Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Valmy]

A patio overlooking the beach is the height of civilization.

Not one of your windy and freezing Pacific Northwest beaches though 

Anyway all you Brits who bitch about British Weather are welcome to come spend a summer in Texas or a winter in Minnesota. You'll be singing a different tune.

[Tamas]

Saying our climate a great positive for Britain is the most depraved thing I've ever seen on Languish.

I am sorry but in the South it is. Usually it moves between like 3 degrees of difference during a season, it rains more than ideal but it's not that bad.


I understand it gets progressively shittier as you move north but that's why I don't live there. :p

[Gups]

I honestly couldn't cope with the summer temperatures in the med these days. Maybe if you are on holiday and want to lounge on the beach it's fine but day to day life  in 35 degrees plus is no fun.

[Valmy]

I honestly couldn't cope with the summer temperatures in the med these days. Maybe if you are on holiday and want to lounge on the beach it's fine but day to day life  in 35 degrees plus is no fun.

It is 33 degrees right now. In October.

Fuck this.

[Sheilbh]

Not one of your windy and freezing Pacific Northwest beaches though 

Anyway all you Brits who bitch about British Weather are welcome to come spend a summer in Texas or a winter in Minnesota. You'll be singing a different tune.

I have no idea - but my impression is the only bit of North America I'd be interested in from a climate perspective are some parts of California.

And on geographic blessings this is where I do think the Victorian encyclopedia has a point. It's a very benign, safe natural world in Britain - we're not on a fault-line, don't get hurricanes or tornadoes, (until now) rarely cold or hot enough to be dangerous, not really many poisonous things or animals that can kill humans at least as long as we ignore the Guardian:

[Grey Fox]

Saying our climate a great positive for Britain is the most depraved thing I've ever seen on Languish.

Well, it's not a bad climate. UK farmers can plant seed when Canada is still covered by feets of snow.

[Josquius]

Climate wise I think it's quite recognised France has the best going, with its large temperate north but also with a sizable Mediterranean area and then in between grape friendly terrain.
It can grow basically anything in decent quantities.

I suppose on a grand scope of history too that France is top in Europe for spurning it's advantages what with much of European history up until napoleon being about trying to stop French world conquest.

Britain is up there too though, I mean yeah we have to trade for fruit and wine but... That's why god gave us ships and the Portuguese.
And purely looking at the past century or so we've done a lot more to throw away a strong position.

[Sheilbh]

Climate wise I think it's quite recognised France has the best going, with its large temperate north but also with a sizable Mediterranean area and then in between grape friendly terrain.
It can grow basically anything in decent quantities.

Yeah. I think France is the ideal for me. Beer and butter and cream in the North, olives and wine and anchovies in the South, mountains and beaches.

[Sheilbh]

So I mentioned earlier about looking at the UK's strengths that was based on a report around where China was targeting UK universities and companies.

This was in my mind because there's a few really striking stories related to China recently - obviously that report about Chinese involvement (including from PLA-associated organisations) with research sectors in UK universities.

Aside form that, China's trying to build a massive embassy on the former Royal Mint HQ. It would be the biggest embassy in Europe if approved. This is in East London on the edge of the City. The US have pushed back against it, noting its proximity to the City and several US banks and particularly the underground infrastructure that powers the City. The local council rejected the planning application (worth noting the council has a large Muslim population and has considered renaming streets things like Tiananmen Square, Uyghur Court, Hong Kong Road and Tibet Hill). Less publicly, there's been reports that the police and intelligence agencies have been strongly pushing against this internally. But the government "called in" the planning application moving it from local government to the Secretary of State to decide - there's not been any new stories recently as this was Angela Rayner's department - but the last story I saw was Rayner noting that two buildings in the planning applications had been redacted. She asked for this to be unredacted and for the Chinese embassy to "identify precisely and comprehensively" what had been redacted and why. The FCDO have also requested a "hard perimeter" around the embassy but I believe this has been rejected by the Chinese team as it would constitute a "material amendment" that would require further consultations and planning steps.

The next story was that the last government introduced stricter "foreign influence" rules on lobbyists, similar to those in the US and other countries. Basically anyone acting for a foreign power or entity has to declare it or face criminal sanctions. There is then an enhanced tier that's considered a particular risk and has extra disclosure or a five year prison sentence for "undeclared" work. There was a big internal fight when the current government was implementing these rules over whether China should be in the enhanced tier or not - in the end it was decided that only Iran and Russia would be put into the enhanced tier. The government did consider putting specific entities, such as CCP, the United Front Work Department and the PLA under the enhanced tier but decided against it. The Guardian is now reporting that part of the reason the government didn't was because of threats of retaliation from China.

Which leads to the really big story which I think is also constitutionally pretty extraordinary. Basically two parliamentary researchers who worked for China hawk MPs were arrested for passing secrets to China. The prosecution against them collapsed last week.

Part of this turns on interpretation of the 1911 Official Secrets Act which says a person is guilty of spying if they pass on information that is "directly or indirectly useful to an enemy". The reports are that the PM's National Security Advisor, Jonathan Powell, intervened to chair a meeting of the civil service confirming that government evidence would stop "well short" of saying China was an "enemy". The more furious briefing from the Crown Prosecution Service is that the government intervened to block the trial by saying they basically wouldn't testify in its favour which, in an espionage case, is pretty tough.

Starmer disputes that Powell was involved and basically says nothing changed. In 2023 when they were arrested China was not designated in a way that would be covered by that legislation; now they are. Off the record (because they can't publicly argue with the PM - who is also a former Director of Public Prosecutions), the CPS disputes that. They say the case law does not require any formal designation or even much evidence of a country being an "enemy" ("any State which presently poses an active threat to the UK's national security can properly be described as 'an enemy' in ordinary language" - which is something that the intelligence chiefs have said publicly about China). The CPS also say they spent months seeking further evidence from the government of that and the threat posed by Chinese espionage and were stonewalled. So the PM's line is basically that nothing could be done by the current government to prevent the trial collapsing because of the designation in 2023, the CPS say they spent months seeking evidence and were frustrated by the government and alleging interference by Number 10. (I would also add that I think Jonathan Powell is a really, really bad choice as National Security Advisor - but he worked for Blair so obviously got a top job )

Not sure if it's just a coincidence that these stories are all being reported at roughly the same time, or if it reflects intensified Chinese pressure - I suspect the latter. I also think that it took a while but the Tories ended up in a fairly hawkish place on China because of backbench pressure. There's not so much backbench pressure on this in Labour - and absent that I think governments will always end up being fairly dove-ish. Internally the FCDO always wants to be focused on better relations and, crucially, so do the Treasury which is hugely important in any turf wars within government- on the other side you normally have the MoD and Home Office with the intelligence agencies.

Edit: I'd add that politically it's also quite striking as Labour used to hammer Sunak especially for being too soft on China policy.

[Josquius]

The most worrying thing about the Chinese embassy stuff I've seen is the redacted part of the plans, believed to be for prison cells.
Really China should be given clear requirements if they want to build this to get rid of the dodgy stuff- wonder how much moving the comms infrastructure would cost too.


Otherwise...I'm giving increasing thought to joining the Greens. Yes yes they've a myriad of problems but seem to be moving in the right direction. And are apparently good locally away from direct politics.
Though this likely would lead to next general election being a complete flip of the last one for me.

[crazy canuck]

This should give you a chuckle

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNaesFcsQHs/?igsh=MXRkcnNpbTlxc3Q0Ng==

[Richard Hakluyt]

I tell you what though.... that Jenrick eh? What an odious wanker.

[Sheilbh]

I tell you what though.... that Jenrick eh? What an odious wanker.

Yeah - and especially considering that he was to the left of Badenoch until about two minutes ago. I don't mean to be cruel but I think the switch happened around the same time he discovered Ozempic.

I also think it's really interesting that of all the possible Tory leaders (Badenoch, Johnson, Cleverly and him) who get polled he consistently comes off the worst and in focus groups, he's one of those politicians who people like less the more of him they say. But there is a solid group on the right who are convinced he's the solution.

Semi-relatedly - which I think is really interesting polling - is that at the minute the Tories and Reform together are polling at about 50-55% (roughly Reform around 30-35% and the Tories around 20%). If you poll them merging then a joint party is on 35% (which is Jenrick's strategy I suspect). I'm genuinely unsure if that's because the Tory brand would be toxic for Reform voters or vice versa.

[HVC]

I tell you what though.... that Jenrick eh? What an odious wanker.

Yeah - and especially considering that he was to the left of Badenoch until about two minutes ago. I don't mean to be cruel but I think the switch happened around the same time he discovered Ozempic.

What's the link, the fatter you are the more liberal you are?

[Richard Hakluyt]

My particular dislike for him is based on his inauthenticity. I suspect he might even be a liberal. But his desire to be Tory leader and maybe PM trumps all this. I find Badenoch (nutter) and even Farage (authentic right wing arsehole) preferable.