UK Politics Thread XII: The Lockdown

[Druing]

If this is real then it's awesome. Changing an opinion based on new information is not an easy thing to do.

i mean i concede, it's just that i'm obviously very stubborn. i'm just someone who is very anti-authority, so when i see what is essentially a regional union governing through all national ones to try and get like a common law going across multiple countries, it's extremely worrying. additionally, it's an anecdote during my diploma, i did work experience for a small business who had lots of trouble with what they described as red tape originating from the EU.

[Celritannia]

If this is real then it's awesome. Changing an opinion based on new information is not an easy thing to do.

i mean i concede, it's just that i'm obviously very stubborn. i'm just someone who is very anti-authority, so when i see what is essentially a regional union governing through all national ones to try and get like a common law going across multiple countries, it's extremely worrying. additionally, it's an anecdote during my diploma, i did work experience for a small business who had lots of trouble with what they described as red tape originating from the EU.

Yet a lot of your rights as a worker come from the EU. Clean beaches, food standards, housing, basic rights, etc, all from the EU.

[Druing]

Yet a lot of your rights as a worker come from the EU. Clean beaches, food standards, housing, basic rights, etc, all from the EU.

oh yeah, i don't think the EU are completely incapable of producing beneficial items, the resistance was more out of a perceived incompatibility with the UK overall, given the union's evolution since we originally joined in ~1973(?). i hope the government does make good on their 'promise' to "adopt the good stuff."

[Fartsniffage]

If this is real then it's awesome. Changing an opinion based on new information is not an easy thing to do.

i mean i concede, it's just that i'm obviously very stubborn. i'm just someone who is very anti-authority, so when i see what is essentially a regional union governing through all national ones to try and get like a common law going across multiple countries, it's extremely worrying. additionally, it's an anecdote during my diploma, i did work experience for a small business who had lots of trouble with what they described as red tape originating from the EU.

I'm very stubborn also. But I will change my opinion given enough information that opposes my position. It's okay to do.

And I have a lot of respect for you doing so.

I don't expect that you'll become pro-EU. But I love that you've accepted you might be wrong.

[Celritannia]

Yet a lot of your rights as a worker come from the EU. Clean beaches, food standards, housing, basic rights, etc, all from the EU.

oh yeah, i don't think the EU are completely incapable of producing beneficial items, the resistance was more out of a perceived incompatibility with the UK overall, given the union's evolution since we originally joined in ~1973(?). i hope the government does make good on their 'promise' to "adopt the good stuff."

Leaving the largest free trade agreement in the world is losing our key importers and exporters.

[Celritannia]

i mean i concede, it's just that i'm obviously very stubborn. i'm just someone who is very anti-authority, so when i see what is essentially a regional union governing through all national ones to try and get like a common law going across multiple countries, it's extremely worrying. additionally, it's an anecdote during my diploma, i did work experience for a small business who had lots of trouble with what they described as red tape originating from the EU.

I'm very stubborn also. But I will change my opinion given enough information that opposes my position. It's okay to do.

And I have a lot of respect for you doing so.

I don't expect that you'll become pro-EU. But I love that you've accepted you might be wrong.

We all can be at times. An of course, no one will know everything, and nor can you learn everything.

[Druing]

I'm very stubborn also. But I will change my opinion given enough information that opposes my position. It's okay to do.

And I have a lot of respect for you doing so.

I don't expect that you'll become pro-EU. But I love that you've accepted you might be wrong.

We all can be at times. An of course, no one will know everything, and nor can you learn everything.

i mean i came to NS from a generally euroskeptic, right-leaning community; essentially, NS was discussed briefly there and i got curious, ended up here.

[Celritannia]

We all can be at times. An of course, no one will know everything, and nor can you learn everything.

i mean i came to NS from a generally euroskeptic, right-leaning community; essentially, NS was discussed briefly there and i got curious, ended up here.

My town voted to leave, but little did they realise my town, like a lot of areas in the UK underfunded by the UK government, gets Regional Development Funding from the EU, which has kept the Library, sports centre, community centres, and other non-profit organisations open.

[Druing]

My town voted to leave, but little did they realise my town, like a lot of areas in the UK underfunded by the UK government, gets Regional Development Funding from the EU, which has kept the Library, sports centre, community centres, and other non-profit organisations open.

funnily enough, my area was one of those that reflected the overall vote exactly - 52/48

[Phoenicaea]

^fundamental causes for wealth suffer in most europe are same occurred for most england, mostly financial malpractices and then, cheap imports.

[Salandriagado]

But as has been shown in this thread multiple times, you didn't know what you were voting about. Why should your vote in a non-binding referendum be respected?

because the norm of politicians ignoring people is not exactly a good one.

And that's not exactly true. Just because a majority of people win, does not mean you forget about those who opposed it, which is what the Tory Party as forgotten.

that's also true. regardless of the tories' dismissal of remainers and labour's/lib dem's dismissal of leavers, was the notion of a deal on leaving not a worthy compromise to suit that, then?

No. Because "no deal" wasn't something that anybody was either voting or campaigning for. "Leaving the EU but leaving in the EEA" was the most commonly mentioned Leave position. A compromise would be "stay in, but push for reforms internally".

[Hirota]

because the norm of politicians ignoring people is not exactly a good one.

I would argue that politicians ignoring people who have no idea what they're talking about is a good thing. Like you have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to the EU. You should be ignored. Just like people who deny climate change should be ignored.

Politicians are there to do what is best for a country, not listen to morons.

Yes yes, the hatred of the "stupid" electorate continues unabated. How dare the unwashed masses have a different opinion!

[Chan Island]

because the norm of politicians ignoring people is not exactly a good one.


that's also true. regardless of the tories' dismissal of remainers and labour's/lib dem's dismissal of leavers, was the notion of a deal on leaving not a worthy compromise to suit that, then?

No. Because "no deal" wasn't something that anybody was either voting or campaigning for. "Leaving the EU but leaving in the EEA" was the most commonly mentioned Leave position. A compromise would be "stay in, but push for reforms internally".

RIP, the EEA crowd. We remember their sudden disappearance the day after the referendum with great sadness.

[Fartsniffage]

I would argue that politicians ignoring people who have no idea what they're talking about is a good thing. Like you have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to the EU. You should be ignored. Just like people who deny climate change should be ignored.

Politicians are there to do what is best for a country, not listen to morons.

Yes yes, the hatred of the "stupid" electorate continues unabated. How dare the unwashed masses have a different opinion!

I assume you get all your medical advice from a bloke down the pub?

[Hirota]

Yes yes, the hatred of the "stupid" electorate continues unabated. How dare the unwashed masses have a different opinion!

I assume you get all your medical advice from a bloke down the pub?

I assume you get your analogies from a blind goldfish, for all their accuracy.

Look, Experts absolutelyhave an important role to play in democracy and the data they provide is valuable. But there are questions which any of those unwashed masses should ask before blindly accepting that these experts know what’s best for the rest of us.

First, why should academics and experts be taken at their word, even on the issues about which they claim expertise? The word expert comes originally from the Latin verb meaning to test, try, find out, prove. They in turn should always be tried and tested to prove their expertise by experiment and experience.

Secondly, expertise in an area is not the same thing as infallibility in an area. All these experts in organisations such as (but not limited to) the EU, the ECB, the IMF, the CBI, who were telling the British people they had to vote to Remain or face imminent economic catastrophe. These are the same organisations with the same experts who failed to predict the financial crisis that struck the West in 2008. As Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize for economics, concedes, ‘in long-term political strategic forecasting, it’s been shown that experts are just not better than a dice-throwing monkey’.

Finally, the supremacy of expertise into a political decision devalues both. Politics is not a technical, data-driven science. It requires judgement, based on differering and competing moral values and meanings, by politicians and the electorate. Experts will always bring their narrow field of expertise to bear upon a problem. But at best it will necessarily only offer a partial view and interpretation of a problem that can only be resolved by a judgement in the political sphere.

[The Notorious Mad Jack]

Oh no. How awful.

[Gormwood]

(Image)

Oh no. How awful.

Getting your face eaten by a straw-headed leopard after voting for it. Shocker.

[Hirota]

(Image)

Oh no. How awful.

I remember saying in the past that limiting immigration to just higher income migrants is not going to work. Plenty of migrants are perfectly willing - keen even - to do the low income, manual labour jobs like fishing, and these happen to be the jobs a number of British appear less willing to do.

On the whole unemployment in the UK is pretty low - there probably isn't the numbers of people willing and able to do the jobs that migrants would be more than keen to do.

[Hirota]

Breaking: Stabbing at a mosque in central London - one in custody.

Wonder if it's linked to last night's terror attack in Germany.

Probably not. Not that it really makes it better obviously.

[Ostroeuropa]

SNP gave votes to prisoners.

Ostro's pointless suggestion of the best way forward on this issue (Pointless since everyone has polarized on it into two camps):

I'd like to raise an alternative proposal along the lines of the remembrancer that I think could mollify opposition to giving prisoners the vote as well as suit a pragmatic agenda.
The remembrancer is a parliamentary official entitled to speak, but not vote. (They work for the city and wave a no step on snek flag every time parliament is about to pass a law that doesn't remember the city is special. Parliament is free to ignore them if they want.) This is the aspect of the proposal which I think could mollify opposition to the concept. The maximum prison population of the UK is 100,000, roughly the size of our largest constituency, suiting it to perhaps one representative in the commons. The left-wing aspect arises in that rather than essentially rendering the prospect of representing prisoners a hollow moral victory that does not meaningfully impact our democracy as their votes will be scattered throughout the country via postal voting, that hollow victory can be ceded to opponents of the idea who may be satisfied with the plan to not give a prisons representative a vote on legislation.
However, by giving prisoners an elected representative in parliament whose only constituency is prisoners, this allows us to claim a more important victory in that it will give us a voice in parliament who cannot be swayed by anti-criminal hysteria or punitive notions of justice.
My expectation is that such a representative would provide insight into the lives of prisoners and the conditions under which they are placed on a regular basis until those issues are resolved.

Whether this would satisfy international law is another thing. But there's also the matter of whether denying the representative a vote would sit well with people who believe prisoners have a right to vote for reasons beyond the pragmatic and that lean into human rights reasoning.

The notion that prisoners have a right to have their grievances heard, if not a vote per se, is harder to deny. Inclusion of prisoners in the democratic process and keeping them interested in participation in civil society can be achieved this way, while also asserting the right of the law abiding public (or their reps) to remove their right to actually impact legislation. Only to be heard.

[Fartsniffage]

SNP gave votes to prisoners.

Ostro's pointless suggestion of the best way forward on this issue (Pointless since everyone has polarized on it into two camps):

I'd like to raise an alternative proposal along the lines of the remembrancer that I think could mollify opposition to giving prisoners the vote as well as suit a pragmatic agenda.
The remembrancer is a parliamentary official entitled to speak, but not vote. (They work for the city and wave a no step on snek flag every time parliament is about to pass a law that doesn't remember the city is special. Parliament is free to ignore them if they want.) This is the aspect of the proposal which I think could mollify opposition to the concept. The maximum prison population of the UK is 100,000, roughly the size of our largest constituency, suiting it to perhaps one representative in the commons. The progressive aspect arises in that rather than essentially rendering the prospect of representing prisoners a hollow moral victory that does not meaningfully impact our democracy as their votes will be scattered throughout the country via postal voting, that hollow victory can be ceded to opponents of the idea who may be satisfied with the plan to not give a prisons representative a vote on legislation.
However, by giving prisoners an elected representative in parliament whose only constituency is prisoners, this allows us to claim a more important victory in that it will give us a voice in parliament who cannot be swayed by anti-criminal hysteria or punitive notions of justice.
My expectation is that such a representative would provide insight into the lives of prisoners and the conditions under which they are placed on a regular basis until those issues are resolved.

Whether this would satisfy international law is another thing. But there's also the matter of whether denying the representative a vote would sit well with people who believe prisoners have a right to vote for reasons beyond the pragmatic and that lean into human rights reasoning.

The notion that prisoners have a right to have their grievances heard, if not a vote per se, is harder to deny. Inclusion of prisoners in the democratic process and keeping them interested in participation in civil society can be achieved this way, while also asserting the right of the law abiding public (or their reps) to remove their right to actually impact legislation. Only to be heard.

Isn't that what the Prisons Minister is for?

Edit: also, the picture wiki uses for the Ministry of Justice is awesome. It's proper Judge Dredd.

[Ostroeuropa]

SNP gave votes to prisoners.

Ostro's pointless suggestion of the best way forward on this issue (Pointless since everyone has polarized on it into two camps):

I'd like to raise an alternative proposal along the lines of the remembrancer that I think could mollify opposition to giving prisoners the vote as well as suit a pragmatic agenda.
The remembrancer is a parliamentary official entitled to speak, but not vote. (They work for the city and wave a no step on snek flag every time parliament is about to pass a law that doesn't remember the city is special. Parliament is free to ignore them if they want.) This is the aspect of the proposal which I think could mollify opposition to the concept. The maximum prison population of the UK is 100,000, roughly the size of our largest constituency, suiting it to perhaps one representative in the commons. The progressive aspect arises in that rather than essentially rendering the prospect of representing prisoners a hollow moral victory that does not meaningfully impact our democracy as their votes will be scattered throughout the country via postal voting, that hollow victory can be ceded to opponents of the idea who may be satisfied with the plan to not give a prisons representative a vote on legislation.
However, by giving prisoners an elected representative in parliament whose only constituency is prisoners, this allows us to claim a more important victory in that it will give us a voice in parliament who cannot be swayed by anti-criminal hysteria or punitive notions of justice.
My expectation is that such a representative would provide insight into the lives of prisoners and the conditions under which they are placed on a regular basis until those issues are resolved.

Whether this would satisfy international law is another thing. But there's also the matter of whether denying the representative a vote would sit well with people who believe prisoners have a right to vote for reasons beyond the pragmatic and that lean into human rights reasoning.

The notion that prisoners have a right to have their grievances heard, if not a vote per se, is harder to deny. Inclusion of prisoners in the democratic process and keeping them interested in participation in civil society can be achieved this way, while also asserting the right of the law abiding public (or their reps) to remove their right to actually impact legislation. Only to be heard.

Isn't that what the Prisons Minister is for?

Supposedly, but they are a constituency MP and beholden to the whims of the government of the day and their own constituents, and not actually answerable to the prison population for their decisions. They also spend more of their time managing prisons and the budget than voicing the concerns of prisoners.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

SNP gave votes to prisoners.

Ostro's pointless suggestion of the best way forward on this issue (Pointless since everyone has polarized on it into two camps):

I'd like to raise an alternative proposal along the lines of the remembrancer that I think could mollify opposition to giving prisoners the vote as well as suit a pragmatic agenda.
The remembrancer is a parliamentary official entitled to speak, but not vote. (They work for the city and wave a no step on snek flag every time parliament is about to pass a law that doesn't remember the city is special. Parliament is free to ignore them if they want.) This is the aspect of the proposal which I think could mollify opposition to the concept. The maximum prison population of the UK is 100,000, roughly the size of our largest constituency, suiting it to perhaps one representative in the commons. The left-wing aspect arises in that rather than essentially rendering the prospect of representing prisoners a hollow moral victory that does not meaningfully impact our democracy as their votes will be scattered throughout the country via postal voting, that hollow victory can be ceded to opponents of the idea who may be satisfied with the plan to not give a prisons representative a vote on legislation.
However, by giving prisoners an elected representative in parliament whose only constituency is prisoners, this allows us to claim a more important victory in that it will give us a voice in parliament who cannot be swayed by anti-criminal hysteria or punitive notions of justice.
My expectation is that such a representative would provide insight into the lives of prisoners and the conditions under which they are placed on a regular basis until those issues are resolved.

Whether this would satisfy international law is another thing. But there's also the matter of whether denying the representative a vote would sit well with people who believe prisoners have a right to vote for reasons beyond the pragmatic and that lean into human rights reasoning.

The notion that prisoners have a right to have their grievances heard, if not a vote per se, is harder to deny. Inclusion of prisoners in the democratic process and keeping them interested in participation in civil society can be achieved this way, while also asserting the right of the law abiding public (or their reps) to remove their right to actually impact legislation. Only to be heard.

I don't see why those who believe in anti-democratic principals, like denying certain people a right to vote, should be respected in decision-making in the slightest. I like your idea, but I think that prisoners, as citizens of the country, should be able to impact on legislation: therefore I would support a prisoner constituency, but with a right to vote in parliament.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

(Image)

Oh no. How awful.

I remember saying in the past that limiting immigration to just higher income migrants is not going to work. Plenty of migrants are perfectly willing - keen even - to do the low income, manual labour jobs like fishing, and these happen to be the jobs a number of British appear less willing to do.

On the whole unemployment in the UK is pretty low - there probably isn't the numbers of people willing and able to do the jobs that migrants would be more than keen to do.

idk why the whole 'make it harder to come to britain' thing started. Global open borders is the way forward.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

because the norm of politicians ignoring people is not exactly a good one.


that's also true. regardless of the tories' dismissal of remainers and labour's/lib dem's dismissal of leavers, was the notion of a deal on leaving not a worthy compromise to suit that, then?

No. Because "no deal" wasn't something that anybody was either voting or campaigning for. "Leaving the EU but leaving in the EEA" was the most commonly mentioned Leave position. A compromise would be "stay in, but push for reforms internally".

So Cameron pushed for reforms with the threat of an in/out referendum. What makes you think we'd do better pushing for reforms when we've shown that we're not willing to follow through with our big threat last time?