UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Also, I mean... *gestures towards the current employment of a certain somebody*. A free hit is right.

[Pericles]

Is Delyn a Red Wall seat? That would be a very interesting by-election. Given the current polls and how by-elections go it would probably be a Labour gain, though it depends when it is held.

[CumbrianLefty]

Though nonetheless, I feel the need to repeat this for certain people:

RUSSIA DIDN'T ACTUALLY "DO" BREXIT. RUSSIA DIDN'T ACTUALLY "DO" TRUMP.

The continued pretence otherwise from centrists on both sides of the Atlantic (again clearly on display yesterday) deflects from a far more pertinent reason - their own cosseted complacency for years and years beforehand.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Is Delyn a Red Wall seat? That would be a very interesting by-election. Given the current polls and how by-elections go it would probably be a Labour gain, though it depends when it is held.

It isn't as if that term means much so who knows. It's a mixture of small industrial towns and prosperous countryside and was won by Labour at all General Elections from 1992 until last year. The sort of socially polarised constituency where, under 'normal' circumstances, Labour is very hard to beat and will usually have a comfortable majority, but will rarely win by a massive amount. It was only created in 1983, but had it existed before (and on something like its current boundaries) it would almost certainly have been Labour at every postwar election save 1959.

[afleitch]

I think the failure to investigate alleged Russian attempts to influence the independence referendum are more striking. The alleged attempts were for the losing side, so they couldn't be accused of having influenced the result, and any backlash would have been from people who were unlikely to vote Conservative anyway, so that one seems like it would have been more of a freebie.

All references to the Scottish independence referendum are heavily redacted. If anything that infers what was previously suspected is that Russia flooded both campaigns to some extent. The UK intelligence services were not poorly served by that attempt given the result, so why bother investigating it?

[EastAnglianLefty]

I think the failure to investigate alleged Russian attempts to influence the independence referendum are more striking. The alleged attempts were for the losing side, so they couldn't be accused of having influenced the result, and any backlash would have been from people who were unlikely to vote Conservative anyway, so that one seems like it would have been more of a freebie.

All references to the Scottish independence referendum are heavily redacted. If anything that infers what was previously suspected is that Russia flooded both campaigns to some extent. The UK intelligence services were not poorly served by that attempt given the result, so why bother investigating it?

Because there are obvious issues with foreign nations being able to guide public discourse in a manner producing greater levels of social division? You want to deal with that before they actually refine it, because afterwards, as we've seen, it's much more difficult to do.

[Cassius]

Though nonetheless, I feel the need to repeat this for certain people:

RUSSIA DIDN'T ACTUALLY "DO" BREXIT. RUSSIA DIDN'T ACTUALLY "DO" TRUMP.

The continued pretence otherwise from centrists on both sides of the Atlantic (again clearly on display yesterday) deflects from a far more pertinent reason - their own cosseted complacency for years and years beforehand.

Yeah, I mean I think the key question is ‘is it worth investigating’? and I personally think the answer to that is, ‘no, it’s not’. We know the electoral system itself is pretty much completely safe from efforts at vote rigging by foreign actors (a good reason to keep pen and paper voting). It also seems pretty clear that the Russian government didn’t provide any significant funding to the Leave campaign. So, what is left? A few Russian state and semi-state actors whipping up fake news on social media? Organizations like RT and Sputnik (which have a small following in the UK) doing the same through slightly more conventional channels? Nothing done by either wasn’t already being done, on a much grander scale, by UK politicians and UK media outlets who, once they’d picked a side, began flinging questionable narratives and fake news at each other with abandon (and this very much includes the not-so-saintly Remain campaign).

The fact that is the internet gives foreign actors an easy tool with which to spread disinformation and the only way for the government to stop that is for it to adopt a Chinese style approach to internet regulation (since ‘Russian bots’, by nature of operating outside of HMG’s jurisdiction, cannot be cut off at source). Even if you believe that Russian interference made more than a minuscule difference to the outcome of the referendum, interference of that type isn’t going to go away unless the government adopts of that more authoritarian approach to regulating the internet. In so doing, a lot of domestic political commentary will likely also be caught up in the net, unless you believe that spreading fake news is only wrong when the Ruskies do it. So that will also be incredibly controversial.

I personally think the Russian ‘interference’, such as it was, amounted to little more than background noise on the sturm und drang of the referendum campaign, and that very, very few people are likely to have changed their minds as a result of it. Therefore, I don’t think it’s worth raking over the issue in more detail. Any investigation into the impact of ‘fake news’ on the referendum result would do far better to look into the activities of British politicians and media outlets during the campaign (and of course, that already has been done, in detail).

[cp]

Though nonetheless, I feel the need to repeat this for certain people:

RUSSIA DIDN'T ACTUALLY "DO" BREXIT. RUSSIA DIDN'T ACTUALLY "DO" TRUMP.

The continued pretence otherwise from centrists on both sides of the Atlantic (again clearly on display yesterday) deflects from a far more pertinent reason - their own cosseted complacency for years and years beforehand.

Yeah, I mean I think the key question is ‘is it worth investigating’? and I personally think the answer to that is, ‘no, it’s not’. We know the electoral system itself is pretty much completely safe from efforts at vote rigging by foreign actors (a good reason to keep pen and paper voting). It also seems pretty clear that the Russian government didn’t provide any significant funding to the Leave campaign. So, what is left? A few Russian state and semi-state actors whipping up fake news on social media? Organizations like RT and Sputnik (which have a small following in the UK) doing the same through slightly more conventional channels? Nothing done by either wasn’t already being done, on a much grander scale, by UK politicians and UK media outlets who, once they’d picked a side, began flinging questionable narratives and fake news at each other with abandon (and this very much includes the not-so-saintly Remain campaign).

The fact that is the internet gives foreign actors an easy tool with which to spread disinformation and the only way for the government to stop that is for it to adopt a Chinese style approach to internet regulation (since ‘Russian bots’, by nature of operating outside of HMG’s jurisdiction, cannot be cut off at source). Even if you believe that Russian interference made more than a minuscule difference to the outcome of the referendum, interference of that type isn’t going to go away unless the government adopts of that more authoritarian approach to regulating the internet. In so doing, a lot of domestic political commentary will likely also be caught up in the net, unless you believe that spreading fake news is only wrong when the Ruskies do it. So that will also be incredibly controversial.

I personally think the Russian ‘interference’, such as it was, amounted to little more than background noise on the sturm und drang of the referendum campaign, and that very, very few people are likely to have changed their minds as a result of it. Therefore, I don’t think it’s worth raking over the issue in more detail. Any investigation into the impact of ‘fake news’ on the referendum result would do far better to look into the activities of British politicians and media outlets during the campaign (and of course, that already has been done, in detail).

Has it? Most of the investigations of the criminal activities of the Leave campaign were curtailed or dismissed on technicalities.

More generally, this perspective adopts a stunningly naive view of political power. It elides the overlap between nefarious external elements and their domestic counterparts. Expecting a government seeking to subvert another country's democratic processes to operate in such a direct manner as you describe is laughably simplistic, particularly given the present day infrastructure of oblique and occluded international finance mechanisms that the rich and powerful - state and nonstate alike - have utilized to bend events to their will.

Personally, I don't think there was ever a chance of this sort of inquiry ever holding anyone to account. To do so would be to implicate an ecosystem of legal corruption that benefits far too much of the elite castes of the UK.

[Silent Hunter]

A thought that occurs to me is "why aren't we interfering back?"

[Blair]

Well the obvious issue for me is the relucance to fix our electoral laws; it's been clear since 2015 that there needs to be regulation of online political content.

It was baffling that during an election every word in print we put out had to be itemised with a clear watermark of our election agent & address while whatever went on facebook had no requirement at all; but equally could still count as speech under election laws (e.g breaching the 1983 act & causing an election to be void)

MPs have been banging on for months about the need for the Government to fix this; but Brexit & Covid & a complete lack of digital knowledge means we will not fix it until there is a scandal. If a foreign Government wanted to influence an election they could have done it through spending millions on facebook adverts outside of an election period.

There were numerous cases of random 20 year olds running thousands of pounds of random digital ads against MPs during the Brexit votes; we always boast about not allowling TV advertising like the Americans but at least there you have a vague idea of who is behind it even if it is 'Doctors for patient freedom'

Rather than an MI5 inquiry we'd never actually see I'd much rather we have an new election act; especially as the stuff related to national campaign spending irrc still hasn't been fixed after the fiasco of the battle bus.

[CumbrianLefty]

A thought that occurs to me is "why aren't we interfering back?"

Maybe we do, but just aren't as good at it?

[Silent Hunter]

Bit of a political scandal brewing in my home borough of Havering over boundary changes

[Blair]

In hilarous news the Government have re-imposed quarantines for those returning from Spain; and it appears the Transport Secretary (who is in charge of this; god knows why it isn't an FCO issue?) is in spain himself.

[brucejoel99]

In hilarous news the Government have re-imposed quarantines for those returning from Spain; and it appears the Transport Secretary (who is in charge of this; god knows why it isn't an FCO issue?) is in spain himself.

Seems wise, though I wouldn't be surprised if Shapps just didn't bother upon returning & literally just ignored it, knowing there likely won't be any consequences anyway.

[Silent Hunter]

Perhaps he can go out for a drive to test his eyesight.

[Pericles]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/26/49-of-voters-believe-kremlin-interfered-in-brexit-referendum-russia-report

This poll seems interesting. However, I was under the impression that the vote that Russia had actually been officially charged with interfering in was the 2019 election, on behalf of Labour. Is there serious evidence that Corbyn got his leaked NHS dossiers from Russian hackers?  In any case, while serious the problem doesn't seem quite as bad as the US because it didn't have much impact on the final outcome (though the UK is just luckier in this respect, and if action is taken there may be a close vote that is swung by foreign interference).

[Blair]

The documents were put on reddit months before iirc; If the security services were so worried they should and did have the channels to at least warn Labour about them- but as I said above the Russia report made clear MI5/MI6 were asleep at the wheel.

There’s an ongoing criminal investigation into the actual leak. The document was just a prop though.

Re Brexit polling I’d ignore it; all Brexit polling is bollocks and the issue has radicalised and melted many minds

[CumbrianLefty]

Yes, the "Kremlin gave Corbyn TOP SECRET DOCUMENTS" meme is the purest bull***t.

[brucejoel99]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/26/49-of-voters-believe-kremlin-interfered-in-brexit-referendum-russia-report

This poll seems interesting. [...]  In any case, while serious the problem doesn't seem quite as bad as the US because it didn't have much impact on the final outcome (though the UK is just luckier in this respect, and if action is taken there may be a close vote that is swung by foreign interference).

Yeah, my (completely inexpert) opinion is that the result might've been the same without any interference, but they might consider themselves to have perhaps been successful in 'inflaming' the divisions. But the result was so close that I guess it's difficult to tell how a little nudge might've helped (though I still imagine something like years of tabloid stories probably had more of an effect).

[DaWN]

I don't think there was any actual connection between Corbyn and Russia other than his usual stupidity causing him to be a useful idiot, but well... he didn't exactly help himself on that front did he? cough cough skripal affair cough cough

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There are strong rumours that someone who was a member of his inner circle is a Kremlin asset. But then there are also strong rumours that so is a reasonably well-known backbench Conservative MP (who, for non-ideological reasons, should certainly know better). If this problem is as bad as has been rumoured for a while and is argued for in this report, then it isn't something that can be seen through the lens of British party politics.

[CumbrianLefty]

I don't think there was any actual connection between Corbyn and Russia other than his usual stupidity causing him to be a useful idiot, but well... he didn't exactly help himself on that front did he? cough cough skripal affair cough cough

His *initial* response, almost certainly prompted by Milne, was indeed somewhat regrettable.

[afleitch]

I'm a little bit concerned about the local clusters reporting, particularly as some outlets emphasise the 'high south asian' aspect. While it is true that some cultural factors are at play here, there's a lot of the demography of politics/poor health, extended families in one household that is perhaps too nuanced to get across. For now the potential instigators are fuming over face masks, but I worry going forward.

So yeah. The Daily Mail is now going there.

[Silent Hunter]

South Asian extended families frequently have the most senior generation not speaking English as a first language; the public health material for them has possibly been rather lacking.

[Blair]

In non-covid news the new Honours list is as always hilarously awful; although it's one of those things which is always the 'worst ever'.

Lots of people were up in arms about Philip May getting a knighthood; but the real shock was the onwer of the Standard getting a peerage after the reports just last week....