Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[The Brain]

The EU directive appears to be retarded and dangerous.

[Josquius]

Considering its on top of an existing law aimed at US stuff and that most countries in Europe have laws about x% of local material.... My reaction is one of meh.
I had no idea British media was such a problem.

A law which is a few decades too late really though in the age of streaming.

[celedhring]

There's very little incentive to keep UK productions in the Euro list. It's a matter of time they're dropped since it will benefit the local industries. Right now platforms can write off their Euro production quotas by buying a bunch of Brit stuff they were always going to buy anyway, since it's so popular.

I don't think it will hurt UK producers much, actually.

[celedhring]

Full disclosure: people like me would benefit from this happening.

[Josquius]

I do wonder whether it'll damage the regional detective show industry

[Duque de Bragança]

What? Brexit has consequences? 

OTOH, I could see some "creative rerouting" towards the main part of Hibernia.

[celedhring]

 That's true, it's supereasy to make fake European productions through ad hoc local companies (fun fact: Fast & Furious 6 was officially a Spanish movie  ) but that won't work for everyone.

[garbon]

Main thing from my point of view as a consumer is that it seems shitty to have up to 60% of space on VOD services taken up by local stuff, possibly edging out content I would have liked to see.

[Sheilbh]

I don't mind it in itself - and really admire French media protection. But it feels like if the definition of "European country" isn't EU member state and, in fact, includes the UK then the UK shouldn't be excluded just because Brexit. You probably need to change that definition first. I'm sure the Commission has done their work on this but it feels like that could be exposed to challenge.

Because nobody else was talking to them.

Loads of people were talking to them. The SDLP - led by former leaders of the Northern Irish civil rights movement - were talking to them, the Irish government were (through back-channels), community leaders were - you don't get a 1990s peace process without the work done by heroic in Northern Ireland who were engaged in substantive negotiations and who faced serious risks for their commitment to non-violence. People with credibility with Irish Republicans were talking to them - which I just don't think a fellow-traveller MP from Islington North had, he was just a useful idiot.

And in the 80s Labour's official policy (until the GFA) was support for a united Ireland - the difference is they focused on working and supporting non-violent figures in the nationalist movement. Corbyn didn't. There were Labour MPs - largely of Catholic Irish background and mainly in the North-West - who were involved in the early stages of the peace process primarily by supporting John Hume and Seamus Mallon's work or the work of the Church in trying to reach out to Republicans. None of them were doing the stuff that Corbyn was and I've never read any key figure in the peace process mention or give any credit to Corbyn in any memoir or account of the peace process.

As a minor backbench MP you don't exactly have the full power to hold a peace conference with all sides attending. You should however make use of what connections you have to talk to those who may be getting sidelined by the mainstream.

It reminds me of the apartheid arrest thing. Corbyn was against apartheid, so was the entire Labour movement and party (my dad was in the merchant navy from the 50s and never went to South Africa because of his and his union's views on apartheid - Labour was anti-apartheid from the 50s). The difference is Labour wanted to work and build their relationship with the ANC and Nelson Mandela, that protest Corbyn was arrested at was by a fringe group that was more radical and trying to outflank the ANC. It's the same with Palestine - I think there's a pattern that any foreign policy issue (including Ireland) he tends to find the most radical and often violent group and backs them. He's a boring and traditional stereotype of an English radical vicariously living through other people's national liberation struggles and revolutions from a safe distance, not someone who's actually trying to contribute or build peace.

I am no fan of the IRA at all. They're absolute scum. But they weren't going to just go away by shouting at them to be nice or sending in more and more soldiers. Talking was necessary.

Sure - and I give absolute credit to John Hume and Seamus Mallon and other figures with credibility within Irish nationalism who helped start that process.

I'm not saying he was totally innocent and behaving absolutely beyond reproach there, but it wasn't the dire he loves the IRA and hates British soldiers that was presented.

Two weeks after the Brighton bombing which killed 5 people and injured over 30 (some were permanently paralysed), Corbyn invited two recently released IRA paramilitaries for tea in the House of Commons. His position is that he's never met anyone from the IRA - and that they told him they weren't IRA paramilitaries and he took them at their word. Which I don't think is particularly credible.

And he was on the editorial board of a London Labour newsletter at the time of the Brighton bombing that published an editorial stating that "the British only sit up and take notice when they are bombed into it" and that published an entire page of jokes about the bombing. He may well not be responsible for that but it's another example of him being present but not involved.

People from outside the region always bring this the north east referendum. Though really it cannot be understated just how much of a completely shambolic non-event that referendum was.
It was postal vote only, at a time when this was uncommon, and mixed in Durham at least mixed in with another vote about disbanding local districts into a unitary County Durham (incidentally this vote failed too, but went ahead anyway).
About the only campaigning I remember seeing at the time was a giant inflatable rat saying 'southern politicians' in Durham city centre.
I honestly am not sure which way I voted, though I suspect it was against it.
Yet it keeps getting dredged up time and again as proof that a unitary English parliament is needed and the country is opposed to regional devolution.

As well as running the vote competently it really would have helped it had it took place a decade later when we'd be able to see from London and Scotland quite what it actually meant and what it could deliver. As things were even with a properly ran vote it would have been a tough sell.

It seems we are going this way anyway, albeit with city regions rather than regions. Which....is not ideal. But has promise, petty local rivalries aside (North of Tyne, pff).

Maybe although I think in England only London and Bristol have ever voted for a directly mayor when given a referendum on it. Most cities with directly elected mayors and I think all the metro-mayors have been imposed from Westminster as part of a settlement with local leaders rather than because of a vote.

I think people often see it as just another layer of politicians. It might be that as we see Sadiq and Burnham and Houchen doing quite well for their regions that there is now support for regional devolution - but I'm not sure. And even if there is I still think there's an issue with no democratic, political expression of England. Not least because Zanza's right, we could end up having a political expression of England if the union collapses and we should probably start working out what Englishness is before then. I think it could be an issue if we are surprised by nationhood in a few years without having done something towards reconciling England to England

And there's promising signs about that - especially from Sunder Katwala's Beyond a 90 Minute Nation stuff.

Edit: And I think the Corbyn stuff matters - because his critics in Labour basically positioned their criticism around electability - so now that Starmer is polling as badly it basically means you might as well not have got rid of Corbyn or another leader from the hard-left. I think if the issue had been almost moral - that his conduct around the IRA and his regular "present but not involved" issues with anti-semitism were wrong and shouldn't be near the leadership of a political party. But because it's framed on electoral pragmatism rather than the principled issues with Corbyn it leaves Starmer I think more vulnerable.

[Savonarola]

Boris doing his best Peter Lorre impression:



(From the BBC)

[Sheilbh]

Fucking hell - NIMBYism in this country

The Labour Party
@UKLabour
The Conservatives' developers' charter would sell off and sell out our communities.

Local people, not Tory Party donors, should decide what's best for where they live.

[The Larch]

That's true, it's supereasy to make fake European productions through ad hoc local companies (fun fact: Fast & Furious 6 was officially a Spanish movie  ) but that won't work for everyone.

How many "Spanish" films have been created thanks to the Canary Islands tax breaks? 

If British producers were smart they'd all be creating media companies in Ireland already.

Btw, I'm sure that the absolute glut of German TV films and shows that flood our tv stations at the moment are to blame for these European quotas. My mom loves them, but there surely must be a limit to the amount of bucolic alpine landscapes that can be shown in a weekend.

[Duque de Bragança]

Btw, I'm sure that the absolute glut of German TV films and shows that flood our tv stations at the moment are to blame for these European quotas. My mom loves them, but there surely must be a limit to the amount of bucolic alpine landscapes that can be shown in a weekend.

Heimat films made it to Spain? Must be wonderful to see and hear them dubbed in Castilian. 

Well, at least it is not dour as old German Krimis (Hallo Derrick!).

[The Larch]

Btw, I'm sure that the absolute glut of German TV films and shows that flood our tv stations at the moment are to blame for these European quotas. My mom loves them, but there surely must be a limit to the amount of bucolic alpine landscapes that can be shown in a weekend.

Heimat films made it to Spain? Must be wonderful to see and hear them dubbed in Castilian. 

Well, at least it is not dour as old German Krimis (Hallo Derrick!).

They're mostly very very vanilla family dramas set up in Alpine locations. My mom is a huge fan of "Der Bergdoktor". There's also another popular subgenre of mostly romantic films done in location all over Europe, with a fair amount of them being based on Rosamunde Pilcher's novels, which can be recognized because they all take place in Cornwall.

[Tamas]

Btw, I'm sure that the absolute glut of German TV films and shows that flood our tv stations at the moment are to blame for these European quotas. My mom loves them, but there surely must be a limit to the amount of bucolic alpine landscapes that can be shown in a weekend.

Heimat films made it to Spain? Must be wonderful to see and hear them dubbed in Castilian. 

Well, at least it is not dour as old German Krimis (Hallo Derrick!).

They're mostly very very vanilla family dramas set up in Alpine locations. My mom is a huge fan of "Der Bergdoktor". There's also another popular subgenre of mostly romantic films done in location all over Europe, with a fair amount of them being based on Rosamunde Pilcher's novels, which can be recognized because they all take place in Cornwall.

First I thought by the bergdoktor you meant this old one, which was a massive hit in Hungary in the late 80s/early 90s, of course there was precious little to watch back then:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088601/