Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[FunkMonk]

Saw Keir Starmer make a speech next to Elmo. I'm satisfied with this election.

[Barrister]

Second aspect - platform.  I'm going Canadian here.  The 1988 Federal Election was held on the issue of Free Trade with the US.  There was no question that was the PCs platform.  That's what the debates were about, that's what most election ads were about.  So even though the Pcs won with only 43% of the vote, compared to the Liberals and NDP, who both ran against Free Trade and got a total of 32% + 20%) - there was no question the PCs had a mandate to implament free trade.

There's this very dangerous notion in politics these days - that if you can just gerrymander or otherwise scheme your way into a win, that is all that matters, and questions of legitimacy or mandate don't factor into it.  I very much dislike this notion.

Totally agree on this point and in the UK it's not been tested recently because they don't want to push it, but that's the theory of when and how the Lords can block legislation.

Basically if it's in the manifesto then they have to give way to the representative, democratic chamber. They can amend and slow it down but fundamentally they as an unelected body do not have the legitimacy to block a policy put to the people in an election by the winning party. If it wasn't in the manifesto (and again they haven't pushed this recently) then they feel in a far stronger position to block it because it didn't go to the people and the government have no more mandate to force it through than the undemocratic chamber has to block it.

And ultimately I'm broadly a supporter of a political constitution which is largely about legitimacy (I'd argue that ultimately all constitutions are).

This is going deep into a Canadian hijack, but what the heck...

We traditionally have the same idea with our unelected Senate.  The Senate can slow government bills, bring attention to them - but it's highly unusual for the Senate to reject a government bill precisely because nobody elected the Senate, and they have very questionable legitimacy.  It came up a couple times in history - first in the (already mentioned) Free Trade debate, where the Senate blocked passage of Free Trade so the PCs called an election on the issue.  Second was on the GST (national sales tax) where again the Liberal senate blocked passage of the GST.  This time Mulroney used a never-before-used provision of the Constitution to install additional Senators.  This was highly controversial - mostly because the GST was deeply unpopular.

Anyways, here's where we go into the weeds.  Historically Senators (much like the Lords) were partisan, and sat as part of caucus for the political parties.  Trudeau however disbanded the Liberal Senate caucus and declared all Liberals were now independents.  Any Senator he appoints have also sat as independents (even though so far they reliably vote Liberal).  Independent Senators now outnumber any Conservative Senators.  So I have long wondered what will happen whenever the Conservatives win power again - will the "Independent" Senators now think they have far more legitimacy then they traditionally think they do and start being more active in trying to block government legislation?  We shall see...

[Sheilbh]

So it'll be curious to see what happens in UK politics.  Reform might very much be a flash-in-the-pan driven by frustration with the Tories - much like UKIP was before them.  But if they have some staying power it's going to cause the Tories to be almost completely unable to form government in the future.

Interesting on the "unite the right" experience. I think one problem they will have with any attempt to do that - even if the Tories want to (and I doubt they will) Farage has not worked well with others in the past. Though they're talking today about the need to "professionalise" and "democratise" the party. But I wouldn't be surprised if the Reform group doesn't last this full Parliament as there are a number of other big characters there.

On this worth flagging that UKIP wasn't a flash in the pan. The European Court mandated that the UK adopt a form of PR for European elections - which we did in ahead of the 1999 European Parliamentary elections and it's then that Farage is first elected with UKIP, as are the Greens for the first time. The European Parliament has very generous funding for parties and it was the base that UKIP used for about twenty years building their support and their brand. I think it's quite common in Europe because European elections tend to not align with any national ones so they often act as a "mid-term" vote which protest parties can more easily break into.

Electoral reform is the perennial call of the loser.  Once a party manages to figure out how to win in a FPTP system - it's amazing how they no longer see the need for electoral reform...

I couldn't possibly comment.

I think you do get me - "not robust" is the same as "timid".  They didn't put forward a strong and ambitious platform.  Which on the one hand is smart politics in terms of winning.  But in terms of governing makes it harder because your opponents can rightly say you didn't campaign on any ambitious policy agenda if you try to implement it.

You're absolutely right but I had misunderstood you. I thought when you were saying it wasn't robust you meant it was vague or wishy-washy. Which, as I say, I don't think it is it's got lots of detail and policy, they're just not very ambitious. And fair point (I do care about Alberta and love a Canada hijack ).

Interesting on the Senate - I think it's similar in Australia. I know that Paul Keating once refused to allow and said he'd forbid one of his ministers going to answer questions from the (Liberal controlled) Senate, or has he called them "unrepresentative swill"

Tony Blair basically had to pack the Lords. Even after he got rid of most of the hereditaries the vast majority of the Lords were Tories who could cause issues. But we do also have Crossbenchers who are independents which is where former civil servants, generals, judges go to sit - but also some people who are just independents. To be honest the undemocraticness (and ridiculousness) means the Lords don't really have any legitimacy to try and block an elected government. On the other hand it also means they're not really a problem so can carry on doing pretty good work as a revising chamber.

On that note Starmer's appointed his cabinet and basically the same as you'd expect. But three interesting appointments at the end.

First of all he's gone to the bar to get a very experienced and highly respected KC as Attorney General. This is going back to New Labour practice. The AG is quite a challenging position to appoint. They are the chief legal officer for the government, so give legal advice to the cabinet can choose to represent the government in cases, can appeal certain decisions (for example, unduly lenient sentences) etc. But because they're part of the cabinet that means they need to be answerable to parliament (which means they need to be in parliament). In recent years the Tories have tended to favour appointing MPs who are lawyer but not, perhaps, great legal brains of our age and sometimes a little political. New Labour preferred to appoint widely respected lawyers and give them a peerage. Starmer's gone back to that approach.

Two other none cabinet ministerial roles (and peerages) have gone for Sir Patrick Vallance and James Timpson. Vallance was the UK Chief Scientific Officer during covid so is recognisable to everyone in the country and has accepted a position as Minister for Science in DSIT.

James Timpson is the CEO of Timpson's a chain of locksmiths and cobblers. But he's mainly known in the country for the company policy of employing people ex-offenders which is a great success. 10% of their workforce are ex-offenders and he's evangelical about this, they have a retention rate of about 75% for ex-offenders. He's a really powerful advocate for prisoners and ex-prisoners and has tried to set up boards of local employers to meet with local prison officers to help find work for offenders before their release (since he helped set this scheme up the employment rate for prison leavers has doubled). Not relatedly but also very nicely they have an advert in every store saying that if you're unemployed and need an outfit cleaned for an interview then they'll clean it for free. Anyway he's into the Lords and appointed as Minister for Prisons, Parole and Probation.

They sound good - and I always like the idea of these types of appointments. In practice I'm not sure they often work out (and I'm always a little dubious on someone like Vallance going from an impartial role to working in a political role - feel like it can undermine the impartiality). But I hope they work out - particularly on prison reform.

[Sheilbh]

Also just to flag on the vote efficiency point - with all constituencies in, the Lib Dems won every seat they were targeting except for one (Jeremy Hunt's) - which is pretty incredible. I feel like them going from 10 seats to 72 should be a bigger part of the story (like the Greens, Scotland and the Gaza independents).

Edit: As last seat has now been counted (Lib Dems) the final election map:

[Barrister]

In a FPTP system, I tend to agree the national campaign is normally determinative as BB said; and the overall popular vote can be a proxy for how well that campaign went.

At the same time though, actually winning a national FPTP election (such as the U.S. Electoral College, for example) requires a national message that is broadly acceptable in a large number of constituencies or FPTP districts.

Looking to America as a comparison, I would argue the Democrats since 1992 have usually ran campaigns that do very well with that national vote piece, and if you do well enough in the national vote, you will often at least be competitive in the electoral college. No Democrat has lost in anything close to a wipeout since 1988 in the EC. (Let's informally define "wipeout" as getting less than 200 EVs.) Republicans have had a few wipeouts in the EC since '88--'92, '96, '08--Romney came basically 1 state away from the same fate in '12.

However that span covers 8 elections, which Dems have only actually won 5/8, just over half. I posit a significant reason for that is that Republican candidates, campaigns, and the party itself, have built both a messaging apparatus and a body of voters that are more effectively able to compete on a per-voter basis for our FPTP districts in America.

I would posit there is evidence that is precisely what Starmer did here, it wasn't, imo, an accident.

Went back over the posts and saw I didn't respond to this...

So the thing about the UK versus the US electoral college is the US is far, far more "chunky".  The US is divided into only 50 states - with wildly varying sizes.  The UK, a much smaller country in terms of both size and population, is divided into 650 ridings.

So I think both countries should be concerned about the issue of legitimacy - how many votes did the winning party actually get.  I think Republicans in the US should be very concerned that they've only won the national vote once in the last 24 years, and not just go "eh - thats how the electoral college works, so who cares".  Keir Starmer should be concerned that only 33.8% of Britons who voted voted for him.

[Tamas]

James Timpson is the CEO of Timpson's a chain of locksmiths and cobblers. But he's mainly known in the country for the company policy of employing people ex-offenders which is a great success. 10% of their workforce are ex-offenders and he's evangelical about this, they have a retention rate of about 75% for ex-offenders. He's a really powerful advocate for prisoners and ex-prisoners and has tried to set up boards of local employers to meet with local prison officers to help find work for offenders before their release (since he helped set this scheme up the employment rate for prison leavers has doubled). Not relatedly but also very nicely they have an advert in every store saying that if you're unemployed and need an outfit cleaned for an interview then they'll clean it for free. Anyway he's into the Lords and appointed as Minister for Prisons, Parole and Probation.

They sound good - and I always like the idea of these types of appointments. In practice I'm not sure they often work out (and I'm always a little dubious on someone like Vallance going from an impartial role to working in a political role - feel like it can undermine the impartiality). But I hope they work out - particularly on prison reform.

I know it's as early days as it can be for the government but it is so bloody refreshing to read appointments based at least in part on competence and not solely on where they stand on the Johnson-Sunak-Truss axis.

[OttoVonBismarck]

So I think both countries should be concerned about the issue of legitimacy - how many votes did the winning party actually get.  I think Republicans in the US should be very concerned that they've only won the national vote once in the last 24 years, and not just go "eh - thats how the electoral college works, so who cares".  Keir Starmer should be concerned that only 33.8% of Britons who voted voted for him.

For Starmer, the counter would be 63% of the country's ridings did vote for him. I dunno, the UK uses FPTP but doesn't have as strong a two party system as the U.S., it has 2 major parties but has always had more wiggle room for their weird regional parties (SNP, DUP, PC et al), a very long running third party that has always gotten at least some seats (LibDems) and has also seen protest parties regularly (UKIP, Reform etc.) That is not a formula for someone to get 55% of the national vote anyway you look at it.

[Josquius]

Is it just me or is labours cabinet very lawyer heavy?

Beats PPE of course. But curious.

Also, an annoying point on coverage is reform being treat like something brand new rather than just brexit. Makes looking at the data a pain. And leads to inaccurate spins in reporting.

[Sophie Scholl]

Good to see the Team TERF took a pretty brutal beating in things from what I've read. Couldn't happen to a bunch of more rotten folks. 

[Sheilbh]

Is it just me or is labours cabinet very lawyer heavy?

Beats PPE of course. But curious.

Starmer, Lammy and Shabana Mahmood at Justice as far as I'm aware - who else are you thinking of?

[Gups]

Is it just me or is labours cabinet very lawyer heavy?

Beats PPE of course. But curious.

Also, an annoying point on coverage is reform being treat like something brand new rather than just brexit. Makes looking at the data a pain. And leads to inaccurate spins in reporting.

All the best leaders are lawyers. Lincoln, Gandhi, Mandela, Attlee, Blair, Thatcher

[Sheilbh]

Rwanda scheme scrapped, couple of planning decisions blocking data centres and housing have been called in by Angela Rayner to review and this:

Ed Miliband scraps de facto ban on onshore wind farms
The new energy secretary had promised to remove two planning barriers announced by David Cameron in 2015, which amounted to an effective ban
Adam Vaughan, Environment Editor | Chris Smyth, Whitehall Editor
Monday July 08 2024, 6.20pm, The Times

A de facto ban on onshore wind farms in England has been lifted after planning rules were dropped with immediate effect.

Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, had promised to remove two planning barriers announced by David Cameron in 2015, which amounted to an effective ban and saw installations grind to a halt.

Shortly after becoming prime minister, Rishi Sunak pledged to lift the ban under pressure from Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and other MPs. However, the planning changes made by his government were so modest that not a single public wind farm was submitted for planning permission last year.

Wind farm developers had faced two planning hurdles. One was that local councils had to have plans for the best sites for turbines, which they often lacked resources to draw up. The other barrier was an unclear definition of what a requirement for "community support" meant, leading companies to worry that a single local person objecting could derail a scheme.

Both those rules have now been dropped. "The removal of these tests from planning policy means that onshore wind applications will be treated in the same way as other energy development proposals," the government said in a policy statement today. The change takes effect immediately.

Labour sees the early lifting of the ban as a sign that it is willing to act quickly and take "difficult decisions" which it argues were ducked by the previous government. It has presented the move as a symbol of the party's desire to kickstart growth through green technologies.

"Getting rid of this ban and giving priority for planning permission for much needed infrastructure sends an immediate signal to investors here and around the world that the UK is back in business," Miliband said.

He will also personally decide whether new large wind farms can be built as Labour has suggested that its next step will be taking approval powers away from local councils.

Ministers will consult on including onshore wind power developments in the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects system designed to fast-track essential projects.

This would mean the central government, rather than councils, will decide whether to approve projects, with the final decision being made by the energy secretary, bringing onshore wind into line with other big infrastructure projects.

The industry body RenewableUK said that it was delighted by the "long overdue" changes. It suggested that green energy targets could be met using fewer turbines than previously thought, because modern turbines are bigger and more powerful.

Some old wind farms in England could potentially be "repowered" by replacing older, smaller turbines with new ones that produce much more energy. Repowering takes advantage of existing grid connections but requires new planning permissions, which should now be easier to gain.

The step was widely welcomed by environment groups and green-leading groups of Tories, including the Conservative Environment Network.

The climate charity Possible hailed the move as "a really positive step forward for our climate, our economy, and our energy bills".

Some of the potential hotspots for new onshore wind turbines include Yorkshire and the Humber, Devon and Cornwall, and Lincolnshire and parts of East Anglia.

Now the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects bit might not help - solar projects stop immediately at the point they'd fall into that because it's not working well. Maybe if it functioned it would be less of an issue.

Reeves gave a speech and it sounds like more to come this month on planning. Interesting divide in the Tories (which is why planning is smart politics as well as the right thing to do for reform) - a lot of rural Tory MPs immediately signalling outrage/opposition; think tankers, young Tories and some of the smarter voices on the right basically welcoming Reeves' speech and saying they should vote for it.

Also looking at their seats and that they'll need to distinguish themselves from Labour, I feel like Lib Dem NIMBYism is about to go to a whole new level (same for the Greens).

Edit: Separately saw this from Oxfam's Head of Policy and Advocacy - and I think this is basically a problem. Not a surprise but an issue (and I think it's coincided with a lot of those charities moving into doing far more "policy and advocacy" and far less actual charitable work which also isn't great):

Katy Chakrabortty
@KTChakrabortty
NGO sector for 15 years: 'Who sir? Us sir? Stuffed with Labour types sir? How very dare you!'  2024: 'Yeah.. so we're all Labour MPs now'

Edit: Also I think I've now seen about three pieces in the Guardian basically arguing that there's no need to build new houses - the problem is allocation with suggestions such as more communal living to solve the housing problem. I think one was from that LSE guy who basically proposed re-allocating spare bedrooms

[Barrister]

Is it just me or is labours cabinet very lawyer heavy?

Beats PPE of course. But curious.

So not sure what "PPE" means.

It's always... interesting... when it comes to politicians.  Given that the primary job of politicians is to pass laws, it makes a certain amount of sense to have lawyers (who are trained at interpreting laws) involved in the process.  But obviously I have enough self-awareness that the legal profession can be kind of a bubble, and you definitely don't want only lawyers making laws either.

[Sheilbh]

So not sure what "PPE" means.

Politics, Philosophy and Economics - a course at Oxbridge that is very common among MPs.

[Barrister]

So not sure what "PPE" means.

Politics, Philosophy and Economics - a course at Oxbridge that is very common among MPs.

Interesting.  Reference now makes sense.

I am of course a proud Manitoba grad (x2) - go Bisons!