UK Politics: And Brexit came swirling down

[mormont]

50 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

I would 100% trust the people who work at polling stations to be able to spot a fake ID, or verify the one presented was legit. 

That's not even the point, though. You're right: it won't stop in-person voter fraud because fake ID is easy and cheap to obtain and volunteers are not always going to spot it. But the point of asking for ID is not to stop in-person voter fraud. It's to deter people from voting.

I've made the point before: if voter ID stops a hundred actual in-person fraud attempts but causes a hundred and one people to stay home, it's a failure. And the evidence is that it will stop a couple of attempts and cause many thousands of voters to stay home.

[Which Tyler]

2 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-queens-speech-voter-id-polling-station-a9253386.html

 

I've only just noticed this part, further down the article:

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Voters will have to renew their registration to vote by post every three years, rather than remaining on the list indefinitely.

Disenfranchising even more people who aren't as switched on to these things.

 

Quite honestly, I don't even see what problem that's trying to solve - beyond that too many of the wrong sort of people vote in elections (with a significant overlap in which party they tend to vote for).

[Erik of Hazelfield]

Are there large groups of people above the age of 18 in the UK that don't have any identification of some sort? No ID card, driving license, passport? (It's an honest question from an ignorant foreigner.)

Also, why is such a thing as voter registration needed in the first place? 

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

56 minutes ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

Are there large groups of people above the age of 18 in the UK that don't have any identification of some sort? No ID card, driving license, passport? (It's an honest question from an ignorant foreigner.)

Also, why is such a thing as voter registration needed in the first place? 

“Oh you’ve not updated your passport because you’ve not been out of the country for a while? Well you can vote in the election if you want, but it’s going to cost you £75.50”

It will be a minority of people, but still too many.

[Platypus Rex]

10 hours ago, Pebble thats Stubby said:

hate to break it to you, the Referendum was Non-binding and advisory only.   In fact it was so much non-binding that it was ruled in a court of law had the referendum been Binding then it would have been null and void due to the breaking of electoral laws.   however due to the non-binding nature of the referendum they had no legal power to void it.

 

But lets not let facts get in the way.

Hey, man.  I was not arguing that the referendum actually WAS binding on anybody.  You may be right, for all I know, that the vote was legally meaningless.  But the referendum was called by Cameron's government based on the promise, at least by Cameron's government, that the results would be honored.  When Cameron lured Leave voters to his party, based on the promise of a referendum, he, and the others who ran on his platform, was pretending to offer them something meaningful, and not something meaningless, in exchange for their support.

But I guess those dumb, stupid, working-class ignorant plebs should have read the fine print.  You knew better all along, I am sure. But people feel betrayed when they realize you have played a "heads I win tails you lose" game with them.

But certainly, a vote that means nothing is rather less democratic than one that means something.  And in the end, this referendum meant something, and those who tried to undermine its mandate (first Tories, and then Labour) were punished by the voters in subsequent elections.

So yeah.  In the end, it was a victory for democracy.

[Werthead]

5 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

Quite honestly, I don't even see what problem that's trying to solve - beyond that too many of the wrong sort of people vote in elections (with a significant overlap in which party they tend to vote for).

This is a familiar refrain for a Conservative government. The benefits service has paid out billions of pounds to companies like ATOS to stamp down on benefit fraud, despite benefit fraud costing significantly less (accidental overpayment of benefits or tax returns is more, but that's due to the system's incompetence rather than malice), whilst doing sweet fuck all to deal with tax fraud, which costs the country tens of billions of pounds in lost revenue every year.

Quote

 

Are there large groups of people above the age of 18 in the UK that don't have any identification of some sort? No ID card, driving license, passport? (It's an honest question from an ignorant foreigner.)

 

17% of people in the UK have no passport and 25% have no driving licence. The overlap between those two is unknown but it's reasonable to guesstimate that ~10% of the voting age population have no ID of any kind.

[Platypus Rex]

11 hours ago, Gorn said:

No, I'm not joking. To remain within the bounds of the thread subject, UK Labour party in late 1940's nationalized the Bank of England, railways, electric utilities, gas utilities, telecommunications, coal industry, canals and the steel industry (about 20% of economy), in addition to creating the NHS and national insurance system, building public housing and significantly improving worker rights. If that's not socialism, I don't know what is.

As to concentrations of power, now you're just moving the goalposts. Clement Atlee didn't create any additional concentration of power that didn't already exist under Churchill and Chamberlain.

I'm not moving any goalposts.  I STARTED by talking about the sort of real-world socialism that you are talking about now -- the sort of real-world socialism that was perhaps at stake in this election.  And the only opinion I expressed about that kind of socialism is that it is democratic to the extent voters approve it; and less democratic to the extent that it is imposed on them against their will.

That's when others tried to shift the discussion to some kind of idealized "socialism" that is democratic "by definition".  Now you are hopping in to shift the discussion back to real-world socialism.  Which was where I started.

[Rippounet]

The fallacy is pretending that anything is democratic as long as a majority of people vote for it. 

That’s not how it works. 

[Platypus Rex]

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

The fallacy is pretending that anything is democratic as long as a majority of people vote for it. 

democratic: adjective:  relating to or supporting democracy or its principle.

It's just one way of using the word "democratic".  That is, it is associated with or related to democracy. 

It is not as though I ever said that anything was GOOD as long as the majority of people vote for it.  I merely said it was democratic.

Quote

That’s not how it works. 

It might be how it works, if you had any interest in understanding what another person means when he uses a word, rather than playing word police and telling them how they MUST use words.  If a government policy is arrived at by way of a popular vote, then that policy is obviously related to democracy.  Ergo, it is "democratic".

[The Marquis de Leech]

19 hours ago, Gorn said:

No, I'm not joking. To remain within the bounds of the thread subject, UK Labour party in late 1940's nationalized the Bank of England, railways, electric utilities, gas utilities, telecommunications, coal industry, canals and the steel industry (about 20% of economy), in addition to creating the NHS and national insurance system, building public housing and significantly improving worker rights. If that's not socialism, I don't know what is.

As a trivia point, the Attlee nationalisations represent the largest such programme ever seen outside the Eastern bloc..

(And as another trivia point, the largest confiscation of private property between the French and Russian Revolutions was the emancipation of the slaves in the United States. Not really nationalisation in the conventional sense though).

[SeanF]

50 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

As a trivia point, the Attlee nationalisations represent the largest such programme ever seen outside the Eastern bloc..

(And as another trivia point, the largest confiscation of private property between the French and Russian Revolutions was the emancipation of the slaves in the United States. Not really nationalisation in the conventional sense though).

Rather oddly, Franco's government nationalised on a similar scale, at the same time.

[Rippounet]

4 hours ago, Platypus Rex said:

 If a government policy is arrived at by way of a popular vote, then that policy is obviously related to democracy.  Ergo, it is "democratic".

No.
Whether the process that is necessary to consider implementing a policy is democratic says nothing about the policy itself.
You seem unable to make the difference between the process and the outcome. Or at least unable to express an understanding of the difference.
And yet, that difference is crucial. Even a perfectly democratic process can have undemocratic outcomes. A different way to put it is that the "tyranny of the majority" can be a threat to democratic institutions and democracy itself, not to mention fundamental individual rights or the common good*. It's a fascinating problem in political philosophy, one that societies have struggled with since "democracy" was invented, and one of the reasons why we are confronted with so many constitutional and political crises today.
It's not something you can dismiss by twisting the meaning of words. Our "democracies" are much more than majority rule. Sorry if that doesn't square with your triumphalism, but that's just the way it is.
I'll leave you a way out: simply say that you don't mind majority rule regardless of its consequences. We'll agree to disagree on that, but at least we'll have identified what the root cause of the disagreement is.

*See JS Mill, Tocqueville, Madison, Marcuse, Rand... etc. Ironically, throughout history, conservatives were the ones most wary of majority rule, for obvious reasons. Conversely, the left has tended to be more favorable to majority rule, at least up to a certain point.

I personally wouldn't object to majority rule on principle, but there are undoubtedly a number of conditions to be met to avoid its worst detrimental effects.
In the case of Brexit, I believe the conditions were definitely not met. Despite the fact that the process itself was technically democratic, it is impossible to describe the outcome as such. Abstention and disinformation, combined with the razor-thin margin at the end are sufficient grounds to disqualify the entire process.
I'm not saying this because I'm "anti-Brexit," I'm saying this because I believe it's an unquestionable fact.
What should have been done (in hindsight), given what was at stake, would have been to require a majority of all potential voters, or a super-majority of votes cast. But that would have meant thinking things through, something that Cameron & co just couldn't be bothered to do.
Or perhaps they simply didn't care, because they're not the ones who will suffer adverse consequences.

[Platypus Rex]

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

And yet, that difference is crucial. Even a perfectly democratic process can have undemocratic outcomes. 

So what?  You just used the word "democratic" in the above sentence (in the phrase "democratic process"), in precisely the same way that you are arguing other people should not be allowed to use it.   Nobody ever said that everything democratic was necessarily good.  Nobody denied that some democratic victories might not be pyrrhic victories.  You are being ridiculously obtuse.

You say you cannot understand why people call this a democratic victory?  Get yourself a dictionary.  I'm done with this nonsense.

[Varysblackfyre321]

16 hours ago, Platypus Rex said:

Hey, man.  I was not arguing that the referendum actually WAS binding on anybody.

You kinda strongly implied it was man.

 

On 12/19/2019 at 4:46 AM, Platypus Rex said:

Well, it certainly would have been a DEFEAT for British democracy if a supposedly-binding referendum had been held and the results not followed.  Maybe it would not have been as big a disaster as a refusal to follow the results of a general election, but it would still have been a hugely dangerous precedent.  But we seem to be past that danger now.  Finally.  

But yeah.  Following the results of referendums or elections that are meant to be binding should not be a "huge victory".  It should be routine.

 

16 hours ago, Platypus Rex said:

But I guess those dumb, stupid, working-class ignorant plebs should have read the fine print.  You knew better all along, I am sure. But people feel betrayed when they realize you have played a "heads I win tails you lose" game with them.

Meh, more people should have actually recognized what they were voting for, and what that would actually mean for the country.  I legitimately don't think a lot people who voted would have voted for it if they knew that it would too far more immigration outside if Europe.  I guess a lot of people xenophobia/racism does cloud their reason.

16 hours ago, Platypus Rex said:

But certainly, a vote that means nothing is rather less democratic than one that means something.  And in the end, this referendum meant something, and those who tried to undermine its mandate (first Tories, and then Labour) were punished by the voters in subsequent elections.

So yeah.  In the end, it was a victory for democracy.

Johnson's strong Tory majority have made clear they'd make it significantly harder for for voters to actually participate in Democracy. A more greater chance of Getting Brexit done is not worth that. 

[Tywin Manderly]

14 hours ago, Rippounet said:

What should have been done (in hindsight), given what was at stake, would have been to require a majority of all potential voters, or a super-majority of votes cast. But that would have meant thinking things through, something that Cameron & co just couldn't be bothered to do.

Or perhaps they simply didn't care, because they're not the ones who will suffer adverse consequences.

It was hubris by Cameron & co, caused by them winning the Indyref. They, as a consequence, regarded the Brexit referendum just as a mere formality and a fixed match, expecting the UK to vote with their wallet as well.

[Platypus Rex]

8 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

You kinda strongly implied it was man.

No, I said it was "supposed" or "meant" to be binding.  Which it was.  I am of course looking at it from the perspective of the Leave voters who were suckered by Cameron and the others who ran on Cameron's platform; and not from the perspective of those clever politicians who knew better, and had their fingers behind their backs when they made their promises.

8 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Meh, more people should have actually recognized what they were voting for, and what that would actually mean for the country.

Look man, I sometimes think voters make the wrong decision as well.  I still think a hefty dose of democracy is less dangerous  than the alternatives.

8 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

 I legitimately don't think a lot people who voted would have voted for it if they knew that it would too far more immigration outside if Europe.  

Can't parse that sentence.  Sorry.

8 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

I guess a lot of people xenophobia/racism does cloud their reason.

Okay man.  Be that way.  Stay in your bubble, and call everyone who disagrees with you a racist.  Or maybe step ourside of your bubble, and learn differently.  Your choice.  Just remember, there's all kinds of ways to be a bigot.

8 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Johnson's strong Tory majority have made clear they'd make it significantly harder for for voters to actually participate in Democracy. A more greater chance of Getting Brexit done is not worth that. 

I'm not getting dragged into the eternal debate about ID cards.  Even if you are right that they do more harm than good, there are worse threats to democracy than ID cards.  

[Rippounet]

11 hours ago, Platypus Rex said:

You say you cannot understand why people call this a democratic victory?  Get yourself a dictionary.  I'm done with this nonsense.

Sorry, that got a bit complicated. If you give me another chance I can use simpler words and concepts. I'll stick to the dictionary next time, I swear!

42 minutes ago, Tywin Manderly said:

It was hubris by Cameron & co, caused by them winning the Indyref. They, as a consequence, regarded the Brexit referendum just as a mere formality and a fixed match, expecting the UK to vote with their wallet as well.

While we're there, let's also remember that Cameron was hoping to use the threat of Brexit to extract yet more concessions fom the EU:

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"I think the biggest mistake was letting expectations about what a renegotiation of Britain's position in the European Union could achieve," he said. "I allowed people to think there were much more fundamental changes — that we could almost have a sort of pick-and-choose aspect to which European laws we obeyed and which we didn't. And this, I think, was damaging." (NPR interview, last September)

No shit, Sherlock.

[Platypus Rex]

12 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

While we're there, let's also remember that Cameron was hoping to use the threat of Brexit to extract yet more concessions fom the EU:

Okay.  And who should he be more answerable to?  A foreign power?  Or his own voters?  Maybe if the EU had offered more concessions, fewer people would have voted to leave.

[mormont]

8 hours ago, Platypus Rex said:

Okay.  And who should he be more answerable to?  A foreign power?  Or his own voters?  Maybe if the EU had offered more concessions, fewer people would have voted to leave.

Who is the foreign power in this sentence? It makes little sense as read.

[A wilding]

I am very unimpressed at the appointment of Andrew Bailey as the new governor of the Bank of England.

Andrew Bailey appointed as new Bank of England governor

He is an establishment pick in spades, the current head of the Financial Conduct Authority, whose job is to police the UK's banks and financial institutions. He has a track record of looking the other way, minimising, and covering up when financial institutions misbehave. Investors have seen their money disappear and businesses have been deliberately driven into bankruptcy and he has basically done nothing about it.

Not a good sign.