UK Politics - From Russia with Love

[The BlackBear]

21 minutes ago, Yukle said:

Why would Northern Irish people qualify? I thought there was a flood of people to get passports from the Republic before the rules changed due to uncertainty surrounding what happens next.

I'm not sure what rule change you're referring to here.

All Northern Irish born people (and their children) are entitled to full Irish citizenship, this will allow them to have EU and UK citizenship after brexit.

[Yukle]

Just now, The BlackBear said:

I'm not sure what rule change you're referring to here.

All Northern Irish born people (and their children) are entitled to full Irish citizenship, this will allow them to have EU and UK citizenship after brexit.

Sure, that's under existing laws. But I don't know if it's a certainty that things will remain as such. Hopefully they will, though.

[polishgenius]

There is no chance, absolutely none, that Northern Irish people will have their right to full Irish citizenship removed because of Brexit. They're not gonna abandon the key principle that all of Ireland is Irish, violate the Good Friday agreement, and alienate the Republicans in NI. The uncertainty about what happens next is with the British passport, that's why there was a flood of applications to get the Irish passport with its free EU travel sorted ahead of time. 

[Denvek]

5 hours ago, Yukle said:

Sure, that's under existing laws. But I don't know if it's a certainty that things will remain as such. Hopefully they will, though.

The Good Friday Agreement is an international treaty that is not linked to either side's membership of the EU, so the right of Northern Irish to be Irish and/or British as they choose shouldn't be affected by Brexit.

[Werthead]

11 hours ago, Denvek said:

The Good Friday Agreement is an international treaty that is not linked to either side's membership of the EU, so the right of Northern Irish to be Irish and/or British as they choose shouldn't be affected by Brexit.

While it's not linked, joint Irish-UK membership of the EU greatly simplified the process of harmonisation on either side of the border and very easily meant that the border could be disregarded, which would not have been the case otherwise. The UK's withdrawal from the EU means "deharmonisation" of UK and Irish law, which will inevitably (if slowly) mean divergence and a complication of the relationship. 

George Mitchell is pretty adamant that joint Irish-UK membership of the EU made the Good Friday Agreement much more practical and maybe even possible when otherwise it wouldn't have been.

[polishgenius]

Good grief!

[williamjm]

There's something very odd about our Home Secretary having a sudden revelation that the immigration system she is in charge of can be pointlessly cruel. It's good that it appears there's finally going to be some action to protect the Windrush people, but I have a feeling that this wouldn't have happened if this hadn't been becoming such a prominent story.

[Yukle]

15 hours ago, Denvek said:

The Good Friday Agreement is an international treaty that is not linked to either side's membership of the EU, so the right of Northern Irish to be Irish and/or British as they choose shouldn't be affected by Brexit.

Thanks! I didn't realise that. I thought being in the EU was a necessary element of it.

[Werthead]

Well, Brexit is going to cause problems for the NI/UK/RoI relationship. It's just up in the air at the moment just how big those problems are going to be.

[Denvek]

8 hours ago, Yukle said:

Thanks! I didn't realise that. I thought being in the EU was a necessary element of it.

It makes it so much easier, but it's not strictly necessary.

[mormont]

11 hours ago, williamjm said:

There's something very odd about our Home Secretary having a sudden revelation that the immigration system she is in charge of can be pointlessly cruel. 

Be fair. How could Theresa May have realised that a policy named 'the hostile environment', which she dreamed up and put into practice, and which involved vans driving around telling immigrants to go home or be locked up, might just possibly be a little bit on the nasty side? 

ETA:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Da92fS0WAAAQw1h.jpg1

[SeanF]

16 hours ago, Werthead said:

While it's not linked, joint Irish-UK membership of the EU greatly simplified the process of harmonisation on either side of the border and very easily meant that the border could be disregarded, which would not have been the case otherwise. The UK's withdrawal from the EU means "deharmonisation" of UK and Irish law, which will inevitably (if slowly) mean divergence and a complication of the relationship. 

George Mitchell is pretty adamant that joint Irish-UK membership of the EU made the Good Friday Agreement much more practical and maybe even possible when otherwise it wouldn't have been.

Deharmonisation must be inevitable when one country is in the Eurozone and the other is not, even within the EU.  The EZ must harmonise its fiscal and banking policies in order to endure. 

[Werthead]

8 hours ago, SeanF said:

Deharmonisation must be inevitable when one country is in the Eurozone and the other is not, even within the EU.  The EZ must harmonise its fiscal and banking policies in order to endure. 

The UK and RoI were doing pretty well with their cross-border processes, even though one was in the Eurozone and the other wasn't.

[Werthead]

Thoughts on the Prime Minister's husband working for one of Lockheed-Martin's key investors at a moment when their share prices are rocketing through the roof because of military action over Syria? In particular, this campaign saw the deployment of a new type of cruise missile developed and constructed 100% by Lockheed-Boeing and fired at $1 million a pop.

I think we can conclude that this wasn't a reason for the conflict (Philip May's financial status unlikely to be high on the agenda of either Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin), but it's not the best optics for the PM's spouse to be financially benefiting, however inadvertently, from military action over civilian deaths.

[polishgenius]

It's funny that, isn't it? Won't turn into any scandal though. Like how it didn't when it turned out that one of the companies that stood to gain massively from the Dementia tax was also one Philip May was involved in.

[Hereward]

His own investments are in a blind trust. The company he works for, in pensions, has stakes in pretty much every major Western company. This is really reaching, which is presumably why the only people stirring this up are Russia Today, Iranian Press TV, and Russian propaganda asset Global Research.

[Werthead]

9 hours ago, Hereward said:

His own investments are in a blind trust. The company he works for, in pensions, has stakes in pretty much every major Western company. This is really reaching, which is presumably why the only people stirring this up are Russia Today, Iranian Press TV, and Russian propaganda asset Global Research.

Capital Investments owns 7.69% of Lockheed Martin and is its second-biggest shareholder (if I'm reading this right),so it's more than some negligible stake.

As I said, I don't believe it's any way relevant to the decision to attack Syria (the moment of which was chosen by Trump, Assad and Putin, with May more along as a passenger), but it does allow an angle of questioning. The Prime Minister would have this covered, of course, by having had Parliamentary approval for the action.

[ljkeane]

Philip May apparently isn't involved in investment decisions or research, it's not clear how much he'd personally benefit and it's clearly ridiculous to suggest that the decision to take military action had anything to do with him. So what exactly is the angle of questioning other than the idiotic it allows?

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, ljkeane said:

Philip May apparently isn't involved in investment decisions or research, it's not clear how much he'd personally benefit and it's clearly ridiculous to suggest that the decision to take military action had anything to do with him. So what exactly is the angle of questioning other than the idiotic it allows?

He is also Theresa May's "closest advisor", however unofficially, and there is a potential conflict of interest in his job working for an investment firm which directly financially benefits from shifts and decisions in government policy. This is actually an interesting situation to be in, as no former spouse of the Prime Minister has been in quite the same position (Cherie Blair was probably the closest, as a practising barrister whilst her husband was in office, but that was also a relatively public role with lots of scrutiny).

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

@Hereward

Quote

But you seem to be agreeing with me rather than saying the opposite. I said there will be more immigrants from developing countries, with higher birthrates. You disagreed with me and then said the same thing. The lack of space is an issue, but the UK disbanding won't make much difference to the trajectory, as the increase is expected almost wholly in England anyway.

And with that, I'll try and end the hijacking of the thread. 

Figured I'd move this here because I wanted to clarify something. It's my understanding. from afar, that the UK wants to limit immigration in general. When I referenced those groups I meant that they wouldn't come to make up the slack for the lower birth rate.