Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Maybe - but I think the opposite's also somewhat true in that, in the UK at least, politics has become far more presidential. So it's now quite common for the leaders who do well to poll ahead of their party. For example Cameron, Blair, Starmer and I think Johnson too all had personal approval that was stronger than their respective parties (I'd add this is one of a number of indicators Badenoch is doing well on - ones that in normal times often point to who will win the next election).

Also, France Although I think there is a French exception in that on all sorts of opinion polls the French tend to be outliers in how negative they are about literally everything

[Tonitrus]

Yeah, I know France was somewhat closer to our system, but also...France is just different. 

[Josquius]

]
We can't - I've said it before but my view is that the most important fact for Britain in the 21st century is that America speaks English. We didn't do a great firewall and develop a more national internet (which was probably a mistake). I think for what it's worth I think it's also how the UK ends up serving as quasi-dystopia for both left ("rainy fascist island"), right (whatever Vance is banging on about) or even centrists (here it's bits of and pieces of those two criticisms plus horror at NIMBYism) within American discourse.

And I think we need to be cautious of what we think this would "solve". The fourth biggest country in Western Europe is led by an explicitly post-fascist party (I know I bang on about it - but the FdI really genuinely have a fascist lineage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRwZ70JGRio and the youth groups in that film are the same that Giorgia Meloni joined at the age of 15). From recent polls it now looks fairly plausible that we'll have President Bardella in France next year (in particular he is now leading in the polls on all potential run-offs).

It's interesting that Italy with its actual card carrying fascists manages to be less fascist than the US.

But my view was more on culturally closer countries in the north of Europe.
Obviously we can't replace the US with Sweden. But certainly we need to shift the dial a bit so it's not all 100% US and we can at least point to Denmark on a map.

[garbon]

I just read the BBC article doing vox pop of people in the Makerfield constituency. One person cited Henry Nowak as a reason to vote Restore Britain.

[mongers]

John Healey, the UK defence secretary resigns:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cgqeg09p3p1t

Healey says he has 'no other option' but to resign
published at 12:23

He outlines areas he is proud of, including leading on support for Ukraine during its war with Russia, and establishing Britain as a leading voice in Nato.

However, he complains about funding for the long-awaited Defence Investment Plan. He says the DIP financial settlement - "which I was first given in full on Monday afternoon this week" - falls "well short of what is required for defence and the country at this dangerous time".

After explaining to you that I would not be able to accept a DIP settlement that does not give our Forces the resources they need, I am now left with no other option than to submit my resignation as your Defence Secretary."

The start of Healey's letter, saying he is writing with "great regret and reluctance"

John Healey has resigned as defence secretary in a letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Here are some of the key lines - we'll have more soon:

"This new era for defence required further investment through the Defence Investment Plan. The excellent and extensive cross-government work that completed in January-overseen by you, me and the Chancellor - confirmed the scale of the challenge and the rising demands on defence.

"Since then, you have been unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats.

"As I've outlined to you, there are credible ways of meeting the mid-term funding challenges, working multi-nationally and as other European nations are doing, to allow us to protect our ability to deliver the missions of our Labour Government.

"You know what defence needs. You made the argument for this powerfully in your speech at the Munich Security Conference back in February. Without a DIP (Defence Investment Plan) that meets the moment in this way, I am being forced to make decisions that would reduce the readiness of our Forces and increase the risk to personnel on operations, and could make the country less safe."

Given the circumstances, the right thing to do.

[Sheilbh]

I just read the BBC article doing vox pop of people in the Makerfield constituency. One person cited Henry Nowak as a reason to vote Restore Britain.

Grim - but from everything I've read Restore are a factor in Makerfield. Basically what Farage has done to the Tories is now happening to him. Possibly worth noting that this already showed up before Nowak's murder - I think I posted about it before then. Also a bit weirdly I've see focus groups where people actually think Restore are more moderate than Farage in relation to Nowak - I think that's because Farage did his "pure, cold rage" statement and then did race-baiting attacks on Badenoch which Rupert Lowe condemned. Lowe is in no way more moderate than Farage - but he wasn't talking about rage or lying about Badenoch so may, weirdly, have become the more face of the more "respectable" right of the Tories party. Also the fact that the family explicitly said they didn't want the sort of thing Farage did has apparently come up quite a lot in focus groups.

FWIW (and apologies for the Twitter and Restore link but I can't find this clip anywhere else), I think this was quite a striking response from Farage to a question from Beth Rigby: https://x.com/RestoreBritain/status/2064726455515279499?s=20
He's not wrong - but also it does seem an odd/defensive response. I've said before that I think stuff's going on in Reform right now. But I think a big part of it is they're very happy dishing it out, they're very happy being the populist challengers - but they really struggle whn they're on the receiving end.

I'm also very worried with the unrest in Northern Ireland following the attempted beheading of a man there. The Times and several politicians have referred to it as a pogrom and I don't think there's another word for what we saw a couple of nights ago. There are also a few distinctively, specific Northern Irish characteristics that I think are troubling. This is the third summer in a row with anti-immigrant violence in Northern Ireland (and worth noting Northern Ireland, like Ireland, is far less diverse than England - immigration to Northern Ireland is, for obvious, reasons very recent - so we're talking very small communities here). This is, though, the first distinctively Northern Irish one - by which I mean 2024 was largely unionists and tied to the riots in Great Britain, 2025 was largely nationalist and tied to similar riots in the South (and there were nationalist contingents across the border participating in both). This summer is the first in response to a Northern Irish event.

Slightly related to the point about immigration being relatively recent to Northern Ireland for obvious reasons - migrant communities are often living in distinct existing ethnic/religious enclaves. So the attempted beheading was on a nationalist street (the man who fought the attacker off did so with his hurley). However, especially with recent immigrants who may be looking for cheaper homes (and definitely asylum seekers who are housed by G4S and Serco contractors in the cheapest properties) the specific streets they're on tend to be close to interface areas (that is areas where there are peace walls or peace gates where the unionist and nationalist communities meet). Typically during unrest in Northern Ireland the focus is very much on those interface areas - so there is unrest on a semi-regular basis and immigrants are likely to be in the cross fire pretty regularly. In this case though the interface areas have been okay. This is where it then gets particularly alarming. There are reports that loyalist and Republican groups have been meeting and coordinating even to the point of some saying they have "joined forces" in the last couple of nights. I think you slightly see that in Tuesday night being very focused on unionist areas of Belfast (despite the attack being in a nationalist area) while last night things were spreading to Derry.

As always with disorder a lot of it is just people having fun/getting their jollies from fighting the police and/or each other. But there's a particular layer to Northern Ireland - I've seen British journalists surprised at how young the boys in balaclavas clearly are (if you look at photos of the last couple of nights it is clear that these are teens). There is an element within the violence of LARPing or performing the traditions of violence and disorder from periods when that was more clearly directed by paramilitaries - you see this also in the line one journalist got from two locals in balaclavas who stopped a journalist, took their phone and scrolled through their photos to check that they'd not taken any that showed faces. They gave the phone back and told them "with no animosity, like" to "fuck away off before you get kneecapped". There are rituals and traditions to communal violence that are being re-played. And one particularly concerning trend I've seen is people calling for the paramilitaries to take charge because they wouldn't allow this type of disorder/pogrom (their disorder/pogroms were targeted). In the unionist areas where this happened, the UVF and UDA were the traditional dominant loyalist forces while in the nationalist area where the attack happened the INLA has sway (and worth noting the political wing of the INLA, the Irish Republican Socialist Party, has been using immigration to draw a contrast between itself and Sinn Fein).

Last night the PSNI started using water cannons and rubber bullets (Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK where those are legal), as I mentioned it seems like this has spread from Belfast to other cities (total aside I was slightly astonished to see the Guardian refer to Derry as "Londonderry") and doesn't seem specific to one community. I've read that over 200 police are being sent from other forces to support the PSNI in case things kick off tonight. It might not. It might now be contained. But again in terms of differences with GB it has been raining quite heavily for the last two nights in Northern Ireland - that normally spells the end of any protests/riots in GB but there are different, embedded tradiions and patterns of communal violence in Northern Ireland that I think can and have been tapped into - which makes me suspect the 12th in a month's time will be potentially very, very difficult. Might be a tough weekend for the PSNI around those interface areas.

A comment I saw online which rings very true. Maybe there is something to this two tier policing thing afterall

If you say "I support Palestine Action", they might put you in jail.
    If you incite a racist riot, they put you on the news.

Just wanted to quickly come back to this because we've had the first sentences for people arrested in the Southampton disorder (which was very localised) and the first five have gone down for at least two years (so in practice at least one).

I know I slightly bang on about this and I'm not saying that we should have a three strikes law (which I think is bad). But I was struck that a couple of them are 21/22 year olds where this is their first ever brush with the law. But then with two of the others who are older - one has 25 previous convictions for 45 offences and another has 19 previous convictions for 33 offences "and on one occasion, he broke a partner's front teeth, punched her unconscious and when she woke up told her he had put bleach in her hair". Not sure the sentences for those two groups should necessarily be the same (which they are - I feel like judges maybe should be able to take more account of history?), but also those last two are, bluntly, bad people.

I don't know all their previous offences, but I sort of feel like a 30 year old with 19 convictions including beating his partner unconscious should still be in prison for that. At best I feel like he must have received a very light sentence for that crime.