#Brexit Proposal

[thoughtlessarse]

The European Commission proposed on Thursday to start negotiations with the United Kingdom to allow young people to move freely, work and study in both regions after Brexit. According to the EU, the withdrawal of the UK from the EU following a referendum in 2016 has damaged mobility between the two areas. “This situation has particularly affected the opportunities for young people to experience life on the other side of the Channel and to benefit from youth, cultural, educational, research and training exchanges,” the Commission said. When the UK was still a member of the economic and political bloc, its nationals had the right to live and work freely in the EU, with reciprocity for EU nationals in the UK. Under the agreement proposed by the EU's executive arm, EU and UK citizens between 18 and 30 years old would be eligible to stay up to four years in the destination country.

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Both Tories and Labour rejected the proposal.

[ofcowardiceandkings]

writes "get fucked" in reply to a survey question about small boats

[toaarcan]

Rishi Sunak and the D-Day Disaster

Babes wake up, Rishi Sunak did a fuckup again!

Hokay, so, at time of writing, yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings during World War II. This is a big deal for a lot of reasons, D-Day is one of the most significant events in the largest and most destructive war humanity ever fought, and this is likely to be the last major anniversary that the surviving veterans will be alive and well enough to attend.

Political leaders from the world over made their way to the Normandy beaches for a commemoration. Biden, Trudeau, Macron, Scholz, and Zelenskyy were present. Keir Starmer was there, as were King Prince Charles and Prince William, but the UK government proper was represented by Rishi Sunak and David Hameron.

Until suddenly it wasn't!

Let's run down everything (that I'm aware of) that went wrong!

As part of the British event, army paratroopers landed on the beach... and then had to reconvene in a tent to get their credentials checked by the French authorities. Because Brexit happened and we don't have free movement any more! Pro-Brexit nimrods have, predictably, complained about getting exactly what they voted for.

Once each nation's part of the proceedings were done, they were to reconvene at Omaha Beach for an International commemoration. Speeches, medals being awarded, that sort of thing. Except... Rishi Sunak was not present.

No, see, Rishi "The Least Elected PM Ever" Sunak had stayed until the end of the British event and then promptly fucked off back to England, snubbing the leaders of America, France, Canada, Germany, and Ukraine and leaving everything in the hands of the Hameron, his also-unelected foreign secretary that last rubbed shoulders with any International politicians when he was fucking everything up in 2016. Also, in the hands of his main rival, Starmer (Okay calling Starmer and Sunak rivals is a bit unfair, it implies Sunak has a snowball's chance in hell, which he does not).

Naturally, people were pretty fuckin' steamed about this, and put Rishi on blast for showing enormous disrespect to... literally everyone involved. Especially since this is right on the heels of Sunak proposing that they bring back National Service to "fill young British people with loyalty and honour."

Don't worry it gets worse.

Naturally, there are a lot of journalists with cameras present, and this means that we get to see images like these:

Image Description: Left to right, David Cameron, Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz, and Joe Biden, standing in front of a partially cloud blue sky. Macron, Scholz, and Biden are lit by the sun, while Cameron appears to be in the shade.

Image Description: Keir Starmer sits, centrally-framed, among D-Day veterans in ceremonial dress uniforms. To the right of the frame sits Emmanuel Macron.

Image Description: Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Keir Starmer talking, with a photojournalist in the background aiming his camera at them. Both are smiling.

Quote Pippa Crerar, writing for the Guardian (You may remember her from that time she blew the lid off of Partygate!), Starmer is "already looking like a Prime Minister."

So this is really, really bad for Rishi. Britain has been keen to support Ukraine lately, and we've actually shipped a supply of our Challenger 2 tanks over to them for their use. The impact from this hasn't been as massive as you'd hope, largely because the British military has been absolutely gutted under the Tories, for reasons that I'm sure had absolutely nothing to do with all the financial support David Cameron got from Russians, but Britain has been trying to help.

Boris Johnson in particular liked to really stress the Ukraine point whenever he was losing control of the narrative, essentially making Ukraine's plight and his support for them a shield from criticism. And now, here's the leader of the opposition being photographed in a positive light with Zelenskyy. The optics are incredibly bad for Rishi.

But surely, Rishi had a reason why he had to zip back to British soil post haste? Maybe an emergency that he had to resolve?

No, he needed to record an interview with ITV, for his election campaign. That was it.

Well, interviews in election cycles become outdated pretty quickly. Normally a few days is enough to render them outdated. It must've been pretty urgent.

No, the interview is scheduled for release in six days' time.

That's an eternity in election season. There's a high chance that more than half of its content will be void by the time it airs.

As a reminder, we are four weeks from the big day. In fact, yesterday was exactly four weeks before election night. Time is very short.

Well, maybe this was the only time they could fit him in?

Nope, Paul Brand of ITV has confirmed that this was the date and time Rishi wanted, and they could've moved it to prevent scheduling conflicts!

So, how did a fuckup on such a grand magnitude happen? How did Rishi manage to create a clash between the 80th anniversary commemoration of an event with a specific date (6th June, 1944 is not hard to remember, my guy!) and the election that he called? Well that's very simple! He didn't want to be there at all.

Yes, it seems that Rishi had already told the French government a week ago that he wouldn't be attending at all. Someone seems to have convinced him that skipping the event entirely was a bad idea, but not enough for him to actually commit to it.

Image Description: A block of text reading "The French government was told a week ago that Rishi Sunak would not attend the D-Day 80th commemoration, Tory sources have confirmed. The message to Paris from his team was that he would be too busy campaigning in the general election to make the trip. The decision was reversed, and a short visit was the compromise, but it is extraordinary that an attendance by a Conservative PM, or any PM, was ever in doubt."

Rishi has denied this, however, so the whether it's true or Sunak has elected to not lie for once, well, that remains to be seen.

Quote John Healey, Labour's defence spokesperson, “Given that the prime minister has been campaigning on the idea young people should complete a year’s national service, what does it say that he appears to have been unable to complete a single afternoon of it?”

Conservative commentator Tim Montgomery called it "political malpractice."

And so, after thumbing his nose at half the world in order to pursue an already-foundering election campaign, Rishi Sunak decided that he needed to apologise. Via tweet.

It's been a very bad day for Rishi Sunak.

[mariacallous]

Oulu is five hours north from Helsinki by train and a good deal colder and darker each winter than the Finnish capital. From November to March its 220,000 residents are lucky to see daylight for a couple of hours a day and temperatures can reach the minus 30s. However, this is not the reason I sense a darkening of the Finnish dream that brought me here six years ago.

In 2018, moving to Finland seemed like a no-brainer. One year earlier I had met my Finnish partner while working away in Oulu. My adopted home of Italy, where I had lived for 10 years, had recently elected a coalition government with the far-right Matteo Salvini as interior minister, while my native UK had voted for Brexit. Given Finland’s status as a beacon of progressive values, I boarded a plane, leaving my lecturing job and friends behind.

Things have gone well. My partner and I both have stable teaching contracts, me at a university where my mostly Finnish colleagues are on the whole friendlier than the taciturn cliche that persists of Finns (and which stands in puzzling contradiction to their status as the world’s happiest people).

Notwithstanding this, I feel a sense of unease as Finland’s prime minister Petteri Orpo’s rightwing coalition government has set about slashing welfare and capping public sector pay. Even on two teachers’ salaries my partner and I have felt the sting of inflation as goods have increased by 20% in three years. With beer now costing €8 or more in a city centre pub, going out becomes an ever rarer expense.

Those worse off than us face food scarcity. A survey conducted by the National Institute for Health and Welfare found 25% of students struggling to afford food, while reductions in housing benefit mean tenants are being forced to move or absorb the shortfall in rent payments. There are concerns that many unemployed young people could become homeless.

Healthcare is faring little better. Finland’s two-tier system means that while civil servants and local government employees (including teachers) paradoxically enjoy private health cover, many other people face long waiting lists. Not having dental cover on my university’s plan, I called for a public dental appointment in April. I was put on callback and received a text message stating I’d be contacted when the waiting list reopened. Six months later, I am still waiting. A few years ago I could expect to wait two months at most.

The current government, formed by Orpo’s National Coalition party (NCP) last year in coalition with the far-right Finns party, the Swedish People’s party of Finland and the Christian Democrats, has been described as “the most rightwing” Finland has ever seen – a position it appears to relish.

Deputy prime minister and finance minister Riikka Purra – the Finns’ party leader – has been linked to racist and sometimes violent comments made online back in 2008. The party’s xenophobia is clearly influencing policymaking and affecting migrants. As a foreigner, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to feeling a certain chill as anti-immigrant rhetoric ramps up.

A survey by the organisation Specialists in Finland last year found that most highly qualified workers would consider leaving Finland if the government’s planned tightening of visa requirements went ahead (that proposal, which extended residence time required for Finnish citizenship from four to as many as eight years has now become law). Luckily, I am a permanent resident under the Brexit agreement.

With the coalition intent on ending Finland’s long history of welfarism in just one term, there is a risk (and hope among progressives) that it may go too far, inviting a backlash. We arguably saw signs of this in the European election in the summer, when Li Andersson won the highest number of votes for an EU election candidate in Finland. Andersson, who was education minister in Sanna Marin’s former centre-left coalition government (which lost to the NCP in April 2023), ran on a progressive red-green ticket of increased wealth equality and measures to tackle the climate crisis. She has also been critical of emergency laws blocking asylum seekers from crossing Finland’s eastern border, arguing that it contravenes human rights obligations.

Andersson’s party, the Left Alliance, chose a new leader this month, the charismatic feminist author Minja Koskela, who was elected to Helsinki’s council in 2021 after a period as secretary of the Feminist party, and as a member of parliament in 2023. Koskela argues: “People are widely frustrated with the government’s discriminatory policy and cuts to culture, social and health services, education and people’s livelihood. It is possible to turn this frustration into action.” (Full disclosure: I’m a member of the party and have helped coordinate its local approach to immigrants.)

It remains to be seen if she can build on Andersson’s EU success. Although the popular media-savvy figure appears to relish the challenge of turning the party into an election winner, Koskela faces a huge challenge. The party struggles to poll at more than 10% nationally, aside from a brief high of 11% in July. A place in government is nonetheless possible. But Marin’s Social Democratic party (SDP) of Finland (now led by Antti Lindtman), has topped the national opinion polls 12 out of 14 times since April 2023.

Meanwhile, the Finns party is polling at 16%, down from the 20.1% vote they gained in the election. These figures point to one thing: another possible SDP-led coalition government in the next parliament by the summer of 2027. This would probably include the Left Alliance and the Green League, among others. And such a coalition would aim to undo a lot of the damage done by the right.

But until then, there will be more damage to come. So while there is clearly hope for an end in sight to the country’s political darkness three years hence, this will bring little solace now to poor people, migrants, and the squeezed middle class as the long Finnish winter closes in.

[collapsedsquid]

But the same analysis tells us [MAGA/brexit/whatever]’re fake solutions. You can’t promise a simpler world – that’s equivalent to claiming to be able to reverse the direction of time. And if you are promising to restore the broken communication channels, you need to say how. These channels used to be made up of layer upon layer of middle managers and civil servants. Not only would it be extremely costly to bring them back, it’s not obvious that anyone would thank you for doing so. It’s definitely not what the populists are proposing – there’s no March for Bureaucracy, nobody’s slogan is ‘Red Tape Holds Us Together’.

Clearly Daniel has not been reading JC Medlock

[luthienebonyx]

I've seen some misinformation spreading around tumblr about the Australian Voice referendum to be held this Saturday, 14 October 2023, so here are some actual facts about what it is and why Australians should PLEASE vote YES.

So, what is the referendum question?

The referendum question is about recognising Indigenous Australians in the Constitution, and setting up a body to be known as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, so that Indigenous representatives have the right to provide advice to government about decisions that affect Indigenous people.

Here’s the actual referendum question:

A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Do you approve this proposed alteration?

The new chapter and section to be added to the constitution are:

Chapter IX Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples

S 129 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice

In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:

1. There shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice;

2. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;

3. The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.

Source and more info

That’s it. That’s all it is.

The No campaign is spreading lies about the Voice, suggesting that it will somehow take rights or property away from non-Indigenous Australians. They’ve also been using social media - and some elements of mainstream media - to stir up fear and racism, using tactics with a vibe that will be all too familiar to our American friends who have lived through Trump, or our British friends who have been through Brexit.

Here are a few simple facts to counter some of the misinformation that's out there.

Why do we need a body like the Voice?

Indigenous people experience a level of disadvantage that applies to no other group of Australians. As the Prime Minister has said on numerous occasions, a young Indigenous man in this country today is more likely to go to jail than to go to university. Meanwhile, the periodic closing the gap reports show that Australian governments continue to fail in their aim for Indigenous Australians’ health and life expectancy to be equal to that of other Australians.

These sorts of outcomes are typical of a system that has always been about doing things to Indigenous people, rather than with them. Indigenous people need to be in the room when decisions are made about matters that affect them.

So yeah, we need an advisory body that has the ear of politicians. Seems simple enough, so why not just legislate it?

That’s the thing: we’ve already tried that.

We need an advisory body like the Voice to be enshrined in the Constitution because we’ve HAD advisory bodies before – bodies like the former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC). ATSIC was abolished in 2005 by a government that was hostile to ATSIC’s aims – something that government could easily do since there was no obligation for a body like that to exist. Other similar bodies have gone the same way. 

Putting the Voice in the constitution means that it will always exist. The actual decision-making power continues to reside with our elected politicians, but having the Voice means that they will be obligated to listen to the perspective and suggestions of Indigenous representatives before they (the politicians) make decisions affecting Indigenous people.

The politicians will still have the power to legislate the details of how the Voice works, just like any other body set up under legislation - but once it's in the constitution, they don't get to decide whether it exists or not.

Where did the idea for the Voice come from?

Indigenous people have been calling for something like the Voice since the 1920s, but the current proposition originated in the Uluru Statement from the Heart. This is a petition created by Indigenous delegates to the First Nations National Constitutional Convention held at Uluru in 2017. The Uluru statement from the heart is only 439 words, but they’re very powerful words. Read it here

So if you hear the No campaign trying to say that the idea for the Voice comes from Canberra or from politicians: no, it doesn’t. It comes from Uluru, in central Australia, and it comes from a request by representatives of a large number of Indigenous people. The government is responding to that request by holding this referendum.

Do all Indigenous Australians support the Voice?

Have you ever known any group of people that share 100% support for anything? Of course there isn’t agreement by every single Indigenous person that this is the right way to proceed. HOWEVER, that said, polling shows that around 80% of Indigenous Australians  support the Voice, and of the remaining approximately 20%, many don’t support the Voice because they believe it doesn’t go far enough. Some want a treaty before anything else.

But you wouldn’t know that by the way the Australian media has reported the campaign.

I’m not going to repeat that No campaign slogan. If you’ve watched or read any reporting about this issue, you know the one I mean. The one that panders to ignorance and fear.

Instead, I’m just going to say: if you don’t know, FIND OUT. And then VOTE YES.

[countriesgame]

Please reblog for a bigger sample size!

If you have any fun fact about the European Union, please tell us and I'll reblog it!

Be respectful in your comments. You can criticize a government without offending its people.

[eaglesnick]

“Reform UK’s climate denial undermines democracy." – London School of Economics. (17/06/24

Nigel Farage is “incredibly popular” because he speaks "common sense" says Reform candidate Robert Barrowcliffe.

 Let's examine that statement a little closer, not by looking at Farage’s anti-immigration policies, his war against woke, or his Brexit credentials. Instead lets look at climate change and how Nigel Farage plans to protect us.

Only an idiot would argue the climate isn’t changing. That is now a given for all sensible people. From the 1300 who died during the annual Hajj in Saudi Arabia last week, where temperatures were 50 degrees Celsius, to the severe flooding across Europe this month where 120 people died and hundreds more are unaccounted for, the effects of climate change are all around us.

The Met Office says:

 “Across the UK, we expect to see:

Warmer and wetter winters

Hotter and drier summers

More frequent and intense weather extremes

Globally things are even worse.

“UN chief says world is on ‘highway to climate hell’ as planet endures 12 straight months of unprecedented heat."  (CNN: 06/05/24)

As food and water supplies fail across Africa, huge swathes of people will be forced to migrate as a matter of life or death, and the majority will be heading for the rich countries of Europe, including Britain.

What does Nigel Farage and his Reform UK Party  propose to do to help us adapt and survive these new changes to our environment? The first thing of note is that “climate change” is not mentioned once in the Reform manifesto and neither is “global warming”. It’s as if the problem doesn’t even exist!

 More concerned with saving money, than saving the planet, Farage promises to “scrap” subsidies for renewable energy development, to “fast-track” more licences for North Sea gas and oil extraction and to begin fracking.

When the tide of immigration to the UK becomes overwhelming, when peoples homes are flooded again and again, when the old and frail are dying of heat stroke let's remember the "common sense" attitude of Nigel Farage and the billionaire backers of his Reform UK  Party and give them the popularity they deserve.

[learnwithmearticles]

French Politics Update

Since the 2024 French elections earlier this year, we left off with a more balanced National Assembly. Left-wing politicians became the highest population at 188 seats with centrist Emmanuel Macron still the president. The centrist party is not far behind with 161 seats and the right-wing party with 142.

Many networks at the time discussed the expectation of a hung parliament, as no one party holds the 289-seat majority.

Some things stay the same. In July, the National Assembly voted to keep centrist party member Yaël Braun-Pivet as speaker, winning by 13 votes. Additionally, many people have called for Macron to step down as President, but he will likely stay for the rest of his term until 2027. 

New PM

On the other hand, there have been major changes. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal resigned in July, and was replaced by Michel Barnier in September. He is a conservative, the leader of the 2016-2019 Brexit negotiation, and his appointment was met with much criticism from the left-wing parties.

Days after his appointment, over 100,000 people participated in protests across France. Many people view President Macron’s PM choice as disruptive to democracy, as the PM is most often chosen from the dominant National Assembly party.

Macron states that he made this choice based on the belief that Barnier seemed the most capable of dealing with political deadlocks, as is expected of the Parliament with no party holding majority.

I have to wonder, though, if this was also out of spite for the left-wing parties winning more seats than his centrist party. Barnier’s politics are expected to rely on joint support from the centrist and conservative parties. If the right or center opposes him on anything, he almost certainly will face loss after loss with his proposed policies. Will this lead France backward after the left finally gained some political power?

Barnier’s Address

Barnier delivered his first parliamentary address on Tuesday, October 1st. Summarily, he emphasized the hazard of French finances and debts, and the environment.

France is more than 3 trillion euros in public and environmental debt, which Barnier addresses first. His goal is to bring the deficit down from 6% of the national GDP to 5% in 2025, with the goal of under 3% by 2029.

His outline for achieving this is reducing spending, being more efficient in government spending (addressing corruption and unjustified spending), and taxes. He phrases higher taxes as a temporary measure, and states that large companies as well as the richest and wealthiest French people will be asked for exceptional contributions.

Barnier also addresses environmental debt. He plans to continue reducing GHG emissions, and for France to be more active in the EU and in the Paris Agreements, which push for countries to collectively act against climate change. He also mentions encouraging industry transitions in energy and recycling, encouraging nuclear energy development, and developing renewable resources of energy more, like biofuels and solar energy.

He has also conceived of a large national conference to act on the matter of water, the scarcity of which is an imminent issue for France.

Additionally, he plans to propose a yearly day of citizens consultations. In his idea, doors will be open for citizens for people of all levels of government to ask questions and start discussions and debates on various topics.

Another noteworthy statement from Barnier is that the pension reform bill voted on in 2023 might have to be changed, which received a loud reply from the audience.

As someone living in a country where an entire political party is built on denying factual evidence and realities, it is surprising to hear someone who does not deny climate change, and calls for equitable taxes to address debt.

About 30 minutes into his address, though, New Caledonia comes up. This is more in line with expectations of conservatives. New Caledonia is still a colonized territory of France, and a recent bill from Macron was going to disadvantage native Kanak people for the advancement of French loyalists on the archipelago. After fatal protests, the bill has been suspended before ratification, likely to be readdressed in 2025.

Also in conservative spirit, Barnier calls for stricter immigration policies in effort to meet “integration objectives”. France faces a cost-of-living crisis and an affordable housing shortage that has buttressed the right’s stance on needing stricter border measures.

Le Pen Trial

Also straining politics, especially for right-wing support, is recent news about popular right-wing figure Marine Le Pen.

On September 30th, Le Pen faced charges of embezzling European Parliament money. The right-wing party Rassemblement National is accused of filing false employee records in order to improperly use funds to pay members of the party. Le Pen is one of many senior party members involved in the alleged embezzlement.

This trial is expected to go on for seven to nine weeks, so the final outcome is some time away. But for now we can expect this will have negative impacts if Le Pen still vies for presidential election in 2027. It will likely also decrease citizen’s trust in the conservative party’s ability to make responsible economic decisions.

If found guilty, Le Pen and the other defendants could face up to ten years in prison and lose the eligibility to run for office.

After the 2024 shock vote instigated by President Macron, the French National assembly gained a left-leaning majority, though not enough for an automatic 289-vote majority. In most cases, this would mean a left-wing Prime Minister as well as a left-wing president, though that’s because the presidential vote is usually shortly after that of the national assembly.

Contrarily, Macron went with a conservative candidate that he believed to be stronger for the job. This increases the political unrest in the country, and increases the likelihood of delays and blockages in legislation development.

While the conservative Prime Minister has stated many intentions that people in the U.S.A. might call left-leaning, regarding climate change and tax targets, his appointment has upset many. His views on immigration, especially, contrast with most left-wing groups who want integration and safety for others. Overall, this decision from Macron calls into question his loyalty and dedication to the wants of the French people.

Additional Resources

1. New Prime Minister

2. Barnier on Borrowed Time

3. Le Pen on Trial

4. Barnier Address

5. Barnier Address Summary

[grimogretricks]

JKR has ruined things in my country

TW/CW: Transphobia, homophobia, Scotland and the UK being a transphobic hell hole right now. Brief mention of sexual assault.  Also this is a depressing rant.  

 JKR has ruined things in my country.

 That sounds pretty hyperbolic, but, it's, surreally, unfortunately probably true.

 The SNP's Nicola Sturgeon has long been one of the few UK politicians who could provide an articulate, progressive, well argued voice in support of important left leaning principles against a prevailing right wing tide. In complete contrast to the total mealy mouthed nonsense spouted by the likes of the labour leader, who's afraid to stand up for anything at all lest he do a poor job of pandering enough to tory ideas to get voted in. She's the closest thing the UK has had to an opposition to tory principles, standing up for worker's rights, equality and the NHS.

 And now, she's resigned. And regardless of what she says, I do believe it's because of the rampant transphobia stirred up by JKR, who personally made Scotland's gender reform bill an ignition point for anti-trans hate in the UK. Transphobia from the media, transphobia stirred up in her OWN party, transphobia from all sides, is causing rifts and schisms due to the deeply morally regressive panic JKR gave so much voice to.  

 Now Nicola Sturgeon has resigned, and it's like a mask has fallen off the SNP. What had seemed to be a progressive party, with commitment to LGBT rights and equality, now shows itself as riddled with transphobia and homophobia. Because among those slated to replace here, there are.. a right wing religious lunatic who doesn't believe in gay marriage, and a woman who supported 'Alba' - which was Alex Salmond's transphobic, Russia pandering party (the ex SNP leader, a man who could not be left alone with women without sexually harassing and groping them). Granted, there is also Humza Yousaf, who is pro-LGBT rights, and hopefully will become our leader, but that these people even exist in the party, let alone want to become the leader, is alarming in itself.  

 It was fun for five minutes to think that maybe transgender rights would split the UK  but what's this fuss from the media against Nicola Sturgeon has  actually done is removed one of the last progressive and articulate voices in British politics willing to actually call the tories out on their bullshit. And now this has also created articles saying things like 'maybe joining with the greens and trying to be progressive about trans rights was a mistake from the SNP as trans rights aren't popular'.

 Apparently, it's not worth sticking up for Scotland's own ability to put bills into place in its own country and stopping Sunak from trying to block our reforms if it's about transgender rights.

 It's despair inducing, that fighting for trans rights has been made into such a divisive issue, and genuinely, that JKR has actually been at the forefront of a massive wave of senseless and cruel moral panic that is diverting people in Britain away from actually caring about actual massive, huge problems in the UK. Like people dying due to NHS waiting times, like the massive inflation, like the unprecedented cost of living increase, like tories actually proposing further reducing our human rights, our rights to protest, and worker's rights, and various disasterous consequences of Brexit. Things are DIRE right now, and hating transgender people has been whipped up into a fury not solely by JKR, but SHE made this gender bill into an ignition point for UK anti-trans hate.

 The tories meanwhile, are loving this massive diversion in attention, especially since to 'fix' it requires that they do literally nothing except get in the way of further progress. They found a way to curb Scotland's right to determine their own bills without upsetting the majority of Scots by counting on people to be transphobic, and it worked.

[gravalicious]

The limits of the welfare state are evident in the experiences of Black people, whom Britain has, for centuries, treated as expendable, except inasmuch as they enrich the state and serve white citizens. In other words, there are the deserving and undeserving poor. The difference was enshrined in the Act for the Relief of the Poor of 1601, which defined the deserving poor as unable to work to provide for themselves: young children without parents, the elderly, people with physical (and, presumably, visible) disabilities. Those who were considered able to work were denied financial assistance. The same year, Elizabeth I issued an order to round up and deport Africans and those descended from Africans, on the grounds that they had “crept into” her realm and were consuming “the Relief” that rightfully belonged to her subjects, to their “great annoyance.” The origin of state relief coincided with the determination that Black people in poverty must not receive the sovereign’s provisions, however paltry. The Elizabethan Poor Law remained unaltered until the 1830s, when reformers on both sides referred to the Black slave as an analogue for the illegitimate beneficiary of the state’s largesse, as Robbie Shilliam observes in Race and the Undeserving Poor: From Abolition to Brexit (2018). In 1942, the economist William Beveridge perpetuated the same logic in “Social Insurance and Allied Services,” which came to be known as the Beveridge Report and was the basis of the Labour Party’s welfare program. The report outlined “a comprehensive policy of social progress” geared toward Britain’s “reconstruction” following World War II. In reality, though, Beveridge’s proposal was not an eternal contract between subject-citizens and the state but a short-term plan to rebuild the white labor force. Beveridge advocated for the “defeat” of “want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness,” as well as the preservation of the skewed dynamic between the ruling class and the rest.

Derica Shields - A Heavy Nonpresence (2021)

[daisiesonafield-blog]

FYI https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/touring-artists-visa-america-musicians-b2290305.html

Musicians are facing a touring nightmare, after it has emerged that the US immigration service plans to up their visa fees from $460 (£385) to $1,615 (£1,352).

The 250 per cent increase will affect thousands of artists and bands who plan to do promotional tours in the states, but are unable to justify or afford the fees.

The Music Management Forum (MMF) and the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) told The Guardian that the cost of touring has already increased by 40 per cent as a result of Brexit, the pandemic and inflation - but now, things are about to get even worse.

According to the MMF’s chief executive,  Annabella Coldrick, 84 per cent of their members had acts intending to tour the US, but 70 per cent of those said they would not be able to if the increase goes ahead, reports The Guardian.

Another 20 per cent of those who had intent to tour said they would have to delay their plans.

The new changes mean that even those who are invited on major support tours, or festival slots may have to turn down those opportunities because of the expense incurred.

The MMF and the FAC have now relaunched their Let the Music Move campaign, which began in 2021, aimed at tackling the issues caused by Brexit rules which made it near impossible for transport companies to move equipment for musicians.

Speaking to NME, the CEO of the Featured Artists Coalition David Martin said: “Following a global pandemic, Brexit and the ongoing cost of living crisis, the proposals represent yet another barrier that will see emerging artists disproportionally disadvantaged, but that also risk ending US touring for more established acts.

“It would be a seismic blow to the UK’s beloved music industry which, since 2015, has seen a 30 per cent decline in its global market share,” he added.

Lead singer of UK band Easy Life, Murray Matravers, who had to cancel their forthcoming US tour due to costs, also spoke to the publication.

“We just couldn’t afford it – it’s literally as simple as that,” he said.

“We’ve done a proper tour of the US once before with a little pretend tour before that, all pre-COVID. It’s all changed so much. The cost of visas is crazy, you have to hire a legal representative to do all the forms and their fees have gone right up.”

--------------------

-Full article. Link here.

Damn that will hit smaller artists really hard. I wonder if they have a special class of Visas or if this is an increase across the board for all Visa categories.

[mariacallous]

It would, Grant Shapps says, be bad news for British democracy if Labour won too large a majority next month. For a moment I wondered whether his words reflected a realisation that his own party had only been able to manage stable government this century when it was in coalition with someone else, but I don’t think this was his point. 

It’s true that governments with small majorities are more constrained, but this isn’t obviously a good thing. Our years of Brexit deadlock were only broken once the government had a comfortable majority. And if you believe, as some on the right claim they do, that Britain needs planning reform and plenty of housebuilding, then a Labour government with a large majority is the likeliest route to those things. Certainly the Conservatives haven’t been able to deliver them with theirs.

But let me offer a different counterargument: it would be very good for our democracy for the Conservative Party to suffer a crushing defeat. The Conservatives have behaved terribly in government, and politicians, like children, need to know that their actions have consequences.

In 2019, British voters were faced with an unusual and appalling situation: a choice between two men both utterly unfit to be prime minister. Leaving aside Jeremy Corbyn’s political abilities — he could never persuade even Labour MPs that he ought to head a government — and his instincts — he would go on to suggest the British government had provoked Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — he had neither the temperament nor the intellect for the top job. So voters opted for what they perceived to be the lesser of two evils.

The result was that Labour paid a price for offering an unfit leader, and the Conservatives were rewarded. And that has been a bad thing. It told Tories that integrity in public life was optional. Boris Johnson, of course, needed no encouragement on that score, but his weak-minded followers, in Parliament, on his staff, and in the media, thought they had won a free pass. “Voters don’t care,” we were assured, after each fresh scandal broke. Until it turned out that they did. 

For all their later cries of anguish as Boris Johnson’s character was laid bare on the public stage, Conservatives knew exactly who he was when they made him prime minister. If the precise details of his downfall were pleasingly novel — who had “locks up the nation while hosting a series of wild parties” on their bingo card? — it was no surprise that he thought rules were for other people and lied as was convenient. This had been his entire career. I hope my colleague Paul Goodman will forgive me reminding him of what was surely the greatest ever ConservativeHome editorial, which suggested that Johnson should be prime minister, but with rival Jeremy Hunt as a deputy, to handle the tedious business of running the country. Has any endorsement ever been less enthusiastic?

Conservative MPs knew who Johnson was during the 2019 election campaign, when he insisted his Brexit proposals wouldn’t create a regulatory border in the Irish Sea. Did any Tory correct the prime minister as he misled voters about a key feature of the deal that was the centrepiece of his election campaign? Of course not. Voters don’t care!

And that’s just Johnson. Is there any Conservative out there who wants to argue that, since their party took sole charge of the country in 2015, they have been a good government? Four years spent arguing about Brexit followed by 18 months of a lockdown policy that was conspicuously more interested in pubs than schools, and then three years of infighting. There are bright spots — the vaccine and the leadership on Ukraine — but the main theme has been chaos. We have had as many chancellors of the exchequer in the last nine years as we did in the preceding 30. 

And what is there to show for it? The party’s central economic policy has been to make it harder for British businesses to sell things to France. And, in fairness, it has achieved that — even if, for some reason, Conservatives are now reluctant to talk about it. Take that away, and you’re left with what? High taxes and a crumbling public realm. For months now, the most damning criticism of the state of the country at Prime Minister’s Questions has come from the Tory benches, as MPs complain that their constituents can’t see dentists or doctors. Not even Conservative MPs think that life is good under the Conservatives.

So I’m happy for the party to be crushed. I don’t go quite as far as the 46 per cent of the public who say Conservatives deserve to lose every seat, but I could live with that result far more easily than the party holding 250 seats. 

I want the Conservative Party from 2015 to 2024 to be a cautionary tale that politics professors whisper to terrify their students. Because if you can govern this badly, behave this badly, without any consequences, that would bode very ill indeed for our democracy.

[cononeillbreastingboobily]

ENAMOURED by your bulwary wiślane au, enamoured by Izydor Ręcewicz, enamoured by polish heritage clueless new zealander stede. I'm in half a mind to write a fic for this. I further propose for the public's consideration:

Czarny Piotruś (like the card game), Szwed (who comes from szczecin and just has a lisp), Lucjusz Pędkowski (doing part time sociology bachelor's), Franek (before working for Edek he played the guitar for change in the metro) and Olu being in the city for his master's degree (I'm thinking psychology)

SCREAMS this is amazing 😭😭😭😭😭

I'm dying at the Swede being from Szczecin and having a lisp, bless his soul (ily Szczecin) 😭😭😭

And you're so right about Olu! He's giving Erasmus student from the UK (for convenience this AU may take place before Brexit 😆)

Lucjusz is such a "the friend who doesn't talk to anyone during or in-between classes, but whenever sesja rolls around he drops answers to all questions and pdfs of books needed to write essays in the gc, and then dipping until the end of the next semester" to me😭💓💓💓

Obviously if you (or anyone else, for that matter 👀) creates anything for the OFMD Bulwary Wiślane AU, 🅱️LEASE throw it my way 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

[cleric-of-jank]

Parliamentary Procedure Proposal: The Stalk-call

(name sucks, someone think of a better one pls)

So there's plenty of things about actually existing democracies, be they presidential or parliamentary, that irk me, but two in particular I don't see a lot of people commenting about.

If the mechanisms of democracy are captured in such a way to make getting a genuinely possible government impossible, what is the electorate supposed to do? Constitutional safeguards around free speech and the ballot seem pretty underpowered - you can't really have courts that aren't just bureaucrats exerting their own wills, meaning there's always a risk someone will decide "free speech" obviously must exclude blasphemy or "human rights" mandates a 100% wealth tax even if only 5% of the electorate want one. So the fallback is some kind of revolt against the government. The drafters of the US constitution proposed the 2nd Amendment, but that obviously has all kinds of pitfalls and isn't guaranteed to work. "General strikes" also seem pretty susceptible to being divided and crushed, even if their organizers can overcome coordination problems. So what can there be instead?

Motte-and-bailey issues. Republicans are convinced every Democrat is Ta-Nehesi Coates in disguise, salivating at the thought of implementing racial quotas for every single job in the country and taxing every last cent of disposable income and then some to pay for an exorbiant reparations scheme that will never actually end. Similarly, Democrats are convinced Republicans are all Steve Sailer clones who want to repeal the Civil Rights Act and the 13th and 19th amendments. This is how they motivate their bases - no matter how odious voters think their own side's platform is, they see no reason to believe their opponents aren't even worse, so polarization ratchets up and candidate quality plummets down. But how can parties really convince voters that they're not actually like that? If you say "no, don't worry, we think that guy sucks too", that statement definitely isn't going to reach any opposing voters due to how the media landscape works, but it might reach some of your own voters who might become demobilized by you not being radical enough. All downside, and no upside.

I was thinking about that first issue one day when I thought of what I think is a pretty common response to this issue - some sort of "kick the bastards out" referendum, that would ban all incumbents from seeking re-election. There's a pretty big catch to this, though. It means the electorate is going to be asking a question structurally imbalanced in favor of the opposition - since they don't really have to come up with a platform, they can bring segments of voters that would otherwise be impossible to coax onto one ticket. This is sort of how the Brexit vote went down - if Leave had to decide on whether Brexit meant the UK would become Singapore, Rhodesia, or the USSR before the vote, it probably would have gone differently. Maybe a structural bias against some factions isn't that bad...but loose "anti-establishment" folks are typically lacking government expertise, so you probably would rather not. Moreover, even for normal elections, it becomes a lot easier for outsiders to run on the ~mystery~ ticket and then leap in once they've won rather than subject themselves to accountability. None of the Above probably would have beaten Hilary even more than Trump was if it and not Trump was on the ballot, even though Trump would have still been the most likely to carry the vote afterwards.

So, what can be done to fix that issue...what if the regime had some way to force the opposition to consolidate in some way if it seemed too squishy to pin down? How could that be done in an elegant way? Oh, I've thought of something! Oh, and hey, issue 2! I think it solves that too!

What if parties in the parliament were able to just appoint new parliament members directly and force their opponents to publicly declare their positions on the new members, as long as they pre-committed to not rely on their support in any votes?

This helps solve issue 1. If you're concerned that it's impossible to campaign against "Brexit", you can instead nominate Dominic Cummings to the House of Commons, and force votes on whether Dominic's controversial takes on how the UK should move would in fact be good ideas. Tories would be forced to either vote yes (allowing you to campaign on associating them with daftness from Dominic Cummings which they couldn't really deny) or no (showing voters who would support "Brexit" that they don't really have allies amongst those in power, demotivating them from using the "Brexit" vote as a way to force the issue. Sometimes it's even better - maybe the Kick the Bastards Out measure was all just a stalking horse for some rich person's campaign in the first place, and skipping the charade and directly appointing them means they can no longer use vagueness as a shield, meaning they never try to waste the electorate's time with the measure at all.

But this also helps solve issue 2! Forcing parties to make public statements that they think [radical who's ostensibly in the same direction] is good or bad means we can dispense with all of this hogwash around whether the guy you're afraid of is irrelevant or influential - if they're so irrelevant, why is "their party" so afraid to condemn them? Or maybe they do condemn them after all, and you become able to trust the other party enough to consider swinging your vote - that's good for you!

Obviously there'd need to be more intricacies to it than I'm mentioning here - the new guys you appoint to parliament couldn't have exactly the same rights and responsibilities as the elected cast, as there are plenty of hated backbenchers today that oppositions can't really capitalize off of. You'd need some grander way to make them more significant, but you would also need to do that in such a way it doesn't break normal government functions. You also need some way to scale this so actually relevant parties can use it and the Randoms Who Aren't Actually Shooting For Power can't abuse it, and to prevent stratagems like conservatives appointing a green who will vote with them on shooting down nuclear power plants because you accidentally didn't class mutual "no" votes as the same thing as mutual "yes" votes.

Of course, this isn't ever going to happen but when has that ever stopped it being fun to think of advances in political technology?

(in case you're wondering the name comes from "stalking horse" and "callout". obviously that in particular doesn't work)

[tomorrowusa]

^^^ The New Statesman podcast which I recommend highly. This episode features Andrew Marr who is top notch when it comes to political analysis. Also participating are Hannah Barnes and Freddie Hayward who are themselves excellent.

Less than two weeks after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called a national election in the UK, the Conservative Party is in a state of chaos. Though in some ways that's been their condition for the past two years.

It seems that the Conservatives are trying to appeal to nostalgic pensioners to keep them from defecting to the more rightwing Reform Party associated with Brexit nut Nigel Farange. One aspect of this appeal is that they propose bringing back National Service which was abolished in 1960. The confused way the Tories have attempted to define what they now mean by National Service has been in keeping with the way their campaign has been going so far.

Before the commotion over National Service, Electoral Calculus published its latest prediction on number of seats each party would win in the July 4th election. Things have gotten even worse for the Conservative Party.

A reminder that at the time the July election was called, this was the number of seats of the four largest parties in the 650 member Parliament:

Conservatives — 345

Labour — 206

SNP (Scottish National Party) — 43

Lib Dems (Liberal Democrats) — 15

In this prediction, the Lib Dems get 59 seats – just 7 fewer than the Conservatives. Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Lib Dems, might be tempted to urge voters to choose Lib Dem candidates in order to make his party the official opposition in the next Parliament and knock the hapless Conservatives down into third place.