Illuminati-R-Us

Worst ever UK Prime Minister steps aside to make way for the worst ever UK Prime Minister.

It must be a consolation she will only be second-worst very, very soon.

Well we knew this was coming. So will it be Boris? (And who the hell are the other guys?)

Richard A wrote:I've actually heard Owen Jones speak - but here he is at his best. Not one word of the article is untrue.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... g290u2_d7A

That says it much more eloquently than my “evil cunt” post did.

I'm a little unclear on how the system works.

May had a governing coalition, that included a Northern Irish party. So now the conservatives choose a new leader, but everyone I see is talking like this person is automatically the new PM. Won't they have to preserve the coalition? (Or form a new one?) If the DUP won't go along, could one of the candidates become Conservative party leader, but not the PM?

May’s replacement will become leader of the Tory Party and PM in consequence. The DUP will have to agree that the alliance continues or the new PM will be unable to govern. It may be that the new PM can’t govern anyway.

The DUP isn't in formally in a coalition with the Tories (they put up no ministers/secretaries), they only tolerate the minority government - that is to say, they get payed for their support in political concessions (read Pounds Sterling for the DUP's voters here), not in gubmint posts. As Heid says, it would be unusual for a coalition/toleration partner to have a say in the other partner's personnel decisions.

But, of course, if a closet remainer or soft Brexiteer became party boss, the DUP could withdraw their support in Parliament - but then, so could Tory MPs not satisfied with how the internal Tory vote turned out. It would be unusual, but many things are unusual in British politics at the moment. This is, I suppose what Heid alluded to when he wrote that it is unclear if her successor could govern anyway. In actuality, the DUP MPs would certainly flock to support the Boris with his fuck you, we're the Empire stance. They very much share that opinion.

The sequence Party leader --> leader of the Parliamentary faction --> Prime Minister/Opposition Leader is the established way to run things in the UK. It's not a law, but a pretty well established custom. It's markedly different from the way things are done over here.

On a tangent, we are having a similar discussion in Germany here. The Social Democrats have announced that should the Christian Democrats try to hand over power to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (Mutti's successor as party chair and successor-desighnate as Chancellor) during the current legislature, they would not support her and leave the coalition. AKK has more conservative views than Mutti, and has expressed them. Christian Democrats now say the coalition partner has no say in our personnel decisions, the Social Democrats say, changing the Chancellor in this case is changing the policies, etc. etc. All the while, Mutti stubbornly chugs along saying she has no plans to be replaced before the next general election in '21.

It looks like the SNP will have three MEPs and one each for Brexit, LibDems and the Tories. Our three include a gay man and a man born in Dijon. The Brexit MEP is a gay, black Englishman, the Tory is a Pakistan born woman. The LibDem has no distinguishing characteristics whatsoever.

Us and them, scroll down for the map which shows the largest party in each area.

I'd congratulate you on your mixed bag of MEPs from all possible backgrounds, if it weren't all so sad.
The map really says it all. Someone smart once said that Great Britain is indeed three countries, but not nacessarily along the borders on the map : Lunnin innit, Soctland, and Brexitshire.
How about Norn Iron, btw?

Heid the Ba wrote:The LibDem has no distinguishing characteristics whatsoever.

LibDems gonna LibDem.

What about Norn Iron indeed? It's definitely a separate country - but so separate that in much of mainland UK, it doesn't tend to impinge much on political discussions. Or at least not unless the Government needs the DUP to prop it up - the 2017 deal brought a remarkable sense of deja-vu of 1996-7, when the DUP/UUP dictated Government policy on Northern Ireland because John Major needed them to cling to power. But the general attitude was illustrated superbly in a discussion at a dinner with friends in March over the latest twist in the Brexit saga and the host commented that in contrast to the view on Scotland, most people in England would be quite happy to see Northern Ireland leave. He was genuinely shocked when I said that if Scotland gained independence now, then good luck to them, but no one challenged his view of "If Northern Ireland leaves, who cares?" Actually to be fair, I wasn't so different: my view on Scotland was that if they gained independence and that led them back into the EU (a key plank of SNP policy), then good for them, while on Northern Ireland, it was that I had never thought they were fully part of us anyway. A quote from a newspaper article from last year (sadly I can't remember which paper but probably the Guardian): "Margaret Thatcher famously said that Northern Ireland is as British as Finchley. The problem is, it never has been."

I think a lot of the difference is that Scotland would become an independent country whereas if Norn Ireland leaves it will very quickly become part of a united Ireland. There is also a very London-centric view of the UK where the media refer to France as "Britain's nearest neighbour" completely forgetting about the land border with Eire, or indeed completely forgetting that Eire isn't part of the UK. I have been on flights to Dublin with people who don't understand why they need a passport or Euros.

Heid the Ba wrote:why they need a passport or Euros.

My new cuff links (see photo).

You are a sharp dressed man.

And three of them bite the dust today. Seven left.

AS someone put it yesterday "Boris Johnson will be the next , and last, PM of the UK."

Heid the Ba wrote:AS someone put it yesterday "Boris Johnson will be the next , and last, PM of the UK."

Brave Sir Arschloch,

The last time there was a Scottish independence referendum, my attitude was, it’s not my concern, stay in the UK, leave, whatever you like, I don’t care, it’s not my business.

I now fervently hope that there will be an independent Scotland. Nicola Fish-Name is the only UK politician who even tried to give a show of caring about eastern subhumans like myself.

Try not to laugh too hard, but due to a court case last year, I think Маргарита may now have a claim to UK citizenship. Not sure what that means for eastern subhumans like myself.

Nietzsche once said that peoples are far more likely to go crazy than people (being a post-WWII German, I always thoought that was spot on). If ever a proof was needed, behold the current yougov poll results among English Conservatives.

Mactep - That last post was way above my head. Would you explain? I'll ask nicely, and I am genuinely interested. And of course, I'll applaud Nicola Fish-Name fervently, for whatever reason.

Arneb wrote:Mactep - That last post was way above my head. Would you explain? I'll ask nicely, and I am genuinely interested. And of course, I'll applaud Nicola Fish-Name fervently, for whatever reason.

Two barely related issues. The first two paragraphs are one thing, the last paragraph is another.

Which one is the confusing part? (Or the whole thing?)

It was the whole thing. Were you angry at Heid for someting he wrote (because you said, Sir Arschloch)? I suppose your "eastern subhumans" referred to the "We want Brexit because we don't want any Polish plumbers to take our jobs away anymore" trope that was big amon the Brexit crowd, but I wasn't sure. And I don't know who Margarita is. So yeah, it was the whole thing.

Arneb wrote:It was the whole thing. Were you angry at Heid for someting he wrote (because you said, Sir Arschloch)?

No, not at all. It's a name in his avatar, so I figured I'd use it.

Arneb wrote:I suppose your "eastern subhumans" referred to the "We want Brexit because we don't want any Polish plumbers to take our jobs away anymore" trope that was big amon the Brexit crowd

More or less.

Arneb wrote:And I don't know who Margarita is.

Well, I am Мастер, which comes from Мастер и Маргарита. So there is a Маргарита, and she has a grandparent from the UK. There was a court case last year, apparently, that changed the UK's policy that citizenship can only be inherited from the father, and the change is apparently retroactive, provided you were born before 1983, which she was. So I think that she has a claim to UK citizenship now. However, I do not believe this would give me any right, unless we move to the UK. Something I can already do whenever I want, although I may be about to lose that right.

I know where Margarita comes from (I missed being given the book for a present only very narrowly ), but I had never known there was a Маргарита in this Мастер's personal life. Now it's clear.

Yeah, according to the current front runner for the Conservative Party's cahirmanship, you'll lose the right to go to the UK just-so quite soon. If it's any consolation, it's getting a less and less attractive place to visit by the day.

Мастер wrote:

Arneb wrote:It was the whole thing. Were you angry at Heid for someting he wrote (because you said, Sir Arschloch)?

No, not at all. It's a name in his avatar, so I figured I'd use it.

I had actually missed this post, I assumed it was a reference to my avatar.

Arneb wrote:And I don't know who Margarita is.

Well, I am Мастер, which comes from Мастер и Маргарита. So there is a Маргарита, and she has a grandparent from the UK. There was a court case last year, apparently, that changed the UK's policy that citizenship can only be inherited from the father, and the change is apparently retroactive, provided you were born before 1983, which she was. So I think that she has a claim to UK citizenship now. However, I do not believe this would give me any right, unless we move to the UK. Something I can already do whenever I want, although I may be about to lose that right.

I used to dabble in immigration law and there were odd holes in qualification and acts which didn't match up. I'm completely out of touch with it now. My understanding is that she has a UK grandparent and lives in the Commonwealth she has a path to UK citizenship. Being white would help. In your case being welcomed depends largely on whether you are closer to a hard working Pole or a thieving Rumanian gypsy.

Heid the Ba wrote:My understanding is that she has a UK grandparent and lives in the Commonwealth she has a path to UK citizenship.

I'm thinking (without checking, which is dangerous) that it is being a Commonwealth citizen. Although she currently does live in the Commonwealth (as do I), she is not a citizen.

However, it is by descent. As I understand it, it used to be, if your father was British, then you were British by descent, if not by some other mechanism. By this rule, Маргарита's mother was British, although she did not consider herself as such, and I'm not sure that she ever even entered the UK. Had it been Маргарита's father, then she would be British also, because she was born before 1983. In that year, the law was changed, so that "British by descent" could not transmit British citizenship. But, if you were born before then, the old law applies, and apparently, because of this court case last year, it has been opened up retroactively to people who were born before 1983 and had a "British by descent" mother.

At least, that's how I understand it. As she goes through the process, we'll find out whether my understanding is correct or not.

Heid the Ba wrote:Being white would help.

As white as they come. Both of us.

Heid the Ba wrote:In your case being welcomed depends largely on whether you are closer to a hard working Pole or a thieving Rumanian gypsy.

She is an American mix of primarily western and Southern European background. I'm a mostly ethnic German born well outside the territory of the EU, but who can claim ancestry to the EU class of 2004.