Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

That said, I don't think I would have ever thought of Britain as "freedom-loving" given all the CCTV and anti-free speech laws (e.g. hate speech).

Yeah - it's nonsense. But it's always been beloved of a certain type of (especially) right-wing person - David Davis springs to mind who was hugely against ID cards and is again campaigning against voter ID laws because he thinks it is illiberal and interferes with our liberties etc.

However, for many to say that they want in perpetuity a 10 day quarantine for anyone coming into the country (or the nebulous proof of vaccination - against what?), there has to be a singificant role on current emotions/tensions around COVID. Unless that 1 third to half of the country constitutes never travellers (and not directly connected to tourism industry), that stance makes no sense in a true long-term scenario.

Only about 10% of people have never been overseas but I think there's about 20% who don't have a passport and 25% who have never been on a plane. So I suppose they might just not care because they don't travel very much - or they're retired/wfh so quarantining makes no real difference to them anyway.

Comparing the state of trains and train stations between Hungary (no CCTV) and England (CCTV) I am ok being on camera when in public spaces.

I've never really had an issue with CCTV. I don't know why but I am broadly very relaxed about it (unlike ID cards/national ID database or online tracking). I've reluctantly come around to the idea that it might be good to have some sort of ID scheme (on a semi-related note there's a story in the Times that could explode and - I think - bring down Priti Patel if there's more cases of registered sex offenders, including paedophiles, changing their name and then being able to get jobs etc with children).

Although I have a lot of issues with the new models of CCTV with facial recognition software etc running in the background. I think there is a possible argument for them in very limited circumstances - possibly stadiums - but otherwise I basically think they should be banned. And, I think the law in the UK is you're not allowed to keep CCTV footage for more than 30 days but I could be wrong on that.

[Josquius]

However, for many to say that they want in perpetuity a 10 day quarantine for anyone coming into the country (or the nebulous proof of vaccination - against what?), there has to be a singificant role on current emotions/tensions around COVID. Unless that 1 third to half of the country constitutes never travellers (and not directly connected to tourism industry), that stance makes no sense in a true long-term scenario.

I guess its the same as much of the thinking behind brexit. They expect that somehow they'll be a special exception.
Or that the clock will turn back to the 60s and British seasides will suddenly become wonderful thriving places for a good old fashioned holiday again.

Speaking of which

Marie Le Conte
@youngvulgarian
IMO an underlying tension in pandemic discourse is that while everyone naturally leans more libertarian or authoritarian, the past 18 months have made people instictively go in harder on one or the other, and am not sure what it'll mean for future politics
I've personally gone from a vague "hooray for broadly benevolent big state!" do an increasingly strident DON'T TREAD ON ME but have seen friends go in the opposite direction, feel like it's been an understudied split

I think it might be really important and I think it might have long-term consequences in politics but I'm not sure - and I've seen something similar among my friends so we're talking about this split within younger people. It may be something that shapes people's politics in the future - maybe.

Its a good point and the weird thing about it is it doesn't neatly split along established lines.
The usual populist crowd moaning about evil governments are often those who are most supportive of tight restrictions whilst those who are usually pro-state on the left are often most aghast at any corona restrictions.


Ultimately with this polling too I think we have to expect there's a heavy boost towards the "saying what you're expected to say" and theoretically wanting something but not in practice.
For instance give me a few drinks and ask me about shutting down all the night clubs then hell yes I'm all for that.... Though logically of course that's a bad idea and its purely that I personally don't like them coming out.

[garbon]

That said, I don't think I would have ever thought of Britain as "freedom-loving" given all the CCTV and anti-free speech laws (e.g. hate speech).

Comparing the state of trains and train stations between Hungary (no CCTV) and England (CCTV) I am ok being on camera when in public spaces.

It isn't only at train stations/on trains.

[Tamas]

That said, I don't think I would have ever thought of Britain as "freedom-loving" given all the CCTV and anti-free speech laws (e.g. hate speech).

Comparing the state of trains and train stations between Hungary (no CCTV) and England (CCTV) I am ok being on camera when in public spaces.

It isn't only at train stations/on trains.

Yeah but its an easily seen benefit there. Especially nowadays, literally everyone is carrying a recording device in their pockets that's capable of live-streaming as well. Privacy in public spaces just don't exist, if it ever did.

The important thing is to ensure rule of law is maintained so such surveillance tools are not used by the state to abuse citizens.

If you look at the Pegasus scandal, Hungary has quite basic CCTV coverage compared to Britain, but that didn't exactly stopped the state from trampling on civil liberties and privacies of their citizens.

[The Brain]

When I coup I always occupy the TV/radio building and the newspapers. Checkmate, opponents.

[garbon]

That said, I don't think I would have ever thought of Britain as "freedom-loving" given all the CCTV and anti-free speech laws (e.g. hate speech).

Comparing the state of trains and train stations between Hungary (no CCTV) and England (CCTV) I am ok being on camera when in public spaces.

It isn't only at train stations/on trains.

Yeah but its an easily seen benefit there. Especially nowadays, literally everyone is carrying a recording device in their pockets that's capable of live-streaming as well. Privacy in public spaces just don't exist, if it ever did.

The important thing is to ensure rule of law is maintained so such surveillance tools are not used by the state to abuse citizens.

If you look at the Pegasus scandal, Hungary has quite basic CCTV coverage compared to Britain, but that didn't exactly stopped the state from trampling on civil liberties and privacies of their citizens.

I don't know about you, but generally people don't walk around filming me on their phones when I'm in public.

[Tamas]

That said, I don't think I would have ever thought of Britain as "freedom-loving" given all the CCTV and anti-free speech laws (e.g. hate speech).

Comparing the state of trains and train stations between Hungary (no CCTV) and England (CCTV) I am ok being on camera when in public spaces.

It isn't only at train stations/on trains.

Yeah but its an easily seen benefit there. Especially nowadays, literally everyone is carrying a recording device in their pockets that's capable of live-streaming as well. Privacy in public spaces just don't exist, if it ever did.

The important thing is to ensure rule of law is maintained so such surveillance tools are not used by the state to abuse citizens.

If you look at the Pegasus scandal, Hungary has quite basic CCTV coverage compared to Britain, but that didn't exactly stopped the state from trampling on civil liberties and privacies of their citizens.

I don't know about you, but generally people don't walk around filming me on their phones when I'm in public.

Point is that there are less checks on how individuals might record you and what they might do with those recordings, than around the legal use and storage of CCTV footage. Yet cameras on mobile phones are not a Big Privacy Deal for people.

[garbon]

Point is that there are less checks on how individuals might record you and what they might do with those recordings, than around the legal use and storage of CCTV footage. Yet cameras on mobile phones are not a Big Privacy Deal for people.

Presumably that's because it is much easier to control CCTV than it would be to do away with private cameras/video? It isn't like mobile phones invented recordings, they just made it easier.

But still they aren't really the same as a fixed camera that is always recording - that's quite a bit different from the intentional act of recording a specific moment.

[Tamas]

Sure but you have legal protection from those recordings being published or abused by its operators. The minimal risk of a recording something legal people do being used to coerce them into something by a rogue employee I think absolutely worth the extra safety it gives from various petty crimes committed.

[garbon]

Sure but you have legal protection from those recordings being published or abused by its operators. The minimal risk of a recording something legal people do being used to coerce them into something by a rogue employee I think absolutely worth the extra safety it gives from various petty crimes committed.

I don't think I was arguing anything in that vein (though personally I'm creeped out by how many cameras are recording me when I stop and pay attention) but simply had raised it as an example of why I've never considered British people to be "freedom-loving".

[Sheilbh]

In non-Brexit Northern Ireland news - but at fucking last:

Britain orders Northern Ireland to introduce full abortion services

'This stalemate leaves me no choice,' UK Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis tells Belfast leaders.
N Ireland Stormont Assembly Reconvenes To Discuss Abortion Rights And Gay Marriage
Pro-abortion protesters in Belfast on October 21, 2019 | Charles McQuillan/Getty Images
By Shawn Pogatchnik
July 22, 2021 5:40 pm

The British government has ordered Northern Ireland's coalition government to introduce full-fledged abortion services, more than a year after legislation passed in Westminster required this to happen.

Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis issued the order Thursday directing the U.K. region's Department of Health and Health Minister Robin Swann to make Northern Ireland compliant with British abortion law.

While Irish Catholics in the five-party coalition broadly support the action as legally necessary, opposition runs high among the Protestant evangelical base of the Democratic Unionist Party. The DUP vows to keep resisting the move and to campaign against any unionists who back it.

"This ongoing stalemate leaves me no choice but to issue a direction. I have a legal and moral obligation to ensure that women and girls in Northern Ireland are afforded their rights," Lewis said.

Abortion was legalized in Britain in 1967. But it wasn't extended to Northern Ireland until April 2020, after Westminster passed an abortion services law at a time when the feud-prone Northern Ireland Executive was mothballed.

Since then, some Northern Ireland hospitals and clinics have quietly launched ad-hoc services providing termination-inducing medicines to women, but only in cases involving pregnancies of 10 weeks or less.

Swann has declined to commission plans for Northern Ireland-wide provision, including for cases involving fetal abnormalities as the law permits. This means that, while about 1,550 first-trimester abortions have been carried out in Northern Ireland over the past year, thousands more women seeking abortions have traveled to Britain.

"I acknowledge and respect the deeply held views that individuals hold on this issue," Lewis said. "However, it is the clear will of parliament that the rights of women and girls in Northern Ireland are properly upheld."

Lewis said he expects Swann and the Department of Health to produce plans for introducing wider abortion services, and for the full Executive to approve them, by a deadline of March 2022 — just two months before the next scheduled Northern Ireland Assembly election.

Swann, the Executive's sole minister from the Ulster Unionist Party, has been slow to move in part because the UUP, itself divided on abortion, fears being branded pro-abortion by the harder-line Democratic Unionists. Swann has argued that he cannot commission spending on abortion services until the full Executive, with four DUP ministers, sanctions the move.

This only happened because of the work of Stella Creasy, a Labour backbench MP (who is really excellent on a lot of issues). Because Stormont was suspended Westminster could legislate for Northern Ireland and the government had to pass legislation extending the deadline for the Northern Irish parties to reach an agreement - Creasy introduced an amendment that basically said if the executive wasn't restored by that date then the UK Secretary of State would be required to take steps to legalise abortion. There was a similar amendment by another Labour backbencher (Connor McGinn) which legalised gay marriage in Northern Ireland too.

It's sad that it required Westminster legislation - and the collapse of the Assembly - for this to happen. But it's still progress.

[Sheilbh]

Mentioned it earlier but this story strikes me as potentially explosive - and very much the sort of Home Office fuck up/dysfunction that can end a Home Secretary's career. It'll probably depend on what else the Times have so whether this is a one day story or runs for a while:

The Times
@thetimes
EXCLUSIVE: The Times has been shown examples of convicted child sex abusers changing their name by deed poll, failing to inform the authorities and using their new identity to gain access to children.
In the most serious cases men barred for life from working with children used their new name to gain employment in schools and homes where they committed multiple further offences.
A source close to the DBS said it was aware of cases in which registered sex offenders had, by changing their name, gained DBS certificates clearing them to work with children. It wanted to find a way to "close this loophole".
Ian Huntley, who murdered the ten-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, gained his caretaker post at a local school after applying using the name Ian Nixon.
The Safeguarding Alliance, child protection experts who have campaigned on the issue since 2019, criticised the Home Office's failure to act.

All registered sex offenders are required to notify their local police force within three days of changing their name. Failure to do so is a criminal offence but the onus is placed entirely on the offender to comply with the law.
Figures obtained by the Safeguarding Alliance, which received responses from fewer than half of the 43 police forces in England and Wales, showed that 913 registered sex offenders went missing from 2017 to 2019.
@SarahChampionMP has been urging the government to close "this gaping hole in safeguarding".
Potential solutions include placing a digital marker on the files of all registered sex offenders at the DVLA and the passport office, or to remove the do-it-yourself option for the name change process.

[Zanza]

I support abortion rights (for Northern Ireland and elsewhere).

But in the context of Brexit it just shows the utter hypocrisy of Johnson/Frost. Dictating something as controversial as abortion rights against the consensus in Stormont is acceptable, but sausage product regulation checks isn't apparently. Not a serious government really. It's right for the EU to mostly ignore Frost's antics.

[The Brain]

Mentioned it earlier but this story strikes me as potentially explosive - and very much the sort of Home Office fuck up/dysfunction that can end a Home Secretary's career. It'll probably depend on what else the Times have so whether this is a one day story or runs for a while:

The Times
@thetimes
EXCLUSIVE: The Times has been shown examples of convicted child sex abusers changing their name by deed poll, failing to inform the authorities and using their new identity to gain access to children.
In the most serious cases men barred for life from working with children used their new name to gain employment in schools and homes where they committed multiple further offences.
A source close to the DBS said it was aware of cases in which registered sex offenders had, by changing their name, gained DBS certificates clearing them to work with children. It wanted to find a way to "close this loophole".
Ian Huntley, who murdered the ten-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, gained his caretaker post at a local school after applying using the name Ian Nixon.
The Safeguarding Alliance, child protection experts who have campaigned on the issue since 2019, criticised the Home Office's failure to act.

All registered sex offenders are required to notify their local police force within three days of changing their name. Failure to do so is a criminal offence but the onus is placed entirely on the offender to comply with the law.
Figures obtained by the Safeguarding Alliance, which received responses from fewer than half of the 43 police forces in England and Wales, showed that 913 registered sex offenders went missing from 2017 to 2019.
@SarahChampionMP has been urging the government to close "this gaping hole in safeguarding".
Potential solutions include placing a digital marker on the files of all registered sex offenders at the DVLA and the passport office, or to remove the do-it-yourself option for the name change process.

In Sweden everyone has a number. You can change your name but your number remains the same.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Same here. An employer will always know your national insurance number; I had assumed that the database of sex offenders would include their NI numbers.