Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Duque de Bragança]

He said that in France, as a foreign-based firm, De La Rue would be barred from bidding to produce the French passport.

Is this true? How does that work with EU rules?

To add to what Richard said:

In 2005-2006, Sarkozy as Interior Minister put out to tender the production of the new French biometric passport, firm Oberthur won (unlike their bid for De La Rue  ) but Imprimerie Nationale workers successfully appealed to the highest administrative jurisdiction in France, the Conseil d'État, which stated in clear terms the Imprimerie Nationale's monopoly on passports, based on a December 31st 1993 law signed probably by Sarkozy, when the Imprimerie Nationale changed from mere administrative body to public limited liability company held by the French state.

[The Larch]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/26/simon-case-brexit-irish-border-prince-william-private-secretary

Brexit official tasked with solving Irish border issue quits

So, this might be trickier than expected. 

Granted, the guy leaves because he's to become Prince William's private secretary, it's not as if he's going to a spa to regain his sanity. Then again, if I was in the government I'd be mightily pissed at the royal family poaching top bureaucrats in key positions at this moment in time.

[Valmy]

I doubt the Royals do much without the government's approval.

[garbon]

I like how Labour has managed to mire itself in a scandal that it should never have had to worry about had they just acted appropriately from the get.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/29/john-mcdonnell-says-labour-antisemitism-will-now-be-eradicated

John McDonnell says Labour antisemitism will now be eradicated

The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has promised to eradicate antisemitism from Labour and appeared to blame the party's failure to tackle the problem on its former general secretary.

His comments came after Christine Shawcroft, the chair of Labour's internal disputes panel, was forced to resign when a leaked email revealed she lent support to a council candidate accused of sharing an article denying the Holocaust.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, McDonnell said Shawcroft was forced to resign by the party leader, Jeremy Corbyn. "As soon as the evidence was pointed out to her, she stood down at Jeremy's request, quite rightfully so," McDonnell said.

But he later rejected suggestions that Shawcroft, a director with the pro-Corbyn Momentum group, should resign from her post on Labour's ruling national executive committee (NEC).

"It is an elected position and it is up to the electorate to decide whether or not she should be elected again," he told Sky News.

"Any form of antisemitism will not be tolerated in our party," McDonnell told Today after Corbyn himself was forced to apologise for supporting a graffiti artist in 2012 who painted an antisemitic mural.

McDonnell implied that the party's former general secretary Iain McNicol, rather than Corbyn, was to blame for Labour's failure to introduce measures to tackle the problem.

McDonnell said: "We are bringing forward mechanisms. They should have been implemented ages ago, but they will be now under a new general secretary."

McNicol, whom McDonnell did not name, was replaced by Jennie Formby last week.

Asked when Labour would wake up to the problem, McDonnell said: "We woke up to it two years ago when it was pointed out to us, we launched the Chakrabarti report, they [its recommendations] have not been implemented effectively. We have now brought in a new general secretary, they will be implemented."

McDonnell added: "We will deal with it firmly and severely. We will not accept it, Jeremy Corbyn has made it clear. We are now meeting with the various representative groups of the community. We will be taking their advice, they will assist us in rooting out this problem and we will eradicate it from our party."

Several members of the NEC were understood to be furious about McNicol being implicated, pointing out that Formby had backed Shawcroft's appointment to the disciplinary role. They suggested that the process of dealing with antisemitic complaints had been held up by "misplaced loyalty" to the hard left as well as incompetence.

One source close to the NEC said: "It's disingenuous to blame this situation on the outgoing management. The power of the general secretary to suspend members and undertake disciplinary action was removed by the Chakrabarti report.

"Having to wait for explicit approval from the NEC which only meets every two months has helped create the backlog of investigations. It was Formby who as an NEC member voted for Shawcroft to chair the committee that deals with these matters."

A Labour source said: "At no stage was John attributing blame towards any one individual for failing to tackle this issue. He made the point that under the direction of the new general secretary the party must redouble its efforts in taking on the scourge of antisemitism."

Shawcroft said she was "wrong and misguided" to have sent an email calling for Alan Bull to have his suspension lifted as she had not been aware of all the information in the case.

Bull, who was selected to stand in Peterborough, was suspended by Labour last week after he was linked to a series of antisemitic social media posts. He was accused of sharing on Facebook an article headlined "International Red Cross report confirms the Holocaust of 6m Jews is a hoax", illustrated with a photograph of the gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Corbyn has again said the party will be taking further action with Formby as general secretary. In an interview with Jewish News, he said: "I've said to our newly appointed general secretary that her first priority has to be the full implementation of the Chakrabarti report and there has to be an appointment of an in-house lawyer, a legal team, to ensure that there is a proper approach to all of these cases and of the – I understand – 70 cases due to be dealt with. They must be dealt with as quickly as possible."

Asked about calls for David Lammy to be deselected as an MP because he attended a rally against antisemitism in Labour outside parliament on Monday, Corbyn said: "It's up to the local party, but not for that, no."

The comments came as the rift between Corbyn and senior Jewish leaders deepened after they demanded he disown supporters who had "vilified" protesters against antisemitism.

In a letter to the Labour leader, the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council said it was a disgrace that people who joined a demonstration against antisemitism in the party had been subjected to abuse and insults.

[Josquius]

That this is a story with all the stuff about Cambridge analytica and dodgy leave funding. 😔
Bloody media

[garbon]

That this is a story with all the stuff about Cambridge analytica and dodgy leave funding. 😔
Bloody media

I think today is the first day in a while that Cambridge Analytica didn't get top billing on Guardian's site (which was top billing for at least a full week).

Also, I think it is important that the main opposition party isn't linked with antisemitism. The story has legs at this point because of Labour's fumbling.

[Tamas]

If you want to be the party of the working class, a class which increasingly consists people coming/descending from the Middle East and Eastern Europe, I can see why they want to muddle the whole anti-semitism thing



As for the Cambridge Analytica thing. A lot of people are trying to turn this into a "HA! TRUMP AND THE LEAVE CAMPAIGN CHEATED! THEY WOULD HAVE LOST WITHOUT THIS!". No, they did not and they wouldn't have. Cambridge Analytica  and Facebook did cheat/do something illegal. What the campaigns used the data for is what they have been data for in all elections and referendums in human history, it just they never been available on this scale.

[mongers]

So the Canadia 'arm' of CA has boasted that in the final 10 days* of the Brexit campaign they targeted around 7 million voters with 1.5 billion ads (attack?) 
That's over 200 each via their social media, makes the Russian bot negative campaigning in the presidential election look amateur hour.

Two sides of the same coin?


* the chap who is now a Tory advisor, sharpened that by saying really the last few days.

[Tamas]

So the Canadia 'arm' of CA has boasted that in the final 10 days* of the Brexit campaign they targeted around 7 million voters with 1.5 billion ads (attack?) 
That's over 200 each via their social media, makes the Russian bot negative campaigning in the presidential election look amateur hour.

20 ads per day per person. But is that really bigger, relatively speaking, when in pre-Internet times newspapers, street posters, TV ads would be full of election campaigning? I don't think so.

[mongers]

So the Canadia 'arm' of CA has boasted that in the final 10 days* of the Brexit campaign they targeted around 7 million voters with 1.5 billion ads (attack?) 
That's over 200 each via their social media, makes the Russian bot negative campaigning in the presidential election look amateur hour.

20 ads per day per person. But is that really bigger, relatively speaking, when in pre-Internet times newspapers, street posters, TV ads would be full of election campaigning? I don't think so.

I don't think you'd be saying that if it were Russians doing it?

Also remember these are personally targeted social media ads, not generic banners or newspaper adverts.

[Josquius]

So the Canadia 'arm' of CA has boasted that in the final 10 days* of the Brexit campaign they targeted around 7 million voters with 1.5 billion ads (attack?) 
That's over 200 each via their social media, makes the Russian bot negative campaigning in the presidential election look amateur hour.

20 ads per day per person. But is that really bigger, relatively speaking, when in pre-Internet times newspapers, street posters, TV ads would be full of election campaigning? I don't think so.

Big poster on the street saying vote for the blue party if you want more money for schools vs an advert specifically aimed at you saying vote black and all Hungarians will get special rights.

[Tamas]

So the Canadia 'arm' of CA has boasted that in the final 10 days* of the Brexit campaign they targeted around 7 million voters with 1.5 billion ads (attack?) 
That's over 200 each via their social media, makes the Russian bot negative campaigning in the presidential election look amateur hour.

20 ads per day per person. But is that really bigger, relatively speaking, when in pre-Internet times newspapers, street posters, TV ads would be full of election campaigning? I don't think so.

I don't think you'd be saying that if it were Russians doing it?

Also remember these are personally targeted social media ads, not generic banners or newspaper adverts.

Personally targeted means whether you checked out more news with "immigrants out" or "concerned about jurisdiction", I think. The problem in my understanding is more about them being access to far more data than you'd need to do that kind of shit.

And the Russians were plenty successful in their propaganda activities in the West well before the Internet. Remember all the useful idiots, or how the communist red star is still largely perfectly ok to use a symbol, despite being just about on the scale of the swastika in terms of the atrocities committed under it and in it's name.

[Tamas]

So the Canadia 'arm' of CA has boasted that in the final 10 days* of the Brexit campaign they targeted around 7 million voters with 1.5 billion ads (attack?) 
That's over 200 each via their social media, makes the Russian bot negative campaigning in the presidential election look amateur hour.

20 ads per day per person. But is that really bigger, relatively speaking, when in pre-Internet times newspapers, street posters, TV ads would be full of election campaigning? I don't think so.

Big poster on the street saying vote for the blue party if you want more money for schools vs an advert specifically aimed at you saying vote black and all Hungarians will get special rights.

Yes but what I am saying is that they are merely using the most efficient way and that happens to be more efficient than on the previous level of technology. A giant poster with "vote on this trustworthy gentlemen and all be alright" was fantastically efficient compared to word of mouth for example.

Where do you draw the line on what is too efficient, and who is going to be drawing that line, and how is that going to be democratic and not like censorship?

[Josquius]

The problem lies not in efficiency of the platform in spreading a message. The problem lies in efficiency of the platform in giving completely different and incompatible messages to different groups.
Rules need to be set in place about this, something where parties/sides in a referendum have an official manifesto and if they want to change it then they have to go through a process.
No more telling the Asians leaving the EU means more Asian immigrants and telling the poor whites leaving the EU means no more immigrants, especially brown ones.

[garbon]

Perhaps a place for:

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand
https://www.asa.org.uk/

to have their authority expanded to.