Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

The copy and paste from America is an interesting one as in the past few years I've been seeing the far right indulging in some amazing projection moaning about the left doing this, when in reality it was the right you saw importing American culture war bollocks.

It absolutely happens with both left and right.

There's always been a big degree of influence and cross-pollination (at least since Thatcher) so Thatcher and Reagan, or the influence of Clinton on Blair/New Labour, to literally everyone wanting a piece of Obama, plus the Trump/Farage/Bannon/Brexit nexus. It's arguably still there in the banal "who is Britain's Biden/what can Biden teach Starmer" nonsense. I feel like the difference is that those were to an extent mediated by elites.

The media and political class in this country closely, occasionally obsessively follows American politics (Osborne and Brown are both huge Robert Caro fans) while being broadly uninterested in, say, French or German politics. But previously those elites would pick through the journalism and books and speeches produced by American politics for learnings that could be useful in British politics - there's also the standard thing of both parties hiring competing American strategists, I think the Australians probably have more influence because of the success of Lynton Crosby, but off the top of my head I think Carville, Shrum, Axelrod, Messina have all worked on UK campaigns (and we wonder how we have culture war politics).

This stuff seems more from the bottom up - so people on "Britain First" Facebook, for want of a better word, are exposed to and use the Trump/America First Facebook memes and language about those issues with no pause on whether it applies. The same is also happening on democratic socialist Twitter which, especially after Corbyn's resignation and far from power, looks to Sanders and AOC and American activists for clues. Again there's no real pause about whether what they're saying applies to the UK. It's unfiltered, there's no mediation process.

I suppose it's the cost of sharing a language with the world's cultural hegemon - and the upside is we are fully exposed to and can enjoy all the rest of American culture very easily which is nice.

Similarly this image has been built up of the militant remainers looking down their nose on working class people (who can only be uneducated idiots who support brexit of course).

For the longest time it was pure fiction invented by the far right... But lately their stories are actually becoming true. Its bizzare.
I suspect it really shows how much influence the fake news machine is starting to have on the left.

FBPE Twitter has become a real parody of itself. But also their view/stereotype/opinion about the EU is so disconnected from what the EU actually is and what it does as to almost be an argument for leave in itself. It's another example, as much as they'd hate this, of Brits not engaging with the reality of the EU and the European project - but only using it as an expression of and tool in domestic politics.

[The Larch]

What's FBPE Twitter? Any example of that distorted view of the EU?

[Sheilbh]

What's FBPE Twitter? Any example of that distorted view of the EU?

"Follow back pro-European" - occasionally "Follow back re-join Europe". They are very much a minority but a pretty vocal one a bit like the hard-line monomaniacal Brexiteers.

I think there's to sides to it. One is - and it never ends up with the EU disappointing them by doing this - but they basically want the EU to act as the deus ex machina. The EU will in the end humiliate Johnson and Frost and expose their lies and vindicate the FBPE crowd. Instead the EU consistently works with whatever UK government is in office and try to reach a deal with the UK in their interests (which they'll defend). The EU is not interested in and doesn't care about humiliating Johnson, or proving him wrong - if they can work with him, they will. If they can't they won't.

It reminds me of the liberal dream in Trump's America of a epistemic awakening - that one final piece of evidence (the Muller Report, Stormy Daniels, Ukraine recordings) would somehow convince Trump supporters they were all wrong and America would be restored. It is sublimating the political work of campaigning and making the argument (that people shouldn't support Trump, that we should re-join the EU) into instead waiting for the deus ex machina.

The EU is basically liberal and nice and will intervene to save liberal and nice people in the UK from this awful government. I think neither's true - the EU is a tool of its member states (liberal and nice is not how I'd describe the last decade of the EU) and doesn't care about the UK's internal battles. I've even seen them argue that FBPE isn't a British hastag/trend at all ("has it occurred to you that some of us don't care about the UK anymore?") but a pan-European one. Which is adorable and delusional - and still weirdly centred on the UK/British exceptionalism.

The second bit is just that they are incredibly parochial and only understand the context of the UK/pay attention to Europe about as much as ultra-leave Twitter - everything is understood purely through the (often conspiratorial) lens of British politics. So they've been talking about how MEPs could offer Brits an opt-in "associate EU citizenship" for a fee. Which isn't how the European Parliament works, it isn't how European citizenship works - and it would probably drive certain countries like Denmark crazy to de-couple EU citizenship from national citizenship.

There were some utterly unhinged vaccine takes early on in the process - basically they probably weren't safe because approved in the UK but not Europe, and the UK was playing with people's lives by doing the delayed second dose thing and the NYT (false) story on "mix and match" vaccines. Also the plans to introduce ID cards is incipient tyranny rather than standard across Europe - and arguably one of the ways many EU countries manage freedom of movement.

It love Europe - but it's a Europe of the imagination, or just a reflection of them and their values rather than reality.

Edit: In confused political messaging the Labour Shadow Home Secretary has a line in his speech attacking the Tories for having "defunded the police". The context is Labour are, sensibly, going after the Tories for austerity and linking the rise in crime to the large cuts to the police since 2010 - plus nicking Blair's "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime". But just another way American politics/culture gets distorted through the UK setting.

[Oexmelin]

This stuff seems more from the bottom up - so people on "Britain First" Facebook, for want of a better word, are exposed to and use the Trump/America First Facebook memes and language about those issues with no pause on whether it applies. The same is also happening on democratic socialist Twitter which, especially after Corbyn's resignation and far from power, looks to Sanders and AOC and American activists for clues. Again there's no real pause about whether what they're saying applies to the UK. It's unfiltered, there's no mediation process.

Yes, it's very similar in Canada, which also historically tracks the decline of British and French intellectual influence over our political cues - with France enjoying still some distant echoes here. 

[Sheilbh]

Details of Sarah Everard's murder are nowbeing reported as part of the sentencing hearing (two days) and are absolutely awful.

The policeman who killed her apparently drove around the South Circular twice looking for a lone female to attack. He used his warrant card and falsely arrested her for breach of covid regulations. She complied because he was a police officer and there were witnesses who saw her being handcuffed and assumed she'd done something. I think this technically makes it a death in policy custody.

From the Times court reporter:

Fiona Hamilton
@Fhamiltontimes
PC Wayne Couzens was seen handcuffing Sarah Everard on a road in Clapham - she was compliant because he used the guise of covid restrictions to "arrest" her. It was seen by witnesses who assumed Everard had done something wrong. They were in fact witnessing her kidnap by a cop

This is why him being a policeman has such a huge impact - I don't know how any woman could be expected to trust the police. There needs to be a full inquiry/investigation into violence against women by the police (and Cressida Dick should resign), but I don't know beyond that.

Separately there's been another horrible murder of a woman walking five minutes from train station to pub - it's been over a week and I think the Met don't have anyone yet. It's really grim

[Tamas]

They have charged somebody on the latest murder IIRC.

[Zanza]

Parliament will only pass the law for the lorry driver visa by mid October. It will them take some days or weeks to process visa applications. Which will expire on Christmas. So at best eight weeks of work. I wonder what they plan to pay people to come to the UK under these conditions as moving to another country for such a short time comes with its own costs. This is not a serious policy, is it?

[viper37]

Details of Sarah Everard's murder are nowbeing reported as part of the sentencing hearing (two days) and are absolutely awful.

The policeman who killed her apparently drove around the South Circular twice looking for a lone female to attack. He used his warrant card and falsely arrested her for breach of covid regulations. She complied because he was a police officer and there were witnesses who saw her being handcuffed and assumed she'd done something. I think this technically makes it a death in policy custody.

From the Times court reporter:

Fiona Hamilton
@Fhamiltontimes
PC Wayne Couzens was seen handcuffing Sarah Everard on a road in Clapham - she was compliant because he used the guise of covid restrictions to "arrest" her. It was seen by witnesses who assumed Everard had done something wrong. They were in fact witnessing her kidnap by a cop

This is why him being a policeman has such a huge impact - I don't know how any woman could be expected to trust the police. There needs to be a full inquiry/investigation into violence against women by the police (and Cressida Dick should resign), but I don't know beyond that.

Separately there's been another horrible murder of a woman walking five minutes from train station to pub - it's been over a week and I think the Met don't have anyone yet. It's really grim

I don't remember the details, but, was he on duty that night?  was he off-duty but still officially employed as a policeman?

[Duque de Bragança]

Parliament will only pass the law for the lorry driver visa by mid October. It will them take some days or weeks to process visa applications. Which will expire on Christmas. So at best eight weeks of work. I wonder what they plan to pay people to come to the UK under these conditions as moving to another country for such a short time comes with its own costs. This is not a serious policy, is it?

By post-Brexit British politics standards, it is.

[Sheilbh]

Parliament will only pass the law for the lorry driver visa by mid October. It will them take some days or weeks to process visa applications. Which will expire on Christmas. So at best eight weeks of work. I wonder what they plan to pay people to come to the UK under these conditions as moving to another country for such a short time comes with its own costs. This is not a serious policy, is it?

The going rate for an HGV driver is £50-60k at the minute so maybe £8-10k - and my understanding is that signing on bonuses are pretty common at the minute too. I'm not sure how the tax works but my very high level understanding is that it would be taxed as income in your home/tax resident country unless you're in the UK for 183 days in which case you become tax resident in the UK.

I very much doubt it'll work because the numbers are so low - but it won't be individuals applying for the visa, it'll be agencies advertising in other countries and doing the paperwork (because it's a visa so you need a sponsoring business). If the pay is similar to the levels we're seeing generally for HGV drivers it might tempt some people. Given that it's the run-up to Christmas - if I was an agency I'd target mainly Orthodox or Muslim countries because it wouldn't fuck up their own family time/holidays.

I don't remember the details, but, was he on duty that night?  was he off-duty but still officially employed as a policeman?

Yeah my understanding is he as off-duty but used his warrant card when "arresting" her. The prosecution also think that he was wearing his police belt and handcuffed her, it is also likely that was the murder weapon he used to strangle her.

We will hear a lot more once the trial is finished and reporting restrictions are lifted but from the prosecution's comments for sentenving today - I think the details will be very upsetting.

[Tamas]

Best this could do is scrape the bottom of the barrel. We have been assured lack of drivers is a Europe-wide issue and not a Brexit thing so why would European drivers come here leaving their high-demand jobs for a couple of months of relocating to the UK, and why would ROTW drivers come here for a few months instead of getting visas in Europe?

[Sheilbh]

Best this could do is scrape the bottom of the barrel. We have been assured lack of drivers is a Europe-wide issue and not a Brexit thing so why would European drivers come here leaving their high-demand jobs for a couple of months of relocating to the UK, and why would ROTW drivers come here for a few months instead of getting visas in Europe?

Brexit's obviously a big part of it because we don't have freedom of movement.

I agree with the European Haulage Association guy that it's unlikely EU drivers would do it because there is a heightened demand and a shortage across the EU and it's a hassle.

For the ROTW - that depends on whether there are equivalent visa schemes in the rest of Europe, I'm not sure if there are. Then I'd imagine it's a question of which option pays best. From what I understand market rates are around £8-10k for two months at the minute - that might not be enough or it might be, I'm not sure. I don't think 5,000 drivers will make a huge difference though. For what it's worth, I believe the visa story has been picked up in the Turkish press so that's probably where I'd target if I was running an agency.

[PDH]

Thank hod there are no unforeseen consequences from Brexit!  The known consequences that people were screaming about all along are bad enough.

[Tamas]

It is the time of year for me to announce: I am utterly puzzled by the fascination with James Bond.

[The Brain]

It is the time of year for me to announce: I am utterly puzzled by the fascination with James Bond.

You don't like Broccoli?