Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Legbiter]

Well Iceland has 13ish public holidays or so. GDP seems...adequate. How many does the UK have?

[Sheilbh]

And it's not like republics don't have bank holidays either. In fact, I believe there are several republics in Europe that have more BHs than us.

Yes - and often they moan about the pomp and circumstance, the silly costumes, all the flags etc. Which is, of course, utterly alien to republics:





Which may be part of the problem that if you remove the symbolic and purely intellectual objection to monarchy (which is correct) - there is probably relatively little impact on people's lives or the country moving from a constitutional parliamentary monarchy to a constitutional parliamentary republic. It is mainly experienced for the vast majority of people just at the level of symbol.

i just think that they spend far too much time telling us why a monarchy is wrong instead of telling us why a republic is right.

Yes. Bring back the Diggers!

[Richard Hakluyt]

Starmer's plan to abolish/replace the house of lords is a useful and necessary step on the road to a republic. I expect him to bottle it though 

[Legbiter]

Continuing on Sheilbh's theme.

National day in Iceland.

[Sheilbh]

Starmer's plan to abolish/replace the house of lords is a useful and necessary step on the road to a republic. I expect him to bottle it though 

I think he's already u-turned on it

And I am broadly quite suspicious of Gordon Brown doing a big report on the constitution because I think it would be absolutely full of standard Brownite tinkering (I don't mean to be unkind but I can't think of a serious retired politician I'd trust less with constitutional reform than Brown)

It always comes to the question of how much political capital and legislative time do you want to spend on it - if it isn't blocking your way to passing the rest of your agenda. And what other priority will you sacrifice.

There's an interesting piece in the New Statesman with David Edgerton today which touches on this. FWIW my own view is that reform of the House of Lords would be relatively low down my list of priorities in terms of constitutional reform - but then I think the real focus should be on decentralisation (of powers, including tax raising powers, revenues and responsibilities). Again I don't think Starmer's on course to embrace that.

[Tamas]

Well Iceland has 13ish public holidays or so. GDP seems...adequate. How many does the UK have?

Next year we will have 8, including New Year's Day, and two days each for Easter and Christmas. 

[Sheilbh]

Next year we will have 8, including New Year's Day, and two days each for Easter and Christmas. 

Barbaric

Edit: Also it'll probably be a while before a royal dies/gets married/gets crowned - so probably at least a decade until the next extra bank holidays

(Although that undermines the Labour4Republic argument if you look at an average per year...)

[Tamas]

I find that the generic name for the "extra" bank holidays (all 3) like "summer bank holiday" and such just make it worse "oh, we get a WHOLE DAY off for summer? Thank you, oh merciful lord!"

[Sheilbh]

I find that the generic name for the "extra" bank holidays (all 3) like "summer bank holiday" and such just make it worse "oh, we get a WHOLE DAY off for summer? Thank you, oh merciful lord!"

I hate that they're not tied to things. It should be May Day, something and (in London) Carnival.

I think it's why, with the exception of carnival, our only traditions for them are getting drunk and doing barbecues. So different from, say, Spain.

[Legbiter]

Next year we will have 8, including New Year's Day, and two days each for Easter and Christmas. 

GDP per capita this year will be around 75,000 dollars. I know we're layabouts compared to steely-eyed, thrifty and industrious Brits but still it seems...ok. I think.

[Legbiter]

Barbaric

Edit: Also it'll probably be a while before a royal dies/gets married/gets crowned - so probably at least a decade until the next extra bank holidays

Charles should touch for scrofula twice a year or so. Make those days bank holidays.

[crazy canuck]

Republicanism is never the answer.

You may end up like the United States

[PJL]

If we had a couple of extra bank holidays because of it (say Republic Day & President's Day), I'd defintely be more in favour of a republic.

[Syt]

No! Not the GDP. 

[Sheilbh]

I feel like I've read similar reports from Canada and Australia, so not a surprise but still disappointing - this is particularly damning (via Shashank Joshi - thread below): "we sought to examine whether the Government's strategy for dealing with such a large adversary was up to the task, they [external experts] felt very strongly that HMG did not have any strategy on China, let alone an effective one":

UK response to Chinese assault on state is completely inadequate, report finds
Without swift action Beijing could pose existential threat to liberal democracy, parliamentary committee says
Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor
Thu 13 Jul 2023 13.09 BST
First published on Thu 13 Jul 2023 11.18 BST

The UK's approach to a "whole of state" assault by the Chinese government on its economy, politics, civil infrastructure and academia is completely inadequate, an influential parliamentary committee has found.

China's state institutions were aggressively targeting the UK, the all-party intelligence and security committee (ISC) said, and "without swift and decisive action" a nightmare scenario could emerge where China represented not just a commercial challenge but an existential threat to liberal democratic systems.

The committee, which completed its inquiry into the Chinese threat in May, was scathing about the failure of the UK to wake up to the scale of the challenge.

"We found that the level of resource dedicated to tackling the threat posed by China's 'whole of state' approach has been completely inadequate, and the slow speed at which strategies and policies are developed and implemented leaves a lot to be desired," the ISC said.

Until recently the UK government was willing to accept Chinese money with few questions asked, the ISC said, and "as a consequence the UK is now playing catch-up and the whole of government has its work cut out to understand and counter the threat from China".

The failure to respond to the economic threat posed by China, and to put in place a way of protecting UK assets "is a serious failure and one that the UK may feel the consequences of for years to come", the parliamentarians found.

The committee said: "There is no evidence that Whitehall policy departments have the necessary resources, expertise or knowledge of the threat to counter China's approach."

The government's focus, the report said, was still dominated by short-term or acute threats. "It has consistently failed to think long-term unlike China, which historically has been able to take advantage of this."

In a scathing assessment of British academia's willingness to accept Chinese research grants, the report said, that "while some have expressed concern others seem willing to turn a blind eye, happy simply to take the money".

"Academia is an easy option when it comes to the theft of intellectual property, with China taking advantage of collaborative projects to steal information which may be less protected," it said, adding: "It is alarming there is still no single list of the areas of sensitive UK research which needs protecting."

Finding that the west was generally too reliant on Chinese technology, the report said that "without swift and decisive action we are on a trajectory for a nightmare scenario where China steals blueprints, sets standards and builds products, exerting political and economic influence at every step. This presents a serious commercial challenge but also has the potential to pose an existential threat to liberal democratic systems."

The committee also said that allowing China to invest in the UK's civil nuclear programme was in effect ceding control to the Chinese Communist party.

Ministers have been adopting a less confrontational approach to China, insisting engagement is necessary if major problems such as the climate crisis are to be jointly addressed.

In response to the report, Rishi Sunak said China posed an epoch-defining challenge to the international order. "The government has already taken actions that are in line with many of the committee's recommendations," the prime minister said.

Julian Lewis, the chair of the committee, said he found the government response to its work had been defensive and that the committee had remained in continual dialogue with the intelligence agencies after the formal end of evidence-taking. He claimed that overall the government response was "a reiteration of precisely the sort of policy that we are saying does not take security seriously".

He accused the government of having "a record of resistance to allowing this committee to exercise proper oversight".

The Chinese embassy in London did not respond to a request for comment.

The report was published as Germany released its first comprehensive strategy on Thursday on how Europe's largest economy should deal with China. Drawn up by the cabinet of Olaf Scholz, the strategy would give the current and future governments a "compass for our relationships", Annalena Baerbock, the foreign minister, tweeted. "We need China, but China also needs Europe."

Baerbock acknowledged that Germany needed to cooperate with China on an economic level, but it had to reduce the dangers of being too dependent on a single country. "We don't want to disconnect from China, but to reduce our risks," she said. The more diverse Germany's trade and supply chains were, "the more resilient our country will be".

The strategy paper described China as Germany's "partner, competitor and systemic rival". It said the government's aim was to ensure that dependencies in "critical areas", such as medicine, energy provision and security, were reduced to a minimum "in order to reduce the emanating risks".

    Additional reporting by Kate Connolly in Berlin

Highlights via the Economist's Shashank Joshi:

Shashank Joshi
@shashj
Very important new report from UK parliament's intelligence committee. "China almost certainly maintains the largest state intelligence apparatus in the world – dwarfing the UK's Intelligence Community and presenting a challenge for our Agencies to cover" https://isc.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/ISC-China.pdf
Blunt & to the point. ISC: "China's size, ambition and capability have enabled it to successfully penetrate every sector of the UK's economy, and – until the Covid-19 pandemic – Chinese money was readily accepted by HMG with few questions asked."
"China has been particularly effective at using its money and influence to penetrate or buy Academia in order to ensure that its international narrative is advanced and criticism of China supressed. This helps to reinforce the CCP's narrative"
UK intel committee: "China has worked hard on disinformation. It has greatly exaggerated its work to counter the virus and develop vaccines, and has sown seeds of doubt about the origins of the virus, to make the world believe that China was not at fault."
Brutal. "While we sought to examine whether the Government's strategy for dealing with such a large adversary was up to the task, they [external experts] felt very strongly that HMG did not have any strategy on China, let alone an effective one"
This seems remarkable. "One of the factors involved is that, until recently, our [UK intelligence] Agencies did not even recognise that they had any responsibility for countering Chinese interference activity in the UK."
ISC: "The lack of action similarly to identify and protect UK assets from a known threat [China] is a serious failure, and one that the UK may feel the consequences of for years to come."
ISC: "The nature of China's engagement, influence and interference activity in the UK is difficult to detect, but even more concerning is the fact that the Government may not previously have been looking for it. The UK is now playing catch-up..."
Very punchy. The intelligence committee says just as Russian oligarchs became "embedded in society", compromising UK politicians, there is a  risk of a similar situation arising with China—and to its credit the committee names names. https://isc.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/ISC-China.pdf

ISC: "The fact that the Government does not want there to be any meaningful scrutiny of sensitive investment deals – and deliberately chose not to extend the ISC's oversight remit to cover this at the outset of the new legislation – is of serious concern"
Intriguing redactions here on UK intel assessments of the Russia-China relationship.

Important point that is sometimes lost. "China sees almost all of its global activity in the context of what it sees as the struggle between the United States and China, and therefore it sees the United Kingdom fundamentally through that optic."
UK gov: China gathers "very large amounts of mostly not very damaging information in isolation. There is a big thing here about the aggregation of vast amounts of small insights, but alongside that you cannot be blind to the possibility of small amounts of very deep insights."

I think the point on China seeing everything through the lens of its confrontation with the US is more widely relevant for the rest of Europe because, bluntly, I don't think they view Europe as an independent actor (especially watching Ukraine) so their goal is simply to peel them off from the US as much as possible.