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

[Lord Halifax]

Or "The Right Honourable Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero"?

Can you make that name smaller as it’s not fitting on the subject line

For starters it's abbreviated The Rt. Hon.

[Lord Halifax]

"Scottish Labour is considering backing a second independence referendum in a dramatic reversal of policy by the party leader, Richard Leonard.

Party sources have told the Guardian that Leonard will raise that possibility at Labour’s Scottish executive committee on Saturday, where it could also discuss demands for it to split formally from the UK Labour party."

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jan/09/scottish-labour-could-back-independence-referendum-indyref2

[Lord Halifax]

"Scottish Labour is considering backing a second independence referendum in a dramatic reversal of policy by the party leader, Richard Leonard.

Party sources have told the Guardian that Leonard will raise that possibility at Labour’s Scottish executive committee on Saturday, where it could also discuss demands for it to split formally from the UK Labour party."

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jan/09/scottish-labour-could-back-independence-referendum-indyref2

This surely can't have majority support in what remains of Scottish Labour, can it?

The party is probably still split, but I would say there is a loud faction who's identity is Unionist first, Labour second who won't be too enthusiastic.

Sounds like political suicide to me

Like what do they have to gain by becoming an SNP clone? If anything I imagine you have more left wing voters in Scotland than pro independance voters.

If they become pro independance they may as well dissolve and merge with the SNP because I dont see how they'd be relevant in the slightest

They'd probably lose whatever votes they still have to the SNP (left-wingers first) and Tories (unionists first)

The SNP is a broad tent centrist party with a heterogenous voter coalition, if Labour becomes neutral on independence they can hope to get a lot of the left wingers that have defected to the SNP back.

[Lord Halifax]

"Scottish Labour is considering backing a second independence referendum in a dramatic reversal of policy by the party leader, Richard Leonard.

Party sources have told the Guardian that Leonard will raise that possibility at Labour’s Scottish executive committee on Saturday, where it could also discuss demands for it to split formally from the UK Labour party."

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jan/09/scottish-labour-could-back-independence-referendum-indyref2

This surely can't have majority support in what remains of Scottish Labour, can it?

The party is probably still split, but I would say there is a loud faction who's identity is Unionist first, Labour second who won't be too enthusiastic.

Sounds like political suicide to me

Like what do they have to gain by becoming an SNP clone? If anything I imagine you have more left wing voters in Scotland than pro independance voters.

If they become pro independance they may as well dissolve and merge with the SNP because I dont see how they'd be relevant in the slightest

They'd probably lose whatever votes they still have to the SNP (left-wingers first) and Tories (unionists first)

The SNP is a broad tent centrist party with a heterogenous voter coalition, if Labour becomes neutral on independence they can hope to get a lot of the left wingers that have defected to the SNP back.

The SNP strikes me as pretty left-wing already, not sure how much further to the left Labour could go to break SNP dominance.

The SNP is rhetorically centre-left, but far less so in practice where it mainly delivers welfare to the middle class and serves business interests. It's a populist catch-all party fairly similar to Fianna Fail in Ireland and there is plenty of space to the left of SNP. They have also hollowed out local government and centralized excessively and that's an area where Labour could attack them.

[Lord Halifax]

https://twitter.com/BBCandrewkerr/status/1217134724713537542?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw...

[Lord Halifax]

Boris Johnson has tested positive for coronavirus and is self-isolating at Downing Street, but will still lead the government's response to the accelerating outbreak.

[Lord Halifax]

The problem with an English Parliament, with comparable powers to the Scottish Parliament, is that it would leave the United Kingdom Parliament with little to do particularly about the issues voters and politicians care most about. All the UK Parliament would be left with are things like foreign affairs and defence; together with the unpopularity of raising taxes, largely to give to the politicians in the national Parliaments to spend (who will always be able to blame the mean UK Parliament and government for all difficulties).

The result of devolution to England is for the English First Minister to do to the UK Prime Minister what Boris Yeltsin did to President Gorbachev. The withdrawal of England from the devolution arrangements would very easily lead to the immediate and total collapse of the United Kingdom.

Why would Westminster be in charge of raising taxes to the national parliaments? Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs could just service both the union government, the countries and the municipalities (one tax form, three types of taxes).

The natural solution would be a three tiered tax system with union taxes (raised by Westminster), national taxes (raised by the parliaments of England/Scotland/Wales/NI) and municipal taxes (raised by the municipalities). There would then need to be a subsidy to NI paid by the national taxes, and maybe one to Wales (at least temporarily).

[Lord Halifax]

They have hinted that they will run, pending an "official" announcement soon.

If the Heavy Woollen crowd run and Labour nominates Jo Cox' sister Kim Leadbeater (and the leader of Batley council Shabir Pandor has just endorsed her, which probably signals that she's the favourite now) Labour should be able to win this.

[Lord Halifax]

She's not actually Thatcher in the above post.

So what? It's not her marriage to Dennis Thatcher that made her an unlikely Labour voter, but her upbringing and the values and social position of her family.

[Lord Halifax]

What would we do without bronz4141?

We would have to upgrade to silver5252.

[Lord Halifax]

It's more or less the view that you would expect someone who got a Second in Classics at Oxford in the 80s to hold.

People of my generation were certainly sold, pretty unthinkingly, the "Rome was brought down by INVADING BARBAROUS HORDES" narrative at school. It was only later that some who had an interest in the subject looked deeper and realised that it was slightly more complicated than that.

How so?

[Lord Halifax]

Politicians right now are all feining shock at this government's corruption - and they're not wrong because it is a real problem.  But as someone who works with local government every day and in an industry adjacent to *construction* no less - the UK is not the nation of upstanding hard workers we like to think it is.  It's corrupt from the bottom to the top and frankly the rot is what helps the wheels go round.  Not fun for those of us in the industry however that try not to be corrupt.

The evangelical says that but the evangelical will still put a cross next to his godless, hooker-hiring, shyster Tory MP because its better to "own the left" and "be a winner" than it is to have a satanic Labour government.

Its why the evangelical will burn in hell.

This seems a bit personal.

FWIW American style political Evangelicalism isn't really a thing in the UK.  I think the two Evangelicals I know best both voted Lib Dem in the last election.  (One told me he did, and the other very much hinted at it.  And they don't know each other and live in different constituencies, in neither of which were the Lib Dems competitive.)

Is it at all a thing outside of the US?

Brazil?

[Lord Halifax]

I mean, when Lizz 'Pork Markets' Truss is talked of seriously as a successor

That is a disgrace

[Lord Halifax]

Interesting, and perhaps important clarification. Has been reassuring to see Johnson mostly avoid sabre rattling and escalatory language in the past fortnight.

The Ukrainians are outnumbered and desperately need foreign volunteers (with a minimum of military training and fitness), I don't see allowing your citizens to volunteer as "sabre rattling", it's basically the least Western governments can do if they don't want Ukraine to be overrun.