#british politics

tweetingukpolitics:

[Image ID: a tweet thread by Nazir Afzal, @nazirafzal. The first tweet reads:

“Boris Johnson is the first sitting prime minster to be judged guilty of a crime

Sunak the first Chancellor to be fined

Carrie the first PM’s wife to be fined

Downing Street is a crime scene”

It is tagged #Partygate.

The second reads:

“Let’s be clear this is the most atrocious leadership during the worst public crisis since WW2

He made the law
We complied with the law at great personal cost - all of us
He & his Govt broke the law

Without the rule of law, there is no democracy”

The third reads:

“To those saying ‘now is not the time’ for Johnson to resign

Those of us who lost loved ones to covid & couldn’t attend funerals also believed that 'now was not the time’

But we responded to the greater good, we decided to comply with the law & we made sacrifices while he didn’t”

The third reads:

“LAW BREAKERS CANNOT BE LAW MAKERS”
It is tagged #BorisJohnson, #RishiSunak, #TheRestOfThem, and #Partygate.

The last reads:

“I lost my brother to covid & my mum to a broken heart in the 1st lockdown
I have been asked by numerous media outlets to be interviewed about Johnson

I’ve turned them all down because I’m so angry that I don’t know what I would say

When the anger subsides, he’s still a liar”

End ID]

There has never been a hypocrisy in modern British politics as tragic as the Tory response to the Grenfell Tower fire.

While Theresa May assessed the situation in private - no chance for her to be jeered at there, eh? - a certain Minister for Policing and Fire was receiving a very interesting assignment. 

Yes, Nick Hurd, MP for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, is now the Chair of the Response Committee for the Grenfall disaster. 

Why should you care?

Nick Hurd was also one of the 71 MPs who voted against legislation requiring landlords ensure their properties are fit for human habitation. The legislation that could have saved 17+ lives had it been passed and enforced,

Yeah,thatNick Hurd.

Hyprocrisy, thy name is Tory faux-compassion and thy ain’t wanted here thanks very much.

Sources:

Sky News

IB Times 

Thank you for your understanding during our brief absence. 

This week we’ll be covering the second round of Brexit negotiations, updates on the leaks from government meetings, as well as exploring more of the issues young voters care about.

So, we want to know: what is it you care most about in politics? Tell us here.

New IFS research today shows that the average debt a student has on graduating university has risen to over £50,000. For the students coming from the lowest income families, this can be as much as £57,000 with £5,800 of that purely from interest accrued since starting their courses.

Under the Conservative government, student loans have been increased from £3,000 per year to £9,000 per year. Maintenance grants for low-income students have been replaced by extra loan allowance. Student loans are set to increase in line with inflation (or by £250 per year) for the foreseeable future, starting in September, regardless of teaching quality.

The IFS sees only two winners from the current system, and it’s certainly not the students who benefit. Students earning the minimum amount of repayments - which has been frozen at £21,000 for several years - are estimated to be 30% worse off than their equivalents under the old loan system. No, the only beneficiaries are the universities (although not 90% of their employees) and the government.

So what do you think, voters? How can we, as a voting force, work together to end this stranglehold the UK government has on us? We want to hear your ideas to fix what is becoming a very, very broken system, one which stifles recent graduates and the UK economy as a whole. 

Young Voters UK is today officially committing to fighting Conservative policies on student finance.

Two big stories in UK political news today, both in the form of Queen’s Speech Amendments. Last week, we gave you a quick overview of the 24 bills Theresa May’s Tories included in their Queen’s Speech, 8 of which focused on Brexit.

Today, two big amendments were put to a vote in the House of Commons.

First was a proposal led by Labour’s Stella Creasy to allow women from Northern Ireland to get free abortions in England. Currently, abortions in Northern Ireland are banned unless in extreme circumstances of poor health, and the women who travel to England for the procedures have to pay around £900. It passed the house and will now come into law.

The amendment - which was backed by more than 50 MPs from across the major parties - means Northern Irish women will now have their abortions in England covered by the NHS. Fairly reasonable, when you consider most of these women pay the taxes that fund the service. It is estimated the amendment will cost approximately £1 million per year.

Second was a Brexit-based amendment led by Labour’s Chuka Umunna. This amendment suggested the UK stay in the single market, which guarantees free movement of goods, services, money and labour within the EU. Jeremy Corbyn called on all Labour MP’s to abstain from the vote and threatened they would be sacked from any ministerial roles if they rebelled. So far we are aware of 3 Labour frontbenchers who have been sacked from their roles for not abstaining.

While parties such as Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats showed unanimous support for the amendment, it was easily defeated due to Labour abstentions. 

Then all that remained was the vote on the final Queen’s Speech, the last piece of the puzzle to make Theresa May the undisputed Prime Minster of the United Kingdom. With the support of the DUP’s 10 MPs, the Queen’s Speech passed.

tl;dr Good news for women, bad news for business, great news for Theresa May

If you want to be in with a chance of winning our political goodie bag - featuring books, posters and great music - reblog this postandfollow Young Voters UKbyJune 30th. 

We’re celebrating high youth voter turnout at GE2017. Are you with us?

It’s been the big will-they-won’t-they romance of the summer so far, but Theresa May has finallysnagged her woman. Something the DUP probably wouldn’t approve of in any other circumstances…

Yes,the Tories have reached a deal with the DUP, ending over two weeks of talks. 

Firstly, the good news: it is nota coalition. In the UK, coalitions have been very rare - the 2010 Lib-Con coalition was the first for 70 years - but usually they involve the smaller party being allowed to nominate ministers and propose their own bills. 

This is not that. 

The DUP have entered into a confidence and supply deal with the Tories. In return for £1bn extra funding for Northern Ireland, the DUP have agreed to support the Tories in votes of confidence and in budgetary matters. It is likely the 8 DUP MPs will be allowed to vote with their conscience when other policy issues are debated.

In return, the DUP are allowed a little influence over some Tory policy - the Conservatives have already agreed not to scrap Triple Lock Pensions and to find an alternative to means testing winter fuel tax. 

So is there bad news? If you’re a Labour voter, yes. If you’re LGBT, you might think so. If you don’t like seeing a woman embroiled in financial scandal being bought for £1bn, almost certainly. And we’ve yet to see how the Tories will defend their neutrality clause in the Good Friday Agreement…

In the end, it’s what the deal symbolises which is concerning. The Tories have clung to power by spending £1bn of tax payer money that, just a few months ago, wasn’t available for education, the health service or social housing. 

For more information on the DUP from out NI reporter, check out our article: Who Are the DUP? 

tl;dr Theresa May has finally pulled Arlene Foster, but it’s not a formal arrangement

Long-awaited (and for once not all that long-winded) the Queen’s Speech was finally revealed at 11:30am today. So just what did it contain?

Brexit

8 out of the 24 bills in the speech related to plans for UK policy after leaving the EU. We’ve broken down the main aspects of each bill below:

1. Repeal Bill – turns EU law into UK law so UK Parliament can make changes
2. Customs Bill – UK takes control of import and exports
3. Trade Bill – lets the UK make trade deals with other countries
4. Immigration Bill – allows UK government to end free movement of EU nationals into UK
5. Fisheries Bill – gives UK control of its waters and fishing quotas
6. Agriculture Bill – a system will be put in place to protect UK famers
7. Nuclear Safeguards Bill – creates a UK nuclear safeguards regime to replace the EU one
8. International Sanctions Bill – gives government final say on imposing non-UN sanctions to the UK and ensures sanctions can still be challenged
   

Economy

This was a stripped back speech, with very little change in economic policy. Only 5 bills related to the economy:

1. Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill – service stations will, at some point, need to install charge points for electric vehicles
   
2. Space Industry Bill – new commercial spaceflight to be licensed, including rockets
   
3. HS2 Phase 2A Bill – the high speed railway will extend to Crewe sooner than planned
   
4. Smart Meter Bill – every household will be offered smart meters by 2020
   
5. National Insurance Contributions Bill – allows for the changes announced in 2016 budget

Other

There were 11 miscellaneous policies. More notable bills include the Courts Bill, which will remove the right of partners accused of domestic violence to cross-examine their alleged victim in court. 

On a similar vein, the Draft Domestic Violence and Abuse Bill will introduce new measures to protect victims of domestic violence. 

For younger voters, the Data Protection Bill is very interesting - it will require social media accounts to delete information held about you at the age of 18.

What does this all mean?

Legally, not very much. Not until next week anyway, when the MPs in the House of Commons will have the chance to vote for or against each bill individually. With a majority not yet secured, there’s a chance not all of these proposed bills will pass. Even then, these are just a snapshot of proposed government policy over the next 2 years.

What the Queen’s Speech does tell us is that the Tories are not having a very happy time at the moment. A large chunk of their manifesto has gone missing:

• New grammar schools
  
• The ‘dementia tax’
  
• Scrapping triple lock pensions
  
• Replacing free school lunches with free breakfasts
  
• Energy price caps
  
• Voting to remove ban on fox hunting
  
• Means testing winter fuel payments
  

The suggestion is that the Tories did not think they would be able to pass these policies through the Commons - the more liberal parties were all very vocal in their opposition to these proposals during election campaigning, and even the DUP do not agree with scrapping triple lock pensions.

Through the Queen’s Speech, we’ve been given a little glimpse of the state of the Conservative Party: a monstrous papier-mâché parody of an unpopular manifesto.

British nationalists love to pretend Scottish nationalist are ethnic nationalist, but they’ll then turn around wish for a Polish Jewish person’s home country to be invaded because he works for the SNP in Scotland.

Olaf has had a shitload of abuse for the past few days because British nationalism is inherently xenophobic.

Don’t want to post the guy’s face but massive respect for the guy - literally an hour after Margaret Thatcher’s statue was unveiled - who was pelting a full carton of eggs at it.

Support for the monarchy is now a minority position in Scotland

The Meghan Markle interview is a pair of millionaire nobles getting questioned by a billionaire in what I assume is the waiting room for paradise about their time with a monarchical dynisty and now people are discussing the rich tory propagandist who has just quit over a personal dispute with the millionaire super model. Screw them all I don’t care. Come the revolution.

ayeforscotland:

Two of the Jubilee events registered in Scotland consist of a Platinum Jubilee Teenage Beauty Pageant hosted by ‘G Maxwell’ and ‘a panel of judges led by Prince Andrew’, and a ‘Guillotine Sharpening Party’.

If you wanted an idea of how Scotland is reacting to the Jubilee.