UK Politics Thread

[Mr. GOH!]

This is terrible. It is not surprising that this happens when politics turns so ugly. 

[deanb]

It's actually pretty surprising, this is the first assassination of a UK MP since 1990, and the first non-Irish related assassination since the early 19th century. Usually people just throw eggs.

 

The shooter is in custody, hopefully we'll learn more and things will become clearer. The husband is doing far better than I think most would in his situation:

 

Today is the beginning of a new chapter in our lives. More difficult, more painful, less joyful, less full of love. I and Jo’s friends and family are going to work every moment of our lives to love and nurture our kids and to fight against the hate that killed Jo.

 

Jo believed in a better world and she fought for it every day of her life with an energy, and a zest for life that would exhaust most people.

 

She would have wanted two things above all else to happen now, one that our precious children are bathed in love and two, that we all unite to fight against the hatred that killed her. Hate doesn’t have a creed, race or religion, it is poisonous.

 

Jo would have no regrets about her life, she lived every day of it to the full.

 

It's shit all around. For all the fears of the outcome of the referendum, and the day starting with folks mocking Farage for using Nazi imagery, this is beyond anyone's wildest fears. It sucks, it sucks that some people are just so full of hate and they'll act upon that. It sucks that a young mother died because of someones fucked up ideology.

This past week in general has sucked.

[TheMightyEthan]

I checked, and was surprised to learn that the last time a sitting US congressperson was assassinated was Bobby Kennedy in 1968.

[Mr. GOH!]

Successfully. Gabby Giffords survived an attempt in 2011 in which six other people were killed. That she survived being shot in the head was near-miraculous.

[TheMightyEthan]

Okay, I actually remembered that, but I had thought she died, so when she wasn't on the list I assumed I was wrong about her being in the US Congress and that she must have been a state congresswoman.

[deanb]

What's your list cos Wiki has a pretty long list of assassinated US politicians with the last one being last year:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassinated_American_politicians

(which tbh the most recent on that list I'm aware of is Harvey Milk n mainly cos they made a film about him)

 

And yeah there was Gabby Gilfords too, who was one of those giving support yesterday.

[TheMightyEthan]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Congress_members_killed_or_wounded_in_office

 

Since you had said it was the last MP I was looking at our equivalent, which would be members of Congress.

 

Had I scrolled down all the way to the "wounded" list, rather than just looking at the "killed", I would have seen Gabby on there too.

 

Also, even under my criteria Bobby Kennedy wasn't strictly the last one, Leo Ryan was assassinated in 1978, but it was in Guyana, not a domestic assassination, so I felt like it was a little different (though now that I look into it more it was by a cult led by an American and comprised at least in part by Americans, so maybe not so different).

[Mr. GOH!]

Yeah, Ryan was killed in the orders of American Jim Jones.

[deanb]

MP is just politician in general, we've not had any council members or mayors killed that I can tell, though have had a few Lords n royalty over the centuries. It's also used to differentiate that since the last MP killed in 1990, we've had two other assassinations though those were a Russian spy and a BBC presenter (both are essentially open cases, though the former more down to diplomatic issues of bringing in a world leader on charges of conspiracy to commit murder)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassinations_in_Europe#United_Kingdom

 

And specifically MPs which yeah come under 3 categories of motives being debt, IRA, and the currently unknown motives* for Jo Cox:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serving_British_MPs_who_were_assassinated

 

*I think it's fairly well assumed at the moment. The fact that it's unsurprising that the guy might be part of Britain First is a sign of how we've allowed toxic far-right extremism to grow n fester. I know myself n my sister cringe n usually have a bit of a go at our mum when she shares anything from them or related pages. Certainly disgusting to see Daily Mail n Sun, who help cheer on this growth of far-right, to be all "how tragic, killed by a loner". I'm sure they'd be running different headlines if it wasn't a white guy yelling "britain first" that was the perpetrator. Oh they're going with the "mentally ill" angle too which is always nice to see put out there too.

[Thursday Next]

Was thinking that myself. All the reports were "a 50-something year old man" which made me immediately think that it was obviously not a brown person cos otherwise they would be leading with that. And yeah, typical to bring up mental health.

 

Brown person = Radical religious zealot of whom there are millions more, probably every brown person in fact, keep a weather eye out.

 

White person = extraordinarily rare mental issues which should have been treated so it's not really even his fault, but at least he's the only one and the rest of us aren't xenophobic fascists right guys?

[Mr. GOH!]

Good luck on the Brexit results, UK friends! Anyone staying up all night as they come in?

[deanb]

Nah, polls closed at 10pm, it's now 10:30 as of typing this, and it's not gonna be expected until like 4am earliest so I'm gonna catch my forty winks. Likely you Americans will know before most of us. With a general election you can usually get a good idea before all the votes are counted, but with this it's unlikely to be the case with this given the close polls, unless they've massively fucked up again and it turns out one has a decent majority.

 

You can follow the results as they come here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/eu_referendum/results

 

Gonna be fucked up regardless of the outcome, it's been really nasty. Really makes you grateful that the general elections have varied amount of parties that sorta defuse much of the us v them aspects.

[TheMightyEthan]

Exit polls are showing 54%/46% in favor of stay.  Though obviously that outcome's not guaranteed.
 

Gonna be fucked up regardless of the outcome, it's been really nasty. Really makes you grateful that the general elections have varied amount of parties that sorta defuse much of the us v them aspects.

Yeah, having more than two choices is so nice. Wait...

[deanb]

It was 52%/48% this morning. It's horribly close. Scotland was kinda fucked up for a while after their in-our referendum.

 

And yes, was the slight point I was getting at, your politics are pretty hairy n it's like that every 4 years (for 2 years at a time!).

 

edit: Oh yes, to amuse here's a brief snippet of exchange between myself and my brother who is currently working in Sweden and potentially in Holland next.

[Mal]

RIP £

 

Edit: And some other currencies for that matter...

 

Edit2: So yeah, welcome to independence not so united UK. How do you all feel?

Edited June 24, 2016 by MaliciousH

[danielpholt]

One of the benefits of working nights is that I can see how this stuff goes down in real time. Unfortunately I spent the entire shift listening to my country slowly choose to cut itself off from our neighbors based upon foolish and short-sighted ideas about how the country is failing its citizens. I knew it'd be tight, but I thought the UK was more intelligent than this, I was wrong.

 

For all the talk, I truly think it's come down to immigration. And in 5 years when we're still struggling to cap the numbers of immigrants entering the UK we will look back upon this decision and see how foolish we have been. 

 

I also never thought I'd be sad to see the back of David Cameron, but with the manor of his resignation I can't help but feel a tinge of sadness that he's gone off the back of a vote that I truly think is a horrendous mistake for the people of the UK.

 

**

 

So I made a post on Facebook about the whole thing and my GF's mum (Vote Leave) has replied (twice). On a scale of 1-10 how stupid would I be to 1) read her reply and 2) begin a 'heated debate' with the woman?

Edited June 24, 2016 by danielpholt

[deanb]

So on the Edit 2: I feel like shit. I knew at least half this nation were knobheads, but turns out it's just over half. NI n Scotland calling for independence, Spain eyeing up Gibraltar, Leave already backtracking, Farage being a monumentally inconsiderate prick over Jo Cox.

 

I'm no fan of Cameron, but I'm a fan of the cronies in the shadows waiting to take his place even less. I really hope neither Gove nor Boris get in as PM.

[Mister Jack]

Someone from the UK explain to me just what exactly this separation will mean for the UK.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Hmm the post I made before my shower doesn't seem to have landed, and I can't really remember what I wrote, but it surely wasn't how happy I was with the result.

 

I was thinking about it in the shower though and what I remember not putting was that worse than leaving (which I think is a bad decision, but who really knows how that will turn out, certainly not the politicians, nor economic prognosticators) is just that it is such a vote for negativity [...]well, I was going to carry on my thoughts here but I actually can't bear to think about it just now,it's just one more dark shadow cast over everything.

Edited June 24, 2016 by TheFlyingGerbil

[deanb]

It means we get to build a hospital every week.

 

Nah. We don't really know. It's a non-binding referendum so if anyone had balls in parliament they can say "fuck it" and pretend nothing happened, also technically the EU under a unanimous vote can also halt our departure too.

 

Should it go through then likely many companies that rely on EU trade, or EU funding, will likely tank in some way. I think people grossly underestimate how much trade we do across seas. I'm pretty sure I can go open my fridge n find a bunch of EU items.

Potentially we'll end up deporting a bunch of folks, and importing a bunch of folks too. Travel to EU will cost much more given unlikely to be covered by NHS there anymore, currency exchange will be less in our favour, etc.

Less indirectly related we'll see a surge in the far right, essentially xenophobia has been legitimised by vote. Probably gonna have a lot of people confused their vote doesn't mean all the muslims go n likely to react quite negatively on that. There's also the fact that there's a 50:50 chance the folks on the street think extremely different to you too which is gonna have an air of lingering unpleasantness. I think that's gonna be the bigger impact really, as TFG said there's a dark shadow. Politics has always been kinda nasty, especially last few years of tory rule, but was still tinged with a bit of humour in throwing pies and PMs fucking pigs. But now we've outright xenophobia, assassinations, blatant lies, n nothing fun to take the edge off it. It's gross n horrible.

 

Also Cowboy will have a very full house.

[Thursday Next]

Nobody knows what's gonna happen. Currency is in the doldrums right now, might bounce back, might not. Companies with EU headquarters in England (Hi everyone!) might move to mainland Europe (shit!), or they might not (phew!).

[Mal]

Nah. We don't really know. It's a non-binding referendum so if anyone had balls in parliament they can say "fuck it" and pretend nothing happened, also technically the EU under a unanimous vote can also halt our departure too.

Leaving the EU seems to be the sort of thing that a simple majority is not appropriate point to actually implement such a thing. It seems more like a 2/3 majority sort of thing. Like sure, over across the pond we can elect someone like Trump to lead the most powerful nation in the world for four to eight years but it is just four to eight (probably terrible) years. What you guys voted on is like some Constitutional amendment pertaining to state or federal powers. Something very very hard to do.

 

Regardless, it seems like you guys are going with it... best wishes.

 

 

Leave already backtracking

I kind of find some of their reactions to be funny...

[TheMightyEthan]

[Hot Heart]

Well, fuck.

[deanb]

So apart from minimal pottering around, light tidying up, and some things to keep my mind occupied I've had an otherwise rather uneventful inactive day n yet feel absolutely knackered and drained. Just how do you articulate such anger, despair, confusion and hopelessness with half the population. My only partial solace is I'm in Newcastle, the only spot in N-E where Remain was the majority.

 

- Since the announcement of a leave victory we have Cornwall councils wanting to retain the same funding they've enjoyed from the EU, and I imagine they would also like it if I can't make "Cornish Pastys" up here in Newcastle, or Cornish Clotted Cream.

- Farage has washed his hands of the £350million into NHS statements which were a driving pillar of Leave as a "mistake", as well as making rather heartless remark on not needing a "bullet fired" despite the murder of Jo Cox barely over a week ago, oh and "other countries have Independence Days, why can't we", ignore the vast majority are because of us.

- Boris Johnson wants us to "not be hasty" however

- EU are pushing to make the Article 50 process go ASAP cos they need stability (as well as a cautionary tale) and I fully agree with them on that. If it was any other EU country doing this we'd be demanding it too.

- Cameron is resigning by October, which means we might end up with "ignore the experts" Gove, or heck even "BoJo" as PM. Also he won't be the one to put Article 50 into motion, which leaves this all in limbo a fair bit.

- A couple Labour MPs are calling for vote of no confidence in Corbyn, which they'll have been chomping on the bit for some reason to do that, though other Labour members have noted it won't do anything cos he'd likely win another leadership contest again. (Unless they can get David Milliband from his self-imposed exile)

- Scotland and Northern Ireland have called for Independence referendums, which given the outcome in those two countries makes sense and was sort of inevitable (Scotland had a close run last time, so a second was gonna happen just to make sure it was absolutely one way or other).

- Spain is eyeing up Gibraltar, which a non-EU Gibraltar is pretty much fucked.

- Wales also voted heavily in Leave despite getting the most EU funds of any UK region. It's a common thread throughout the country unfortunately, I guess most folks aren't fully aware where EU cash goes.

- UK science industry don't have any FTSE equivalent but yeah it'd also be in turmoil if it was, out of EU makes it a fair bit harder to share both funds and research materials, lab specialisms etc so we've essentially set our scientific advances back a fair bit too.

- There's a bunch of videos circling the web from news programs interviewing Leave voters who are "I wouldn't think we'd actually leave"/"I didn't think my vote would count". These people will be found n nailed to crosses outside polling stations as an example to the rest that political votes and elections aren't fucking jokes like X-Factor n the like.

 

And that's just the news of today. Over the next couple years it's gonna be a fun spiral as the 80,000 separate EU-related pieces of legislation are scoured n rectified, deals made, and UK removed from the EU and losing many of the rights and privileges that entails from individuals, to corporate and country.