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Old 01-12-2017, 10:28 AM   #751
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So am I misunderstanding what's going on here or are SF being a great big bag of dicks? From what I read the First Minister agreed to literally everything SF wanted for the investigation without a fight except for the demand that she stand down now, which is a blatantly ridiculous one (she should go if she's done something wrong and the point of having an investigation is to find out if she has or not, so clearly she should only have to step down after an investigation if it finds she's done something wrong).
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Old 01-17-2017, 05:30 PM   #752
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I don't think it's unreasonable for SF or others to have requested that Foster step aside for the investigation in order to prevent her oversight etc. Regardless, we're now here, the Assembly has collapsed, and there's an election on March 12th.

Kill me now. Our elections are fucking horrible, and it's looking like Paul "Conscience Clause" Givan will take over as as FM.
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Old 01-17-2017, 06:48 PM   #753
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What so there's no way of setting up an independent investigation outside of the FMs oversight? That seems really unlikely. Like don't get me wrong I'm not sitting here waving a "woo DUP!" flag by any stretch of the imagination but this strikes me as SF just looking for an excuse to cause political trouble. *Shrug* I just feel like we should establish for sure someone's done something wrong before fucking them over for it. Innocent until proven guilty and all that jazz.

This whole shebacle means I'm learning a lot more about the whole power sharing thing though. It's a super interesting system. Obviously it's not going well now but does this kind of forced coalition thing usually work for you guys?
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Old 01-17-2017, 07:19 PM   #754
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Honestly, not very well. Us and them mentality runs rampant between the DUP/SF and the assembly frequently deadlocks itself so little of actual substance gets done. This year is the first time in ages we've actually had enough MLAs to form a governmental opposition, made up of Alliance, the SDLP and smaller parties. The Assembly has a list of problems as long as my arm honestly.
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Old 01-26-2017, 12:12 PM   #755
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So uh correct me if I'm wrong, but is Corbyn's fuckup re: the police officer in Belfast who was shot the first time Northern Ireland has been mentioned in the Commons since the whole assembly collapse thing? Because I find that phenomenally depressing.
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Old 01-27-2017, 06:12 AM   #756
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The public presidential schedule put out by the White House misspelt Theresa May's name three times.

For some reason, I'm not confident special relationship negotiations will be... balanced.
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Old 02-08-2017, 05:32 PM   #757
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So there's zero guarantee that the Good Friday Agreement won't be violated during Brexit, we've stopped taking in child refugees and EU Nationals are fucked.

Fuck you England.
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Old 02-15-2017, 11:18 AM   #758
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Hopefully EU nationals already here will end up being able to stay. From a purely selfish perspective, my girlfriend lives and works here on her Greek passport.
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Old 03-04-2017, 12:10 PM   #759
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Results of the Assembly election are in, and given that the BBC et al have completely forgotten what Northern Ireland is, I'll bring you up to speed on the major points.

- Turnout was up roughly 10% across the board, though number of registered dropped by 2%.
- DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) dropped from 38 to 28 seats, rendering them unable to use the Petition of Concern (a measure to protect against discriminatory, particularly sectarian legislation, requiring 30 votes to deploy) as a veto on marriage equality etc. No party is able to, with the next highest being Sinn Fein with 27 seats. I suspect Steven Agnew, the Green Leader, will be bringing that forth ASAP.
- Should be noted that the Assembly has been shrunken from 108 to 90 seats this go-around, making losses guaranteed.
- Arlene Foster retained her seat at the top of the poll in her constituency (Fermanagh/West Tyrone). I am baffled frankly.
- Mike Nesbitt, leader of the UUP (Ulster Unionist Party) resigned, though he did retain his seat. They lost 6 seats overall, leaving them with 10. Nesbitt made headlines when he encouraged unionists to transfer to the SDLP (Social Democratic and Labour Party) - a nationalist party - rather than the DUP. His party was very split on the issue, likely hurting their vote.
- In my constituency, the DUP lost a seat to the sole SDLP representative, Pat Catney - that's huge, Lagan Valley has been an extraordinarily unionist area for years, but now only 2/5 MLAs from it are DUP.
- Eamonn McCann, a People Before Profit candidate lost his seat in Foyle, which I'm sad for. One of the good ones, finally got in after 60 years campaigning last year. It's currently believed that PBP's pro-Brexit stance hurt their vote, especially in Nationalist areas.
- And finally, Sinn Féin, having surged (proportionally speaking, they still have one less seat than last year), confirm they will not be returning to power-sharing without "significant changes in the DUP's approach".

... We got more coverage of Stoke/Copeland than you lot got of our entire election. Fucking hell.
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Old 03-04-2017, 10:05 PM   #760
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Semi-random question - do you think if Brexit precipitates the way May is pushing for, is there a possibility of Irish reunification in the near future?
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Old 03-05-2017, 04:59 AM   #761
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Polling still shows 2/3's+ support for remaining British, and in more explicit polling along the lines of "does the Brexit vote change your mind about Irish reunification" the answer was a resounding no. Depending on how it ends up impacting the Irish border it might have slightly more impact than we're seeing at the moment, but I suspect most people are more firmly entrenched in their British vs Irish views than their EU vs Brexit views. Interested to hear Josh's thoughts though!

On the border front; Norway and Sweden have an open border despite only one being in the EU, so the model is possible. The Republic isn't part of Schengen and the UK and Irish governments have mechanisms set up to co-ordinate on issues like immigration that effect the border. I can see an argument for devolving certain trade issues to Stormont and putting more customs control between the rest of the UK and NI rather than on the land border. Stormont already has quite a lot of freedom from Westminster anyway (although if SF and the DUP can't hammer out an agreement we'll be back to direct rule for a little while and no-one really wants that including Westminster - although SF might force it if they think they can successfully blame the DUP for it to mobilise support, and if Foster won't step aside SF might even get away with it).
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Old 03-07-2017, 07:41 AM   #762
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Interesting article in today's Independent on that front. Not entirely sure I agree, but Siobhan has a good perspective, and it does show how things have shifted, even if it is a bit idealistic even by my standards.

I by and large agree with Concept's talk about people being more entrenched in British v Irish rather than EU v Brexit, especially with religion being more of a factor - Home Rule still means Rome Rule for a lot of Unionists - possible not unreasonably given the Catholic Church's stranglehold on Irish politics. Glaring squarely at the Tuam Babies, Magdalene Laundries, etc.

My biggest concern is with the Good Friday Agreement. The refusal to guarantee its protection during the whole Brexit process is deeply concerning for me, and for many of us, who are unsure what will happen. And trust me when I say that the Southerners aren't happy with you lot trying to get us to participate in YOUR immigration control at Dublin Airport, or with their lickspittle Taoiseach for entertaining it. Will all that amount to anything? I don't know. There's a fear of a return to the Troubles, but I do think (and hope) it's at least slightly exaggerated. Still, Nationalism IS on the rise, that can't be denied, and a referendum at least could happen within my generation.

Personally I plan to move down south post-PhD anyway if possible. There's nothing left for me in the UK apart from family and friends.

I dunno, lots of just rambling here.
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Old 03-14-2017, 03:24 AM   #763
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A second Scottish independence referendum has been announced.

Let's all take a moment to appreciate that now Sturgeon has to persuade people that leaving one larger political grouping in pursuit of more independence is a great idea because otherwise they'll be dragged out of a different one and that'd be terrible. Plus the fun of watching May try to argue the exact opposite.

I predict that trying to guess whether any given political soundbite came from May or Sturgeon is going to be really difficult for the next few years
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Old 03-23-2017, 02:10 PM   #764
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Man I've REALLY enjoyed being lectured on my own history by English journos who haven't a fucking clue we had an election three weeks ago.
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Old 04-18-2017, 10:19 AM   #765
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Theresa May trying to kick (and spit on) Labour while they're down

Quite a gamble, calling for snap elections, but one she'll probably win, unlike Cameron
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Old 04-18-2017, 02:54 PM   #766
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is there a guide/explainer as to how the british election system works? like how May can "call an election' and what it means? Thanks
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Old 04-18-2017, 03:36 PM   #767
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Britain's electoral system differs from America in that the one who wins the popular vote overall gets to be PM. Each region gets their own MP into the HoC, which is what the people vote for.
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Old 04-18-2017, 06:32 PM   #768
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But what about being able to hold an election anytime you want to use the loo
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Old 04-18-2017, 06:32 PM   #769
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is there a guide/explainer as to how the british election system works? like how May can "call an election' and what it means? Thanks
Current law says that everybody in the House of Commons serves 5 year terms, so the next election would've been in 2020. However, Parliament can have elections early if there's a majority vote for it. This is what May's doing. Assuming she gets a majority vote for it (I think it's expected that she will), there will be a nationwide election in two months to elect a new Parliament.

General idea is that May is very popular and Corbyn (Leader of the Labour Party, main opposition) apparently sucks, and so she expects that she can win a larger majority through this election to claim a mandate for herself her Brexit negotiations, and also to have more wiggle-room in Parliament to pass those negotiations through the House of Commons, as right now the Tories only have a slight majority. I think the Lib Dems (More or less the centrists) are also expected to come out ahead by being the most "Fuck Brexit" party out there in England/Wales, but after getting absolutely walloped in 2015, hard for them to really fall much farther behind.

It's a bit risky, but people seem to think that May will pull it off.
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Old 04-18-2017, 09:00 PM   #770
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Current law says that everybody in the House of Commons serves 5 year terms, so the next election would've been in 2020. However, Parliament can have elections early if there's a majority vote for it. This is what May's doing. Assuming she gets a majority vote for it (I think it's expected that she will), there will be a nationwide election in two months to elect a new Parliament.

General idea is that May is very popular and Corbyn (Leader of the Labour Party, main opposition) apparently sucks, and so she expects that she can win a larger majority through this election to claim a mandate for herself her Brexit negotiations, and also to have more wiggle-room in Parliament to pass those negotiations through the House of Commons, as right now the Tories only have a slight majority. I think the Lib Dems (More or less the centrists) are also expected to come out ahead by being the most "Fuck Brexit" party out there in England/Wales, but after getting absolutely walloped in 2015, hard for them to really fall much farther behind.

It's a bit risky, but people seem to think that May will pull it off.
So the HoC is every 5 years, everyone up for re-election, and now she's bumping it to now, less than halfway into the current term, as a means to solidify her bloc going into Brexit negotiations?
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Old 04-18-2017, 09:45 PM   #771
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Yup.
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Old 04-19-2017, 12:02 AM   #772
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Are there any restrictions on this? Or can the majority party call another election as frequently as they want in the hopes of strengthening their majority?
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Old 04-19-2017, 02:06 AM   #773
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Basically it's not normal, but there was one promised after Brexit due to some hoo-hah because May wasn't actually elected by the public, so they promised to call one to 'legitimise' it. It's a crock of shite tbh, Labour's in no place to be a competent opposition, the Lib Dems are memetically shite, and the Tories are likely to stay in despite dragging us through on a likely-rigged referendum.
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Old 04-19-2017, 10:43 AM   #774
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meanwhile northern ireland still has no fucking government
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Old 04-19-2017, 11:02 AM   #775
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There are likely some constitutional restrictions which prevent a general election being called too frequently but it is also important to note they don't just need a simple majority, they require by minimum a two thirds majority, which is almost unheard of for a ruling party to hold. This means any attempts to do it to strengthen majority are normally completely blocked.

The reason this one won't be is because May is essentially issuing a gauntlet to Corbyn and Fallon. Both parties have said they would vote against her Brexit negotiations - the Lib Dems went as far as to claim it was their mission to make sure the government can't actually function in regards to Brexit, because they're idiots who are misreading the actual public sentiment. If the general election doesn't get 2/3 majority, it's basically Corbyn admitting he doesn't think he can win (and therefore undermining everything he has ever said basically ever with regards to his leadership) and makes Fallon look like a blustering idiot - someone who will just say shit to try and sway public sentiment without putting his money where his mouth is. People are bitching about May doing it purely because she smells blood in the water but frankly she has very much so been pushed into it by the ineptitude of Corbyn and Fallon. This is coming from someone who hates the Tories, by the way.
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