Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

But he is not right now and that's what matters.

This is what separates us. Over here if the leader of the opposition does something like this is normally to spite the government, not in coordination with them, and is done in order to score domestic points rather than in order to do something productive. 

Yeah here I think there is more of a "politics stops at the water's edge" approach - with a slight carve out for dealings with sister parties. Edit: And the obvious exception of Europe which had more of an impact on domestic politics so has always been a bit more contested.

It's standard for opposition leaders to have some meetings with international leaders - it's on them and their political teams to get them, but I think there will normally be support from the state like the embassy team who will help on groups of MPs, or senior opposition politicians.

I think it's a bit like the meetings the civil service have with the opposition to understand their priorities/plans so they're prepared if they win the next election. I'm not sure if they've started yet because they're authorised by the PM but in 2010 the Tories had been meeting with the civil service for 18 months before the election. It's the foreign policy version of that.

[Josquius]

If its done in coordination with sunak that seems a political error by him.
The Ukraine policy is about the only thing the tories have done right and its something they could fight an election with - don't change government during a war etc...

[Sheilbh]

I don't think it makes a difference. I don't think you can invent an attack like that out of whole cloth.

People get there's a difference between Starmer and Corbyn. And there's no way the leader of the opposition goes to meet the President of another country - especially one the UK government is very invested in like Ukraine - far less travel to a country being invaded without coordination by the British state and, probably, sign-off by Sunak on providing the LOTO with necessary support.

[The Larch]

I think it's a bit like the meetings the civil service have with the opposition to understand their priorities/plans so they're prepared if they win the next election.

See? That's also unheard of over here. If anyone proposed to do something like that he'd be laughed out of the building.

[Sheilbh]

Interesting - how politicised is the civil service in Spain? Many appointees?

Or is it just a political thing that when a party occupies power they just totally cut the other parties out from the actuall state?

What about intelligence briefings? Again it depends on the PM's authorisation but the LOTO will get briefed either by Number 10 or the intelligence services on some nattional security issues.

[The Larch]

Interesting - how politicised is the civil service in Spain? Many appointees?

The core and lower and middle management are lifelong civil servants, higher management are all political appointees.

Or is it just a political thing that when a party occupies power they just totally cut the other parties out from the actuall state?

Exactly, the oposition has no input whatsoever on what the civil service does. Also, political appointees from the previous government are routinely all dismissed. It is quite rare that a political appointee keeps his or her position when a government changes.

What about intelligence briefings? Again it depends on the PM's authorisation but the LOTO will get briefed either by Number 10 or the intelligence services on some nattional security issues.

No idea.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah that's a difference. In the UK at the last count (it's audited annually so this could be for Sunak, Truss or Johnson I'm not sure ) now ministers/the Tories have 125 politically appointed "special advisors". They'll generally lose their job if a new party takes office - but are also quite often tied to specific ministers they've worked with (sometimes more to policy areas) so may go even if a minister's fired/re-shuffled.

By contrast there's over 500,000 civil servants who are on an entirely separate career track and totally insulated from politics - they report up the civil service structure and only the most senior civil servants are (sort of) answerable to politicians. Some would argue they're also a little insulated from accountability/responsibility for actually delivering policies and that people just get shuffled around

The opposition has no input into the civil service. But it's been the custom since the 60s that, about 12-18 months out from an expected election, the PM authorises the civil service to have meetings with the opposition - which are fairly constrained and vary depending on the preferences of the relevant shadow minister. The purpose isn't so the opposition has any say on what the civil service does, more so the civil service has an idea what the opposition wants to do so they can prepare in case they win the election. In theory, it's good for the civil service - they can start planning and it's good for the opposition because they can hit the ground running.

But sometimes they're not that open - for example if they worry the civil service will leak. So famously Gordon Brown didn't tell the civil service that he planned to make the BofE independent and then on his first day as Chancellor told the Treasury he wanted to announce it that week. So a lot of very quick work by the civil service to get that policy in a state to be announced five days after the election

[Grey Fox]

Does Spain have coalition governments?

[The Larch]

Does Spain have coalition governments?

The current one is the first one ever at the national level. At the regional level there have been several.

[Grey Fox]

Ok. One more way where the UK is basically insane.

[Sheilbh]

Incidentally every sign the SNP leadership contest is going to be very difficult for them. They're probably the most disciplined party in British politics. They almost never have any rebellions and despite a lot of reporting of really quite bitter infighting and factions, it very rarely spills into the public eye. So it is difficult to even really know what those factions are. In part it's possibly because with the exception of a few years in the early 2000s when John Swinney failed as leader, the SNP have had two leaders since 1990: Salmond and Sturgeon. They took the SNP to incredible success but I think it means there's probably lots of pent-up issues and as the party's become more successful a lot more people with egos and ambitions.

It seems like attitudes on gender recognition reform are a big division. Joanna Cherry, who was SNP Home Affairs spokesman and involved in a lot of the Brexit litigation, was removed from the SNP front bench over gender reform - as she's broadly a "gender critical" feminist. She ruled herself out of running as she's an MP and she thinks whoever runs needs to be able to serve as First Minister - she was also critical of the direction of the SNP in the last few years.

Pete Wishart - a fellow SNP MP - tweeted that "I guess we'll all just have to live with this crushing news and move on..." Cherry's replied: "The ratio on this tweet tells a tale but it's also a little insight into the misogyny & lesbophobia I had to put up with from some of the men in the Westminster group under the previous leadership. It's pretty much stopped since @StephenFlynnSNP was elected."

The SNP have got 45 MPs - the fact that two of them are publicly pretty strongly criticising each other doesn't indicate a happy party.

Humza Yousaf's thrown his hat into the ring but from everything I've read about him that sounds like the Tories trying re-launch themselves by electing Chris Grayling as leader.

[Valmy]

And apparently there is another nationalist party called the Alba Party now? What is their deal?

[Sheilbh]

They were founded by Alex Salmond.

He was investigated for allegations of sexual misconduct and subsequently acquitted (and not proven on one charge). He sued for judicial review of the Scottish government's handling of the allegations against him arguing that there was an unfair investigation and won - the Scottish government admitted in court that they had breached their own guidelines.

At the centre of a lot of this - as it related to the Scottish government's investigation and Salmond's time as First Minister was Sturgeon. She had been Salmond's deputy and annointed successor. All the meetings on the allegations about Salmond were apparently in "political meetings" about SNP party business, so not covered by freedom of information. There were disparities in her testimony to a Scottish parliamentary inquiry with the testimony of her husband (and party CEO), documents came out that contradicted Sturgeon's assertion that all the meetings on it had been "political meetings" and showed they were on government time/business - the committee eventually found that Sturgeon had misled the parliamentary inquiry. Salmond argued - to the inquiry - that the evidence "supports a deliberate, prolonged, malicious and concerted effort" by figures in the government (Sturgeon) and party (her husband) to remove him from public life and even imprison him - and that they would have succeeded if not for the court system.

In addition there was growing dissatisfaction within sections of the SNP over Sturgeon's approach on gender recognition reform. There was a split within the SNP between Salmond and Sturgeon loyalists and the two were proposing different approaches to independence.

So Salmond launched Alba - they only run for the PR seats in Scotland so their argument is they will strengthen rather than dilute the case for independence as they're not directly competing with the SNP in constituency seats but going for the "top up" seats. Though they didn't win any - all of their MSPs and MPs are SNP defectors. I think it's probably largely a personal play to get Salmond back into politics and on the front page - and I imagine he hoped to make himself the kingmaker in the Scottish Parliament so his former mentee who then helped get rid of him would be forced to try and get him to support her government. The line on gender recognition reform is what Salmond still seems to be pushing. I do also think there is a bit of amour propre over this - he had a speech recently where he talked about the process of thirty years of "building, building, building" the independence movement (largely by him ) and then seeing support for independence drop by over 5% in a month "thrown away on some self-indulgent nonsense". As he put it "give up self-identification, embrace self-determination [...] get back on course and set our sights back on the prize." Amid all the personl ego stuff driving him I think there is a germ of real fear for him that gender reform is setting back the independence movement.

I'd add - obviously I wasn't on the jury - but the allegations against Salmond seemed pretty plausible to me and he's got a brass neck positioning himself as a protector of women and safe spaces. But Salmond's always had a brass neck.

[garbon]

It seems like attitudes on gender recognition reform are a big division. Joanna Cherry, who was SNP Home Affairs spokesman and involved in a lot of the Brexit litigation, was removed from the SNP front bench over gender reform - as she's broadly a "gender critical" feminist. She ruled herself out of running as she's an MP and she thinks whoever runs needs to be able to serve as First Minister - she was also critical of the direction of the SNP in the last few years.

Pete Wishart - a fellow SNP MP - tweeted that "I guess we'll all just have to live with this crushing news and move on..." Cherry's replied: "The ratio on this tweet tells a tale but it's also a little insight into the misogyny & lesbophobia I had to put up with from some of the men in the Westminster group under the previous leadership. It's pretty much stopped since @StephenFlynnSNP was elected."

They both come off looking pretty childish.

[Tamas]

Sheilbh has been debating me on my insistence that it is in the DUP's best perceived interest to have a hard border between the two Irelands, but all I can see is evidence mounting on it.

I mean, it seems like the EU is actually going to compromise and let the UK reneg on their commitments, so the DUP is quick to jump in to sabotage it:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/feb/17/dup-warns-sunak-brexit-trading-deal-northern-ireland-abandoned-to-eu

The DUP has warned Rishi Sunak that the party will not return to power-sharing if he leaves Northern Ireland "abandoned to the EU" under any new deal he has cut with Brussels over the Brexit trading arrangements for the region.

Sammy Wilson, the MP for East Antrim, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the deal the prime minister is expect to share with Northern Ireland's political parties in Belfast on Friday must meet the seven conditions it laid down before it returns to power-sharing.

"What we want to hear from him most importantly, is where the negotiations have reached in removing the automatic application of EU law to Northern Ireland without any democratic input from the representatives in Northern Ireland and without any ability to change those laws if they're detrimental to Northern Ireland," he said.