Brexit and not very united kingdom politics II

[Darth Yan]

Keir Starmer sacks shadow transport minister who backed rail strikes

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has sacked a junior shadow transport minister who joined striking rail workers on a picket line.

Ilford South MP Sam Tarry attended the protest at London's Euston station despite Sir Keir calling on his frontbench MPs to stay away.

Labour said he had been fired for making unauthorised media appearances.

Mr Tarry said he had been "standing shoulder to shoulder in solidarity with striking workers".

In a statement Labour said it would "always stand up for working people fighting for better pay, terms and conditions at work".

"This isn't about appearing on a picket line. Members of the front bench sign up to collective responsibility. That includes media appearances being approved and speaking to agreed frontbench positions.

"As a government in waiting, any breach of collective responsibility is taken extremely seriously and for these reasons Sam Tarry has been removed from the frontbench."

Responding to his dismissal, Mr Tarry - a supporter of the former leader Jeremy Corbyn - thanked Sir Keir for "the last two and a half years" on the front bench, but said it was "a real shame" he had been removed for "joining a picket line".

He said he wanted to be "part of a Labour Party that stands in solidarity with workers in their disputes, wherever that may be in this country",

"Real solidarity means not turning our backs on the people that created and made our party and make us strong on a daily basis," he added, warning Labour would struggle to win back power without providing a "really clear.. economic alternative".

He said he had not been told not to appear on a picket in the past day or so.

Labour 'deluded'
The TSSA rail union - whose picket line Mr Tarry joined - said it was "ashamed" of Labour.

General secretary Manuel Cortes said: "Whatever excuses the Labour Party makes about the reasons for Sam being sacked, the reality is that Sam has shown solidarity with his class and we applaud him for that. The Labour Party needs to wake up and smell the coffee.

"If they think can win the next general election while pushing away seven million trade union members, they are deluded.

"We expect attacks from the Tories, we don't expect attacks from our own party. As a Labour-affiliated union, our union is ashamed of the actions of the Labour Party leadership and the anti-worker anti-union message it is sending out.

"If Keir Starmer doesn't understand the basic concept of solidarity on which our movement has been built then he is not worthy of leading our party."

Train services have been disrupted throughout the day after 40,000 rail workers walked out in protest at pay, pensions and working conditions.

Negotiations between the RMT union - which is not affiliated to Labour - the TSSA and Network Rail have failed to find a solution to the dispute.

'Fair pay deal'
Several Labour MPs have expressed support for the strikes including five junior frontbenchers.

Talking to the BBC this morning, Mr Tarry said he was "here as a shadow transport minister backing transport workers who are on strike" and "backing the travelling public".

Asked if he should be on the picket line he said "any Labour MP, any Labour member, will have absolute solidarity with striking workers."

He argued that under a Labour government in office "this dispute would not be happening" because a "fair pay deal would have been in place".

His appearance at the picket line came despite previous warnings from Sir Keir that frontbench Labour MPs should not join the protests,

Speaking to the Today programme earlier this week, the Labour leader said: "A government doesn't go on picket lines, a government tries to resolve disputes."

Labour has not officially supported the industrial action, but instead focused its attacks on the government which it says should get involve in negotiations.

Real great optics here, Sir Kier.

Keir's a neoliberal ghoul. He also supported Israeli war crimes and downplayed their cruelty against Palestinians

[His Divine Shadow]

Thank god they didn't vote for the jam man and his crazy ideas of nationalising energy companies and public utilities



Or... who remembers "CHAOS WITH ED MILLBAND!" narrowly averted by Cameron!

[Juubi Karakuchi]

They take a fair point about food wastage, and turn it into boosterism. A bit like those 1p porridge recipes.

Meanwhile, energy prices are wiping out incomes, and could well go higher, as might water prices. Between a combination of extreme heat, fires, and floods, food prices will almost certainly go up.

I am sensing more than a frisson of France in the 1780s.

[Crazedwraith]

Barristers are latest to strike

Barristers have voted to go on an indefinite, uninterrupted strike in England and Wales from next month.

The walkout by members of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) will begin on 5 September.

Until now, members have been striking on alternate weeks in a dispute with the government over pay, working conditions and legal aid funding.

The strikes are expected to delay thousands of cases, leaving victims and the accused waiting longer for justice.

The CBA is asking for a 25% rise in pay for legal aid work, representing defendants who could not otherwise afford lawyers.

Members have rejected the government's 15% pay offer, saying it would not kick in immediately or apply to existing cases.

The current strike action means members are already scheduled to strike on 30 August, meaning members' last working day will be on Friday.

Out of 2,273 votes cast, an overwhelming 1,808 members (79.5%) voted to escalate the strike, while 258 were in favour of continuing the current action, and 207 in favour of stopping all action.

Kirsty Brimelow QC, vice-chair of the Criminal Bar Association, said the strike action was a last resort.

She told BBC Breakfast: "Barristers have had to endure collapses in their income and cuts and underfunding so that their income has decreased over 28% since around 2006."

A solution to the dispute would be an "injection of money" into the cases barristers were working on, she added.

"The remedy is for an injection of money into the backlog of cases, which currently stands at 60,000 cases, that barristers are working on, that will cost the government only £1.1m per month," Ms Brimelow said.

"Currently, it's costing much more for the courts to sit empty."
Justice Minister Sarah Dines said the decision by barristers was "irresponsible".

"The escalation of strike action is wholly unjustified considering we are increasing criminal barristers' fees by 15%, which will see the typical barrister earn around £7,000 more a year," she said.

Downing Street said it was a "disappointing decision" that would "force victims to wait longer for justice". A No 10 spokeswoman urged the CBA to "rethink" their plans, saying the government had set out a pay rise for September.

Opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer - a former barrister - said the government was doing "absolutely nothing" to resolve industrial disputes, including the row with criminal barristers.

"I quite understand, whether it's barristers or others, why people and how people are struggling to make ends meet," he said.

Michelle Heeley, a criminal barrister, told BBC's Five Live the justice system was "crumbling" because of a lack of increase in pay.

Responding to comments that criminal lawyers were perceived to be well paid, she admitted those high up the pay scale were "very fortunate". But she said the median pay for a junior barrister was £12,700 per year.

"That's why they cannot survive doing criminal work, and that's why they're walking away," Ms Heeley said.

Dame Vera Baird, the Victims' Commissioner for England and Wales, said more victims could drop out of cases due to court backlogs.

"The under-funding of the courts, which has been systemic since long before the pandemic, is already leading to a lot of people thinking that their lives can't remain on hold any longer and they are dropping out," Ms Baird told the BBC.

"That is inevitably going to happen more."

More defendants who may be guilty could also end up walking the streets, she warned.

"People can't be kept in custody however grave their behaviour is alleged to be, for a long time."

According to Ministry of Justice (MoJ) figures, more than 6,000 court hearings have been disrupted a result of the dispute over conditions and government-set fees for legal aid advocacy work.

Courts in England and Wales are already dealing with a large backlog of cases, made worse by the pandemic - figures from HM Courts and Tribunal Service at the end of April show there were 58,271 cases waiting to go to trial.

Some 6,235 court cases were disrupted during the first 19 days of industrial action between 27 June and 5 August - including 1,415 trials - according to the government.

Train staff, dock staff, barristers, who's not Striking? I always love how the government says 'oh this will be very harmful, it's so irresponsible' as if that isn't the fucking point.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Fuck, seems that us poor bloody civil servants are the only ones not on strike (except for the twats in the DVLA in Swansea who seem to be on strike every other week).

Incidentally, while that article does mention the underfunding of the court system (of which I am part) it does what these articles always do and focuses on the criminal stuff. Us poor sods in the civil and family courts somehow get paid less than the criminal staff. We're stuck in a building that's a hundred and twenty years old and slowly collapsing (seriously a good 30% of my time is spent logging maintenance jobs) and an IT system that is not fit for purpose (another 30% of my time is spent trying to keep it running).

Christ our department sucks. It took us two fucking years to get a staff lift replaced.

[ray245]

At this point just tax the hell out of the gas companies.

[Crazedwraith]

No, according to Liz Truss soon to be PM, it's just because we're all lazy and anti-business.

[madd0c0t0r2]

Barristers are latest to strike

Train staff, dock staff, barristers, who's not Striking? I always love how the government says 'oh this will be very harmful, it's so irresponsible' as if that isn't the fucking point.

PHD researchers, although the University Profs have been, and there has been a petition to UKRI noting that although phds are ALWAYS poor, it's really taking the piss. If we went on strike, I don't think anyone with money would notice.

Lorry drivers aren't on strike. Neither's construction, but that's probably a function of systematic effort over the years to prevent the ranks unionising, while the professional institutions try to cover the benevolence side for their members,

a lot of rumbling about general non-compliance on bills and rent this winter. If the courts are shut down, that would be helpful.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Labour is first in line to say that they would implement a windfall tax on energy companies. Which is all very well because as the opposition they don't have to actually follow through on any of it since the next general election is 2.5 years away.

[madd0c0t0r2]

So the right are whipping up stories of channel crossing refugees. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/re ... 4ae59a6a93

I note that there are currently no legal ways to access the UK to claim asylum, so this is occurring every summer. It's happy position with the Conservatives, as it enrages their base to vote, enriches the human traffickers, and doesn't really require any effort to maintain, beyond occasionally picking bodies off the beach. Fuckers.

Cue: satire

Plaid Cymru is the Welsh Independence party, who skew fairly left on most issues and view Westminster as a colonising government.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-62643919

Police are investigating a social media post which appeared to show a Plaid Cymru councillor posing with a gun to make sure there weren't "any English people trying to cross the channel". Jon Scriven, who sits on Caerphilly council, later deleted the photo and caption on Facebook and has apologised.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... e-minister

Think it’s all over? Think again – if Truss wins, she will have to call an election
Martin Kettle

The politician tipped to be the next Tory leader will not be an illegitimate prime minister. But she will be a weak one

‘In a very real sense, Liz Truss will be a prime minister imposed from outside parliament.’
Thu 25 Aug 2022 06.00 BST

The Conservative leadership contest has been dragging on for so long now that familiarity may be breeding indifference. It seems an age since Boris Johnson resigned, and there are still nearly two weeks before the new prime minister takes over. In news terms, the contest is slipping into a downpage summer sideshow. As a result, we may be losing sight of what a groundbreaking event this 2022 succession race actually is.

We should be clear that on 5 September political history will be made. What makes the contest special is that, if the polling and betting are correct, the members of a political party are about to select a prime minister, Liz Truss, for whom neither Tory MPs nor the country itself has voted. Truss will be the third prime minister to be chosen by the Tories in mid-parliament since party members got the final say in leadership contests. But she will be the first to win through party members overturning the MPs’ choice from the earlier rounds.

Until the 21st century, when a prime minister resigned during a parliament, their successor was chosen either informally or by a ballot among the ruling party’s MPs. Among those who reached No 10 in that way in the postwar period were James Callaghan and John Major. This was a logical adaptation of the parliamentary system, under which MPs are chosen at a general election and government is in the hands of the party leader who can command a majority in the House of Commons.

However, the leadership electorate has now been broadened (since 1981 for Labour and 1998 for the Tories) to include a role for party members. There have been four occasions when party members had the power to choose a British prime minister in mid-parliament. In the first, Gordon Brown won the Labour contest unopposed in 2007 because there was no other candidate to succeed Tony Blair. Theresa May won the second, in 2016, by default, because the withdrawal of Andrea Leadsom made a membership ballot unnecessary. Johnson did indeed face a ballot in 2019, becoming the first British prime minister to be chosen by a ruling party’s members; but, crucially, he was also the clear first choice of MPs too in all the earlier parliamentary rounds.

This will not be true of Truss. Unlike May in 2016 or Johnson in 2019, she is not the first choice of Tory MPs. Only 50 of the party’s 357 MPs (14%) voted for her in the first round in July. She trailed both Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt in the next three rounds of the contest before nudging ahead of Mordaunt in round five to qualify for the membership runoff with Sunak. Even in the final round among MPs, Truss had the support of only 113 MPs, or 31.6% of the total. Yet it is she who now seems likely to cross the threshold into No 10 next month.

This does not make Truss an illegitimate prime minister. But it does make her a weak one. It also means she is a prime minister of a new kind, since her mandate to lead comes from the extra-parliamentary party membership and not from parliament itself. This should make supporters of representative democracy wary. It will create problems. Moreover, compared with a general election, when the choice of prime minister is governed by rules to ensure some kind of balance, a party membership election is more open to outside influence, as the Daily Mail clearly grasps. Voters in a membership ballot are also inevitably more partisan.

This may matter rather less in practice than it does in theory. The country is heading into a gale-force economic and cost of living crisis. The Tory party at Westminster will doubtless rally behind its new leader, at least for a few weeks. But the moment, and what it embodies, will resonate. In a very real sense, Truss will be a prime minister imposed from outside parliament. This has not happened in Britain’s parliamentary system since the unreformed era when monarchs still chose their first ministers, about 200 years ago. It will have political, and arguably also constitutional, implications.

To allow the members of any political party to choose the prime minister is dubious in principle and fraught with problems in practice. It inevitably reshapes the institutional balances within a representative government system like Britain’s. But there is no going back.

Prime ministers who win general elections unquestionably have a mandate from the country. Those who come to the job in midterm merely inherit theirs. Recent midterm leaders have fretted about this. Brown, May and Johnson all spent their early months in Downing Street angling for the opportunity to secure their own, distinctive mandate. Brown bottled his opportunity. May squandered hers. Johnson seized his triumphantly.

Which mandate will Truss claim in order to govern? She will inherit the economically expansionist Brexit mandate that Johnson won in 2019 from a wide-ranging coalition of voters across Britain. But she will only be in No 10 because of the mandate from a party membership that, as we should all know by now, is disproportionately old, male, white, southern English and rightwing. Her voters want smaller government, lower taxes and harder Brexit. Truss’s answer to this dilemma will determine the fate of her prime ministership.

But this new kind of prime minister inescapably faces the need to establish her new kind of legitimacy more firmly. It will not be easy. She has to manage a parliamentary party that did not want her as leader (as happened to Labour under Jeremy Corbyn); to choose ministers willing to serve while disagreeing with her approach (the dilemma facing Sunak and others); to cope with an increase of articulate former ministers (including Johnson and Michael Gove) on the backbenches; and to deliver a legislative programme without the major backbench revolts that at times have made the modern Tory party almost unmanageable.

Above all, though, Truss has to win a general election within the next two years. Like most midterm prime ministers, she will instinctively want to stay on until an election is no longer avoidable. Callaghan, Major and Brown all did this. Yet, looking down the barrels of ballooning inflation, spiralling energy prices and a health service on its knees, she may decide that things can only get worse. The one thing we can be certain of about Truss is that she is a bold gambler. It is why she stands on the threshold of Downing Street. For all the risks, an early general election may be the only way open to her to turn her weak mandate into a strong one.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

I suppose it's possible. I don't fancy the Tories' chances in an election, but things are only going to get worse over the next couple of years. It may be best, or least-worst, to go now rather than later.

Also, ironically enough, Truss has strong support among members, while MPs are at best lukewarm, at worst outright hostile. Ironic, because it's much the same situation Corbyn was in with Labour. The big difference is that the Tory MPs have the power to remove the leader on their own; while Labour MPs could not, at least under the rules at the time. On the one hand, an obviously divided party would likely suffer in an election; but it may be the only way for Truss to shut the MPs up.

Around and around and around she goes...

[His Divine Shadow]

Some AI generated UK politicians

Liz Truss


Boris Johnson


Thatcher


Keir Starmer


Mike Gapes


Queenie

[Crazedwraith]

Is this really the thread for picspam?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Honestly neither main party deserves to be in government and if the result of the next general election is a hung parliament I will welcome it.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Honestly neither main party deserves to be in government and if the result of the next general election is a hung parliament I will welcome it.

I won't. A hung parliament means even less will get done than the limbo we're in at the moment.

[His Divine Shadow]

Is this really the thread for picspam?

Maybe should've posted in the comic thread, but too late now. AI stuff is getting better at any rate. Also saw a hella cool millband.

[Eternal_Freedom]

That Keir Starmer one looks remarkably like a slightly aged version of Matt Smith as Prince Philip in The Crown.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

Honestly neither main party deserves to be in government and if the result of the next general election is a hung parliament I will welcome it.

I won't. A hung parliament means even less will get done than the limbo we're in at the moment.

Political gridlock to the left of them, idiots with untrammelled power to the right of them. Into the valley of death rode the sixty-eight million.

The only hope still holding out is that Labour agrees to change the voting system; so as to buy Liberal Democrat support. As the numbers currently stand, an arrangement with the Lib-Dems would bring Starmer a majority. Also, Labour members are firmly in favour, and Unison and some smaller trade unions have apparently come round to the idea. This year's Labour conference is 25-28 September, so we'll know by the end of the month if that's going anywhere.

As for whether Starmer will do it; he might, or he might not. With 10 Downing Street so close, he would doubtless be sorely tempted. But without the threat of a split vote - which is the only reason the Labour Left is putting up with him - he risks the party fracturing underneath him. The only upside would be the same thing happening to the equally fractious and divided Tories.

[Crazedwraith]

It's official: Liz Truss PM.

Good luck everyone.

[madd0c0t0r2]

It's official: Liz Truss PM.

Good luck everyone.

Well, it's not like I'd be any happier with Rishi.

Time to get on with putting together the 'winter survival mutual aid' doc for Cardiff

[madd0c0t0r2]

Some AI generated UK politicians


Queenie
[img]https://i.imgur.com/Ot7sq8A.png[ break /img]

You got a link to the midjourney discord of that one? I'd like to uprev the top left.

[His Divine Shadow]

I don't know where it came from. I have no idea how discord even works. I tried to register to see what this midjourney stuff was but managed to fuck it up. To be frank, what kind of designer makes the registration processs so it lets you press enter on an empty password field (because laaag) and proceeds to crash the registration form and now I can't reregister because my phone number is in the system and support doesn't answer.

Kinda annoying the thing requires some mobile app. IRC not good enough for you!?!

[wautd]

It's official: Liz Truss PM.

Good luck everyone.

From what I know about her is that's she and her ideas are being compared to Margaret Thatcher.
So she'll be shit, especially for middle and lower classes

[EnterpriseSovereign]

And Priti Patel has resigned as Home Secretary and is heading to the backbenches. Not a moment too soon.

[madd0c0t0r2]

https://www.ft.com/content/441bb5c8-4af ... 64731f7170

Editor of the ft calls for solidarity and massive market intervention in energy prices

So, what is to be done? Torsten Bell has argued in the FT that we need to cap energy prices at below the current market rates. I agree. Indeed, we need to do this, while also simultaneously targeting assistance at the most vulnerable, since it is certainly sensible, in terms of incentives and limiting the fiscal costs, to allow a significant, albeit constrained, rise in prices.

The UK has the substantial advantage that it is not overwhelmingly dependent on foreign sources of gas. On the contrary, almost half of total supply comes from the UK continental shelf. Furthermore, only 44 per cent of electricity is generated by gas, with another 43 per cent coming from “zero-carbon” sources (nuclear and renewables).



while imported gas is a big tail, there is no reason at all why it should wag the energy dog. As an emergency measure, the government can and should impose price controls on domestic gas producers and generators of nuclear and renewable electricity. These prices should be substantially higher than prewar, but not at today’s “Putin levels”. The government should also subsidise the price of gas imports to these controlled levels. These controls (and subsidies) should end when prices of imports fall back, as they surely will.

The government will also need to fund the envisaged subsidies and targeted assistance to the vulnerable. Again, as in wartime, this should be done through additional borrowing and taxes on the well off justified as a special and temporary “solidarity levy”. This will not go down well with many members of the Conservative party. Yet the new prime minister needs to remember that this electorate need never again be their concern. The nation as a whole definitely is.

This is war. The government must act. Tinkering is not enough. Go big. Be bold.