Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[HVC]

So much in this story to love/make you want to burn the world down. It's almost too on-point that the Tory Chair runs a "luxury concierge" company for the super-rich

What's he doing with Hugh Laurie's legitimate son.

[Gups]

One for Tamas.

The government have proposed planning reform. At the minute planning is controlled by local councils and basically I think planning permission for new buildings (or certain changes) is discretionary and on a case by case basis.

It's not discretionary as such. We have a plan led system. Local planning authorities publish their development plans. If development is in accordance with the relevant plan then you should get planning permission but you do need to apply to demonstrate accordance with policy and also pay cpontributions to mitigate the effect of the development (e.g. costs to the highway network, additional educational resources etc). The problem is (a) a lot of development plans are badly out of date and (b) councillors decide planning applications so politics gets in the way of what should be a quasi-judicial process.

Here's a good summary of the White Paper by a barrister who I know well.

https://www.planoraks.com/posts-1/planning-reform-day

[Sheilbh]

Somehow related, the Guardian has a pretty long article on the dysfunction inside the Home Office:

[...]

Simply put, it seems to be a horribly run department, with despicable policies desgined to placate tabloids and an awful place to work for, with little or no willingness for reform.

Yeah.

Politically I can't think of the last liberal Home Secretary we've had. All recent Home Secretaries (I'd possibly say going back to Michael Howard in the mid-90s) have been very authoritarian and I think that's also part of the internal culture.

It is incredibly dysfunctional - it is known as a graveyard for ambitious politicians. It's a big job but almost everyone who takes it on fails. Part of the reason Theresa May was seen as a a "safe pair of hands" was because she'd survived running the Home Office for 6 years which is unheard of. John Reid who was one of Blair's Home Secretaries and had a reutation as an incredibly tough operator famously described it as "not fit for purpose" (he lasted about 12 months). I think Thatcher got through 7 Home Secretaries, there were 6 during New Labour's time in office. If you survive more than 3 years as Home Secretary - and if you leave that job with your reputation intact - then that's a success.

I think it might have got a bit better since the establishment of the Justice Department which means the Home Office is now a more "normal" ministry. So previously it used to be in charge of everything from policing, prisons, immigration, the justice system/courts, domestic security and MI5, counter-terrorism, civil emergencies and basically everything in between. It's had a lot of those responsibilities taken away and we now have a more European model of the Home Office as Interior Ministry with a Justice Department. My impression is that there's fewer scandals in the Home Office since the split.

But I think the political risks contribute to its dysfunction - there's an anecdote Alan Johnson (11 months - though ended by election not scandal) tells of his first day as Home Secretary. He was stood in his office talking with the chief civil servant - they were both looking out the window and it was a lovely day. The civil servant said to him that the reason the Home Office is different than other departments is that it can be a clear, blue day like this and out of nowhere an exocet missile can coming hurtling through the sky "and land right there" pointing at Johnson.

I think that leads to a lot of avoiding responsibility/buck-passing/bureaucracy for the sake of it to try and to give cover. But I just did a quick Google search and there are articles from 2006-7, including the Guardian, on Home Office dysfunction - I imagine if you searched news archives there'd be similar articles in the 90s and 80s etc. In time I've been old enough to watch the news I've seen 5-6 Home Secretaries forced out because of departmental fuck-ups and it's happened so often over similar issues that I suspect the problem is deep and structural/cultural in the department - and I don't know that I've ever seen any idea of how to solve it.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Why would an anti-ship missile be launched at a building in London?

[The Brain]

The ship of state.

[Sheilbh]

Why would an anti-ship missile be launched at a building in London?

Only missile everyone knows since the Falklands

[Sheilbh]

It's not discretionary as such. We have a plan led system. Local planning authorities publish their development plans. If development is in accordance with the relevant plan then you should get planning permission but you do need to apply to demonstrate accordance with policy and also pay cpontributions to mitigate the effect of the development (e.g. costs to the highway network, additional educational resources etc). The problem is (a) a lot of development plans are badly out of date and (b) councillors decide planning applications so politics gets in the way of what should be a quasi-judicial process.

Here's a good summary of the White Paper by a barrister who I know well.

https://www.planoraks.com/posts-1/planning-reform-day

Interesting - thanks.

It basically looks like the new proposals are relatively sensible and should encourage more building, but they're not as revolutionary as the spin.

[Sheilbh]

On the Home Office there was a BBC Four documentary series on the Home Office, FCO and Treasury. This is the episode on the Home Office:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyGhg8BmECw

Edit: And there is a great bit on Roy Jenkins who was a great liberal Home Secretary in the late 60s (abolished theatre and literary censorship, decriminalised abortion and homosexuality, abolished the death penalty, I think the first Race Relations Act) talking about his attempts to reform the Home Office. He described how he was basically in a running fight with the department - he wanted to make some internal policy changes and had to argue for them with his Permanent Secretary (chief civil servant) - there's been over 80 Home Secretaries, but only about 25 Permanent Secretaries. He said that was the most draining hour of his career

Edit: And it does also point out the sort of structural issues - I think we focus a lot on politicians in this thread but this is where I have sympathy with Dominic Cummings' flatten Whitehall and start from the beginning view of the state that supports elected politicians. It includes interviews with Charles Clarke who resigned over a scandal about foreign prisoners (including people convicted for murder and child sexual abuse) being released at the end of their term with no review by the immigration service of whether they should be deported. Apparently the prison system didn't at the time record nationality so they didn't know or care and didn't communicate to the immigration service.

Clarke thought this was fixed - which was the evidence the top civil servant, Sir John Gieve, gave to parliament (later corrected) - it wasn't and a further 300 foreign prisoners were released without review. Gieve had already been highly criticised for his management of the Home Office by the National Audit Office. After Clarke resigned Gieve was also replaced. So Gieve moved on in 2006 to become Deputy Governor for Financial Stability in the Bank of England, which also went well. The independent civil service which doesn't get pressured or fired by minister is generally a very good thing - but it can be an obstacle for accountability and lead to a fair amount of failing upwards.

[The Larch]

In more Home Office news, it seems that they've had quite a blunder today. When detaining two people in a Glasgow suburb in order to deport them, the whole neighbourhood came out to block their van and they ended up having to release the detainees.

Kenmure Street protest RECAP: Detained men released as police ask gathering to disperse

The men detained in an immigration van following a raid in Pollokshields earlier today have been released following a seven-hours. long mass protest.

Hundreds of activists surrounded a UK Border Agency van in Kenmure Street, containing two men from a nearby property. Officers surrounded the van and lined each end of the street. Protesters chanted "these are our neighbours, let them go".

Police bosses have since said they were releasing the men "back into their community meantime" after a risk assessment. They are now asking members of the public to disperse.

In a public statement, Chief Superintendent Mark Sutherland said: "In order to protect the safety, public health and well-being of all people involved in the detention and subsequent protest in Kenmure Street, Pollokshields, today, Police Scotland has, following a suitable risk assessment, taken the operational decision to release the men detained by UK Immigration Enforcement back into their community meantime.

"In order to facilitate this quickly and effectively, Police Scotland is asking members of the public to disperse from the street as soon as possible."

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, also the constituency MSP for the south side, tweeted her 'deep concern' over the Home Office's presence in the area, particularly while the community celebrates Eid.

[Sheilbh]

Good on them - hell of a moment:
https://twitter.com/chrisclements/status/1392858454415585283?s=20

Not terribly related (East Kilbride, not Glasgow) but if you ever get the chance to watch Nae Pasaran I strongly recommend it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD6d0xKZNRg

[Sheilbh]

Interesting and unexpected - the Tories, Greens and Lib Dems have reached a sort of deal in the London Assembly (in German style a Gabon coalition? Blue, Green, Yellow?). These sort of coalitions pop up all the time at local government level but it's still strange to see especially because the Assembly's a little bit higher profile in London.

The Assembly isn't a legislature and has relatively few powers. I think it's mainly got the power to amend or reject the proposed budget by the Mayor or other statutory plans/codes the Mayor is required to prepare - so I think the strategic planning around housing, environment etc (the Mayor also doesn't have many powers). But they have quite wide-reaching investigation and monitoring powers - they're seen more as a democratic watch on the Mayor rather than a London-wide legislature, because local government is still broadly with the 32 Boroughs. Given that I think it makes sense and is probably a good thing if the opposition (to the Mayor) parties work together so they have the relevant committee chairs etc for investigation and monitoring purposes.

Still - strange. The Tories have said it's because Labour failed to hold the Mayor accountable, the Greens said it's a one time vote to divvy up scrutiny roles. Labour have condemned it as the Lib Dems and Greens "getting in bed with the Tories" and betraying their allegedly "progressive politics" (but internally there's also apparently enormous rows about the failure of Labour to even offer a deal to the Greens or Lib Dems to reach a majority - reason #427 why I think a "progressive alliance" is unlikely in British politics).

Separately there's a big story in Northern Ireland about a cancer drug not being available there, but will be available in the rest of the UK. Basically the drug is authorised in the UK and by the EMA, but it has now been authorised for early stage cancer treatement in the UK - the EMA has not authorised it for that course of treatment. I'm not sure if that's pending or not and apparently the Northern Irish Health Department isn't much the wiser  (Northern Ireland doesn't have the NHS it's got an equivalent system that was created separately).

Meanwhile the DUP leadership election will be held today. Sir Jeffey Donaldson is portrayed as the moderate (which he is on some issues) - his view of the NIP is that he will make others make it collapse. So he's proposing to withdraw from all cooperation with Ireland and breach the Ministerial Code by ordering (Unionist) ministers to not implement anything to do with the NIP. Edwin Poots is the more hard-line candidate (young earth creationist, homophobe etc) although on culture he is more moderate - he has engaged with the Gaelic sports and was key in negotiating the Irish Language Act compromise. He is less clear on what he'll practically do about the NIP - but his aim is to "systematically undermine and strip away all aspects" of it. Which is great

Most concerning is that we are heading towards marching season - which is the various Orange Order/Apprentice Boy etc unionist marches in Northern Ireland in the run-up to 12 July. Assuming the Indian variant doesn't knock everything off course it's very likely that there'll be basically no covid restrictions on outside gatherings by then. I think the combination of restrictions lifting and the first opportunity for unionists to visibly show their frustration is likely to make the marches quite combustible

[Sheilbh]

Oh also - I was thinking about the Home Office and defund the police/the way drugs and mental health crises are sometimes dealt with, especially in the US.

I wonder if removing responsibility for immigration from the Home Office could lead to a more humane enforcement system? Basically the biggest part of the Home Office's job is law enforcement, counter-terrorism etc and I was wondering if there's an element of if you've got a hammer everything starts to look like a nail. So I remember reading a story about a couple of Theresa May aides when she'd just become Prime Minister, who'd followed her from the Home Office. They were having a meeting with Treasury officials about the issue of late payments by organisations - which is a huge problem for especially SME cash-flow. Apparently they horrified their Treasury colleagues because their first suggestion was "can criminalise it and punishe directors who do it?"

But basically I wonder if there is a the Home Office mindset as the law enforcement/internal security department and the department that, if there is an issue, will address it through criminal law rather than say incentives etc which is how most other departments think - and if that mindset influences the separate and different issue of immigration control? So in the same way as people in the US are talking about using social workers more for people in a mental health crisis and de-escalating on drugs I wonder if it'd be possible to do something similar with immigration where that moves out of the Home Office and into a department that deals exclusively with that issue?

On the other hand I'm not sure if, because it's still immigration enforcement that it wouldn't make much difference and immigration enforcement everywhere ends up being nasty and police-ified? Also reading Larch's piece the other institution I kept on thinking about was HMRC because if you've ever tried to deal with HMRC when they've made a mistake it is horrendous - and there's the similar litany of incredibly low staff morale, plus regular failures like accidentally losing people's tax data - so maybe any front-line/enforcement department ends up in that direction?

[Tonitrus]

On the other hand I'm not sure if, because it's still immigration enforcement that it wouldn't make much difference and immigration enforcement everywhere ends up being nasty and police-ified? Also reading Larch's piece the other institution I kept on thinking about was HMRC because if you've ever tried to deal with HMRC when they've made a mistake it is horrendous - and there's the similar litany of incredibly low staff morale, plus regular failures like accidentally losing people's tax data - so maybe any front-line/enforcement department ends up in that direction?

I share your doubts...I think one of the problems we have in America is that we feel the need to have completely different law enforcement agencies for each problem/responsibility...DEA, ATF, FBI, USSS (for counterfeiting), etc...and not all of them even under the Department of Justice.  I am not convinced that diversity in federal law enforcement is a good thing.

I'd probably be in favor of tossing out our alphabet-soup of agencies and going back to square-one, with just the US Marshals Service, and let them handle the lot (and whoever runs the USMS should NOT come from the Law Enforcement hierarchy (as I think this is a lot of the problem with local police agencies...where they seem to function like a pseudo-military but without the firm civilian control the military has)  Functionally, it may just put all of those jobs under one umbrella again, but it would at least get rid of some level of law enforcement tribalism.

[Sheilbh]

Also one for Tamas's argument that we should have some form of ID scheme - over five million EU citizens have applied for settled status. That's about double the number of EU citizens government estimated were living in the UK

The campaign group for EU citizens living in the UK was literally called The 3 Million based on that, apparently wildly incorrect, estimate.

[Tonitrus]

Why is the UK so attractive to immigration, but France doesn't seem to have the same reputation?

Maybe the British need to become more rude?