British Politics
Been on holiday for a few weeks, surprised to find no general discussion of British politics so though I'd kick one off.
Tory leadership contest is quickly turning into farce. Trump has backed Boris, which should be reason enough for anyone with half a brain to exclude him.
Of the other candidates Rory Stewart looks the best of the outsiders. Surprised to see Cleverly and Javid not further up the betting, but not sure the Tory membership are ready for a brown PM.
https://www.oddschecker.com/politics/bri...
Regarding the LD leadership contest, Jo Swinson is miles ahead of any other candidate (and indeed any of the Tory lot). Should be a shoe in.
Finally, it's Groundhog Day in Labour - the more serious the anti-Semitism claims get, the more Corbyn's cronies write their own obituary by blaming it on outlandish conspiracy theories - this week, it's apparently the Jewish Embassy's fault...
Daily politics today: The very right wing and horrible Rupert Lowe, a reform MP likes the sound of what wes streeting is proposing to do to the nhs
Not at all suprised. What a tragedy.
The British government looks headed for a major clash with Donald Trump after ceding control of the Chagos Islands, home of a crucial U.S. military base, to Mauritius.
U.S. President-elect Trump’s pick for Secretary of State, Mark Rubio, told POLITICO last month that he fears the deal would boost China and warned the agreement poses “a serious threat” to U.S. national security. The Independent reported Wednesday that Trump's new team could even try to veto the deal.
Back home, the British government is under mounting pressure from Trump allies and China hawks about the handover, which it has defended as respecting international law and ending a decades-long injustice.
...
The agreement came after a 2019 advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice, which adjudicates on disputes between nations and said the U.K. was “under an obligation to bring to an end its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible.”
But critics in the U.K. and U.S. argue Britain was under no obligation to respect the advisory opinion, and charge that the government has committed a major tactical blunder that will only embolden China.
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Reform UK leader Nigel Farage — who celebrated Trump’s win at the president-elect's Mar-a-Lago resort last week — tried to turn up the heat on the British government in the House of Commons Wednesday.
He warned that Trump’s incoming administration views the handover with “outright hostility” and will try to challenge it.
“Diego Garcia was described to me by a senior Trump advisor as the most important island on the planet as far as America was concerned,” he said.
The Independent reported Wednesday that Trump’s transition team “has requested legal advice from the Pentagon over the agreement” and could seek to kill the deal amid national security concerns.
Responding to Farage for the government in the Commons, Foreign Office Minister Stephen Doughty stressed that negotiations on the handover were started under the previous Conservative government.
He said the deal showed Britain upholding the international rule of law, and said “robust security arrangements” had been built into the agreement “preventing the presence of foreign security forces on the outer islands.”
“We would not have signed off an agreement that compromised any of our security interests or those of our allies,” he added.
Other British figures are not so sure.
Eddie Lister, a former senior adviser to Boris Johnson as British prime minister, said of the agreement: "I think pressure will come on for us to backtrack on it. Don't forget no legislation has been put through on it.”
He added: "The pressure will become enormous.”
I'm totally confident that starmer will stock to his guns
totally confident
Seriously no doubt at all
really
It was a stupid thing to do because Mauritius has no real claim and the Mauritius government is positively hostile to the Chagossians. It was also a stupid thing to do because the Americans were bound to see it as 'unreliable' behaviour by an ally. So, just generally stupid, really. But the public's media-led attitude to politicians is such that you can't get the best people to do the job. So we're stuck with what we're stuck with.
Last two sentences are spot on. "Couldn't be any worse" has led us to the extremism of Badenoch and Farage.
Labour have handed £2,300,000,000 of NHS contracts to private health profiteers since September.
Crappy far right journo Allison Pearson has found herself in hot water since a complaint was made to the police about something she tweeted. Last Sunday, officers visited Pearson’s home asking her to attend a voluntary interview after a complaint that the writer had incited racial hatred...
It is an alleged retweet by Pearson of a photograph posted several months ago amid heightened tensions over the policing of Gaza protests. It shows a group of people of colour posing with a flag on a British street, flanked by three police officers.
The photograph angered Pearson, who allegedly wrote a tweet condemning the Metropolitan police: “How dare they.
“Invited to pose for a photo with lovely peaceful British Friends of Israel on Saturday police refused. Look at this lot smiling with the Jew haters.”
In fact, the picture is from Manchester, sources confirm, and thus the officers pictured are from Greater Manchester police and not the London force.
The implication that the Muslims pictured are antisemitic and supporting Hamas is undermined by the green and maroon flag they are holding. The flag is used by supporters of the Pakistani political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). It also, rather clearly, has the word “Pakistan” written on it.
PTI was founded by the former international cricketer Imran Khan, who became prime minister of Pakistan before being deposed and jailed.
The person who complained to the police is not Muslim nor one of those pictured. They are a former public servant with training in criminal law. They wish to stay anonymous, fearing reprisals, especially from far-right elements, but told the Guardian the post by Pearson was “racist and inflammatory” – which she denies.
They added: “Pearson tweeted something that had nothing to do with Palestine or the London protests: she tweeted a picture of two persons of colour holding a flag of a Pakistani political party standing next to some GMP officers … Her description of the two people of colour as Jew haters is racist and inflammatory.
“Each time an influential person makes negative comments about people of colour I, as a person of colour, see an uptick in racist abuse towards me and the days after that tweet are no different.”
Crappy far right journo Allison Pearson has found herself in hot water since a complaint was made to the police about something she tweeted. Last Sunday, officers visited Pearson’s home asking her to attend a voluntary interview after a complaint that the writer had incited racial hatred...
christ that is terrible
'non-crime hate incident'. vomit
You are lucky you aren't in the EU anymore, we sanctioned Hungary and Poland for far less fascism that what you are doing here.
For the record, this is what fascism actually is: censorship and law enforcement used to harass people for "wrong think".
Inexcusable, completely incompatible with western civilization, UK is gone.
thanks, but i'm still not fully convinced that sending the police round to someones house over a tweet they made in 2023 is a good thing
as someone whose political ideas are far away from those of the establishment in this country, it is unbelievably naive of you to support this sort of thing
i mean stop and think it through
I'm more convinced that's a good thing than I am that letting journalists print inflammatory racist lies is a good thing.
You should think one step further than "idgaf about racist media attacks on Muslims" and imagine who might be next on their list.
Remember who Lord Rothermere's Daily Mail supported before the war? His descendant who now owns the rag is no different.
Inciting racial hatred should be a crime.
The police should investigate accusations of that crime
Pearson allegedly wrote a tweet condemning the Metropolitan police: “How dare they. Invited to pose for a photo with lovely peaceful British Friends of Israel on Saturday police refused. Look at this lot smiling with the Jew haters.”
The people in the picture were holding a flag used by supporters of the Pakistani political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). The flag has the word “Pakistan” written on it. The picture was taken in Manchester, not London, and the officers were from Greater Manchester police, not the London force.
Whether it amount to a crime under the statute I dont know but it must be close. I'd say the same a something equivilant aimed at jewish people.
I suspect her defense is that she thought they were protesting in favour of a proscribed terrotist organisation. So just standard racism and bile more than a crime.
what happens when prime minister badenoch includes anti-zionism within the definition of hate speech
Could do do now but the law isn't a simple matter of it being hate speach.
so naive
what happens when prime minister badenoch includes anti-zionism within the definition of hate speech
I imagine you’ll be delighted, you’ve been so brainwashed by the far right lies.
Essex police have defended their decision to investigate the Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson over a social media post, saying she is accused of “inciting racial hatred” not of committing a “non-crime hate incident”, as she had claimed.
thanks, but i'm still not fully convinced that sending the police round to someones house over a tweet they made in 2023 is a good thing
It isn't, obviously, it's silly and a waste of their time. If police ever come to your door with that sort of story, 'inviting' you for an interview on the basis of a subjective complaint by a random individual, just tell them to go away. They're engaged in intimidation. If they really want their precious interview, they'll then have to apply for a warrant for your arrest, and (a) that would put them under very heavy PACE rules, which they were trying to avoid, and (b) they're unlikely to get a warrant on such spurious grounds anyway, and, even if they do, you hire a solicitor, who will advise you to say nothing, and you say nothing and at some point the solicitor will say, 'Are we done here?' and they won't have any answer.
The complaint wasn’t by a random individual, as I posted.
It isn't, obviously, it's silly and a waste of their time. If police ever come to your door with that sort of story, 'inviting' you for an interview on the basis of a subjective complaint by a random individual, just tell them to go away. They're engaged in intimidation. If they really want their precious interview, they'll then have to apply for a warrant for your arrest, and (a) that would put them under very heavy PACE rules, which they were trying to avoid, and (b) they're unlikely to get a
There's got to be a better way than the polcie turning up.
Maybe some message indictating a complaint is being investigated with a clearly voluntary opportunity to comment would be sufficient unless/until it's deemed serious enough for an interview under caution.
All we know is that the complainant was a 'member of the public' who viewed the tweet as a 'possible hate crime'.
Same advice applies if the police ever try it on like that.
Inciting racial hatred should be a crime.
The police should investigate accusations of that crime
Whether it amount to a crime under the statute I dont know but it must be close. I'd say the same a something equivilant aimed at jewish people.
I suspect her defense is that she thought they were protesting in favour of a proscribed terrotist organisation. So just standard racism and bile more than a crime.
Could do do now but the law isn't a simple matter of it being hate speach.
The main problem with hate speech laws, other than the horrendous generic problems with censorship, is that enforcement is variable and subjective.
No law should proscribe a behavior that cannot be defined objectively and independently from individual judgement.
Something must be clearly criminal for all observers with normal intelligence, or not, when written in the law.
It's a deep violation of rule of law principles to have laws that aren't objectively enforceable without individual subjective judgement.
So a law banning personal insults makes more sense than very vague attempts to define "hate".
Nothing you cannot define measurably and objectively should be a part of rule making in general.
There's got to be a better way than the polcie turning up.
Maybe some message indictating a complaint is being investigated with a clearly voluntary opportunity to comment would be sufficient unless/until it's deemed serious enough for an interview under caution.
Wtf! It's either a crime or not.
If it is you come and arrear and commenta are superflous.
If it isn't nothing happens.
There is no in between, the content made public is either criminal or not
Pretty much all our laws have a subjective element. All the better for it imo
