with the labour MP and inclined to support it.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/gove ... of-tenants

[Trumptonium1]

why the fuck are you defending tories? may induced stockholm syndrome?

Because there's no alternative of value to defend.

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/34/contents/enacted/data.htm

The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018

Tories did attempt to block it.

Are you sure? This release from January 2018 - 9 months previous suggests they were working with the labour MP and inclined to support it.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/gove ... of-tenants

Philip Davies specifically.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 96931.html

[Trumptonium1]

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/34/contents/enacted/data.htm

The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018

Tories did attempt to block it.

Not a single Tory voted against the bill when it was being debated...

But why let facts get in the way of some good fake news.

[Souseiseki]

why the fuck are you defending tories? may induced stockholm syndrome?

Because there's no alternative of value to defend.

i will take that as a "yes"

[Trumptonium1]

Because there's no alternative of value to defend.

i will take that as a "yes"

Stockholm syndrome implies one has a viable escape. I don't. All other parties are objectively shit.

[Hirota]

Are you sure? This release from January 2018 - 9 months previous suggests they were working with the labour MP and inclined to support it.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/gove ... of-tenants

Philip Davies specifically.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 96931.html

Article was from 2015. The three readings for the act itself were in 2018. Presumably it was reworked. Note that Philip Davies does not appear to have argued against it since.

That's not "blocking" it, that's the process in action.

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

Philip Davies specifically.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 96931.html

Article was from 2015. The three readings for the act itself were in 2018. Presumably it was reworked. Note that Philip Davies does not appear to have argued against it since.

That's not "blocking" it, that's the process in action.

Agreed, bad choice of words on my part.

[Fartsniffage]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47270935

Six people have been charged after a number of police officers and emergency workers were attacked at a pro-Brexit yellow vest protest march in London.

What gets me about this story is the ages of those charged. Young people doing dumb stuff at a protest I can kinda understand, but most of these were in their 50's. One would think they would have learned better...

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

Looking like we might get some Labour resignations today according to the BBC.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47274905

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-brita ... KKCN1Q70LO

[Imperializt Russia]

UK Far-right infiltration from hope not hate had a mindblowing discussion that reminded me of this scene from judgement at nuremburg:
https://youtu.be/-1IlG_MF6do?t=395

I think the "You can't just deport millions of people like you're pretending so its got to be a genocide" people who oppose the far-right are underestmating our logistical capabilities by quite a large margin.

Within a single 8 hour period at peak time, 1.2 million planes leave the UK. With 15 passengers on the plane, that's 10 minorities with 5 white "Undesirables" of some form per flight for total depopulation of the target communities, the entire process can be done in a single day. The holocaust was able to achieve millions of dead through a logistical and processing feat, and we're acting like our logistical capabilities haven't improved since then. Furthermore, the camps could operate at 10,000 dead every half hour, but were limited to 5,000 a day because disposing of the bodies was the real technical limitation. The "deportation" process covers that already. Imagine if the holocaust didn't have camps at the end, the trains reached their destination and the passengers simply disappeared, then 3 minutes later the train could go back for the next batch without considerations for camp capacity and turnover. The death toll would be staggeringly higher.

The disruption to UK society and economy from a single day of no air travel is miniscule in comparison to the loss of the immigrant population and is easily feasible as we saw from the Icelandic eruption a while back.

You don't even have to change the flight plans. Just one day you load the population onto the planes and send them where they were already going. When the country in question tries to send them back, tell them they will be imprisoned if they do and should claim asylum.

The airports already have the logistics to deal with this and the infrastructure leading to and from the airports can manage the task.

The real technical challenge would be rounding up the population, and the spaces to keep those people penned up for the 8 hours it would take to complete the process.

I'm pointing this out because I think acknowledging our logistical capabilities is important, as well as noting that the far-right may in fact be genuine when they say they're about deportations rather than genocide. The discussion that made me believe them was when they went over the technical and logistical nature of the process and its similarity to the holocaust and how it would be quicker and so on. Not only that I think acknowledging that this is a thing that is possible changes the frame of the discussion.

Instead of us screaming "Nazi" at them alongside denying facts and saying it would require genocide (Which allows them to gain the high ground on that point when they discuss how it is, in fact, possible.), we should say;
"Okay. It's possible. So now convince me it's desirable. Why should someone be kidnapped from their home, shoved on a plane-" and so on. Forcing them to actually defend their position and advocate it is more damaging to them than insisting they secretly hold a position they might actually not.

Moreover I suspect that open political discussion of this kind of thing might actually prevent genocides in some non-western countries by leaving them opting for this method instead.

This debate method works fine with confronting neo-Nazis on forums like this, or in 'public debates' where the only goals are spectacle and pwnage.

It is absolutely inappropriate to entertain the literal state apparatus holding this discussion, even in the context of trying to 'trap' neo-Nazis in their own worthless ideology.
If seventy years after the defeat of the Third Reich "I am a neo-Nazi" is not enough to discredit someone, then the west has bigger problems than brown people.

This is of course completely besides the fact that one day of total air travel disruption is actually going to be astoundingly costly in business relations, lost business value from displaced flights, and a week of rescheduling afterwards. When air traffic over CONUS was grounded for three days following 9/11, it cleared the air over America enough that it actually gave climate scientists enough data to model the impact of contrails on warming.

[Dumb Ideologies]

How can we be a more effective opposition to the Tories?

Split the party and the Labour vote, allowing them a free win at the next election.

#JustBlairiteThings

Socialists stayed in the party throughout the New Labour years but as soon as the party tacks remotely left the centrist snowflakes immediately jump ship. Zero loyalty, no belief in anything except an obsessive chasing of the middle ground, why even go into politics if you're this much of a blankly-staring soulless voidhuman.

[Imperializt Russia]

The Nazis didn't build most of the camps they used. They were pre-existing and merely adopted a new purpose. It wasn't some bizarre out of the ordinary thing where they suddenly built a bunch of camps and shipped people off to them. Within living memory the camps had been used to house foreign and political "undesirables", which is one reason why people didn't ask too many questions about it.

The Nazis built those camps. Dachau was opened "in time for Christmas", 1933.

They were pre-existing before the Holocaust, but only because the Nazis built them for political prisoners, rather than racial prisoners.

The Nazis did indeed "suddenly build a bunch of camps and shipped people off to them".

That is literally what happened.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

Also, adding that, while deportation is not genocide, it is a crime against humanity, and Britain ratified the Rome Statute.

[Trumptonium1]

ConservativeHome reporting that the 5 Conservative MPs facing almost inevitable deselection by the party's local associations (Grieves, Allen, Boles, Wollaston, Letwin) have been in contact with Chris Leslie to join a new "centre-right liberal remain party" unless the party (extremely unlikely) commits to either suspending the deselection procedure system or throws out the 50 000 Conservatives who signed up in the last 3 months. In the latter case, this would make no difference because the core of the party is still something like 85%+ Brexit and ~60%+ no deal.

Then again they have nothing to lose. Their political careers, at least as Tories, are one hundred percent over. Hopefully that Soubry twat joins them in their yellower pastures.

I for one am shocked that Lib Dems masquerading as Conservatives want to in fact join the Lib Dems with a different name. Whuddathunk?

Bye bye. Nobody will miss you.

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

So it's 7 Labour MPs who have resigned from the party.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47278902

Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger, Chris Leslie, Angela Smith, Mike Gapes, Gavin Shuker and Ann Coffey

[Philjia]

How can we be a more effective opposition to the Tories?

Split the party and the Labour vote, allowing them a free win at the next election.

#JustBlairiteThings

Socialists stayed in the party throughout the New Labour years but as soon as the party tacks remotely left the centrist snowflakes immediately jump ship. Zero loyalty, no belief in anything except an obsessive chasing of the middle ground, why even go into politics if you're this much of a blankly-staring soulless voidhuman.

Ice picks all round.

They'll need a bit more than seven members to have a real impact.

[Imperializt Russia]

So it's 7 Labour MPs who have resigned from the party.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47278902

Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger, Chris Leslie, Angela Smith, Mike Gapes, Gavin Shuker and Ann Coffey

Who is Angela Smith? I kept confusing her with Angela Eagle in my head. Sorry to see Berger go, but it's understandable and Chuka and Shuker were always likely suspects.

Few in the Labour left will be sorry to see the latter two go, and I don't know the others.

[The Huskar Social Union]

UK-Japan trade talks sour after letter from Hunt and Fox

The UK’s latest attempt to persuade Japan to agree a quick post-Brexit trade deal has backfired after officials in Tokyo reacted with dismay at British tactics.

Theresa May’s government is already battling to mend relations with China, after Beijing cancelled a key trade meeting with chancellor Philip Hammond in protest at a UK pledge to send an aircraft carrier to the Pacific.

Relations with Japan have soured as a result of a letter from the UK foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt and international trade secretary Liam Fox which told their Japanese counterparts that “time is of the essence” and said flexibility would be required on both sides.

Although UK officials insisted that the letter, sent on February 8, had been couched in standard diplomatic language, Japanese officials believe that it reflected an increasingly high-handed approach from the British side. In response, officials in Tokyo briefly considered cancelling a round of trade talks this week.

In one section, the letter said that “we are committed to [speed and flexibility] and hope that Japan is too” — a line which, according to people close to Japanese trade officials, was read in Tokyo as an accusation of foot-dragging. People familiar with the situation said that Japan was finalising an appropriate response a week after Mr Hunt and Mr Fox’s letter had landed.

Honestly thought the letter was going to say fa far worse than that, i was saying to myself what have these fucking clampets done now when i saw the title.

[Imperializt Russia]

"We are committed to speed and flexibility and hope that Japan is too" is pretty plainly stating that you don't believe Japan is currently committed to that lol.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

As if Britain was ever going to get a deal even in the same league as the one the EU is able to negotiate with the Japanese. And of course no-one wants to prepare deals with the UK, because in 39 days the UK negotiating position might be fathoms worse than what they have now.

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

So it's 7 Labour MPs who have resigned from the party.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47278902

Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger, Chris Leslie, Angela Smith, Mike Gapes, Gavin Shuker and Ann Coffey

Who is Angela Smith? I kept confusing her with Angela Eagle in my head. Sorry to see Berger go, but it's understandable and Chuka and Shuker were always likely suspects.

Few in the Labour left will be sorry to see the latter two go, and I don't know the others.

Apparently a Sheffield MP, I was also confusing her with someone else.

[Imperializt Russia]

Who is Angela Smith? I kept confusing her with Angela Eagle in my head. Sorry to see Berger go, but it's understandable and Chuka and Shuker were always likely suspects.

Few in the Labour left will be sorry to see the latter two go, and I don't know the others.

Apparently a Sheffield MP, I was also confusing her with someone else.

She sits in a safe Labour seat and was a named figure in the Expenses Scandal, according to wikipedia.

Mike Gapes looks like old Labour old guard, who seems to have split over Brexit exclusively, despite being very left wing. Contrary to the younger MPs who have split over Labour having a Labour left again. Makes it a little odd that Gapes would openly align himself to someone like Shuker, who is quitting over "the machine politics of the hard left" as he put it.

[Chan Island]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/li ... itics-live

An incredibly sad day for Britain. these 7 Labour MPs leaving the party. Now it looks set that we will be doomed to a Conservative government next election, thanks to the broken First Past The Post electoral system.