Bad things are happening in the UK. I made a video about the situation and how to fight against it.
Essentially, the government is trying to push through a bill that will effectively ban all protest. This is a human rights violation, although they insist that it’s not.
You could get a prison sentence of up to 10 years for any protest-related action that the Home Secretary Priti Patel deems “impactful” or “causing serious annoyance”, such as sitting in a road, spray-painting a monument or making too much noise.
Furthermore,the proposed bill gives the Home Secretary the power to amend the law afterwards without parliamentary approval. This gives her unprecedented control over any and all protest and is dangerous for democracy.
In this video I discuss the bill, why it is so sinister and how we can fight against it. If you found this video helpful, please share it with others and encourage them to act! Share with your UK friends!
I’ve made a list of resources you can use, including MP email templates. I will be updating it with new info as the situation changes.
As of now (March 16th 2021, 22:38), the bill has passed its Second Reading, meaning that it will now be scrutinised and amendments will be proposed. If you are in the UK, write to your MP and ask them to either propose amendments that will scrap the anti-protest elements of this bill, or support specific amendments, such as this one by MP Bell Robeiro-Addy. Also,sign Netpol’s petiton asking UK to protect protest rights.
Please spread this information. The Conservative party wants to turn the UK into a police state where only their opinions are heard. We cannot allow them to get away with this.
“Why the fuck should I vote in the pointless council elections”
1. The less shitty your local council is the better your life is and the more likely you are to have public services.
2. Central Government, i.e. The Rat Bastard Fucks In Parliament, and their horrible horrible press wanker friends, treat local elections as a kind of temperature gauge for the Mood of the Nation, far more than any petition you sign or letter you write to your MP (although you should definitely continue doing both those things).
This means if you go and march down to your local polling booth or register to vote by post, and tick whichever “fuck the Tories” option works best in your area (it’s not a cast-iron delineation, but in general, if you’re in a city or suburb that’s “Labour” and if you’re in the countryside that’s “Lib Dems”, but you can CHECK FIRST), you will contribute to putting the shits up these horrible, horrible weasels, and cause them to do another one of their splendid U-turns on policy.
Given that one of their current policies is, once again, “let poor & disabled people fucking die of poverty”, I think this is a pretty good wheeze.
If for no other reason, lads, do it out of spite.
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if you’re not from the uk be a love and reblog this so we can get a shift on removing these disgusting bitches and maybe finally get ahead on being a less terrible country
For local elections in England and Northern Ireland the rules are the same as they are for UK Parliamentary elections with two main exceptions. Peers in the House of Lords and EU citizens resident in the UK may also vote in local elections as long as they meet the age and residency requirements.
In Scotland and Wales, you must be registered to vote in the area but there are now different rules on nationality and age, and the ban on some prisoners voting has been removed.
InScotland, the main differences for local and Scottish Parliament elections are:
Registered 16- and 17-year-olds can vote;
All legally resident foreign nationals can also register to vote (not just EU nationals);
Convicted prisoners who are detained and serving a sentence of 12 months or less may now register to vote in local and Scottish Parliamentary elections.
InWalesthe franchise has been changed for Welsh Parliament/Senedd Cymru and local elections:
Registered 16- and 17-year-olds can vote;
All legally resident foreign nationals can also register to vote (not just EU nationals).
Summary: if you live in ENGLAND or NORTHERN IRELAND are 18+ and an EU or UK citizen, you can vote in the local elections. If you live in WALES or SCOTLAND and are 16+ and legally resident in Wales or Scotland, you can vote in the local elections (regardless of your national citizenship).
My ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD sister has to do her mandatory school work remotely from home because of lockdown. Tonight, my mum and I discovered that the app she has to use for class contains
MICROTRANSACTIONS.
Let me repeat that: microtransactions being put into an app that my little sister needs to use to receive her school assignments and participate in her education.
Basically, this is an app where the teacher uploads assignments for kids to do and every kid has a little monster that they use as an avatar in the virtual classroom. You can unlock new skins and customise your monster but it costs REAL MONEY.
Kids don’t need this kind of peer pressure. They already have to deal with these god damn transactions in all of their video games. They don’t need this in their VIRTUAL CLASSROOM APPS.
PLEASE STOP PREYING ON CHILDREN WHO ARE TRYING TO DO THEIR SCHOOL WORK.
My sister does not need to spend money customising her in-app classroom avatar. She is trying to do her maths assignments. She is a CHILD.
Why are microtransactions being put into TEACHING APPs that children are using for MANDATORY WORK during a PANDEMIC????
Abolish capitalism and all of these god damn parasites hurting our kids. Holy hell.
Something I noticed during my time here in London is the fact that unlike in the U.S., “socialist” isn’t a dirty word. While I haven’t spoken to any native Brits about their opinions on the matter (politics is a tricky subject to discuss with anyone, especially strangers) I’ve seen numerous adverts on the streets for things like Marxism 2019– “a festival of socialist ideas,” a Karl Marx walking tour, other socialist events being held by universities in Bloomsbury, and a socialist newspaper stand on the day we went to Westminster Abbey as we walked by the Trump protests.
I found this so interesting because while there are more progressive politicians now who are using the term in some way (typically as “Democratic-socialist” rather than full-blown “socialist”), it is still very much a word of controversy in the United States, one that brings back images of the Second Red Scare, of the Hollywood 10, of Russian spies, of extreme fear that our democracy in the states could somehow collapse if citizens were given rights to things like free healthcare. I had heard before that the United States was the only country in which the idea of socialism had immediately abhorrent connotations, but nonetheless, the sheer normalcy of socialism as a political ideology is very interesting to me and was not something I expected or intended to observe, but just kept seeing again and again on the streets of London. I likely won’t speak to anyone about their political ideologies while here as it was recommended we avoid doing so, but still, based on sheer observation, the political climate here differs quite a bit in this way from the United States.
Hey so I haven’t seen much about this on Tumblr, but the UK Government backed out of including Transgender people in the Conversion Therapy Ban yesterday on TDOV (Thursday 31st of March, 2022)
It was first stated that the ban would be dropped entirely, but a revision was made a few hours later, stating that it would go ahead for sexualities, but not gender identities - against the advice of the NHS (That’s the National Health Service, for those outside of the UK), even.
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.
The Queen’s Speech has been rescheduled for Wednesday June 21st, 2 days later than originally planned. This despite no official deal being reached yet between the Conservatives and the DUP.
Turnout figures for GE2017 have been released and, while not as high as previously suggested, 58% turnout among 18-24s is still something to be celebrated.
The 58% Giveaway is our way of thanking young voters for going out on June 8th and making themselves heard.
So what can you win?
The overall winner will receive:
101 Ways to Win and Election, a brilliant book by two experienced Lib Dem campaign managers
Sex, Lies and the Ballot Box, an entertaining look at the answers to questions you maybe never knew you had about UK politics
More Sex, Lies and the Ballot Box, the sequel to Philip Cowley and Robert Ford’s successful first book
YVUK’s 15 Greatest Protest Songs on a limited edition vinyl-look CD, featuring Captain Ska, The Clash and more
Latest YouGov poll suggests voter turnout among 18-24s much lower than expected.
This is likely as a result of the inflated figure touted by the Metro, which was in fact referencing estimated turnout in Tottenham alone (around 72%).
Turnout figures are still way up on the 2015 general election.
What the figures suggest is that progress has been made, but much work remains to really bring young voters into the political conversation.
If you want to be part of a movement seeking to do just that, check us out on our blogorour Twitter. We’re always looking for volunteers to join our team as content writers, researchers, campaigners, designers, campus reps. Come say hi!
This graphic, shared by @williamjordann, shows a significant disconnect between the intentions of young and old voters. We already knew that young voters overwhelmingly supported Remain in the Brexit referendum, and now a very similar trend is seen in the election results: the majority of young people voted for Labour.
We’re certainly not saying the hung parliament was entirely the result of increased youth turnout, but there’s no denying that we as an age group have suddenly moved up the priority lists of politicians everywhere. We mean something now. We’re an engaged group of voters with an almost universal political identity.
We’re a very big fish and, should Corbyn slip up, we’re seemingly ready to be caught.
Unfortunately, ‘building an informed electorate through education’ just didn’t roll off the tongue so easily.
Graphics quality is of a potato right now until we start spending money on this operation so expect something a little more HD at the end of the week.
We’d also love for our followers to get involved! Design your own graphic based around our name and ‘Know Your Vote’ and receive 10 additional entries to our first competition of the summer - just tag your design with #YVUK to enter.
There’s rumours that turnout among 18-24s was in the realm of 68-72% at the election on Thursday and we couldn’t be prouder of every young person who went to the polls!
Putting it into context, average voter turnout for this age gap doesn’t usually exceed 50% so it’s definitely party time.
We’re so excited, we’re moving up the schedule a bit on our first competition.
Entry will be free (as always with YVUK) and the prizes will be political (if not yet fully decided on).
Hold up, isn’t the Queen’s Speech just a Christmas thing?
This has been a common question today, so if you’ve been wondering the same thing, you weren’t alone! The Queen gives her Christmas speech every year (makes sense, right?) but to get full value for money on the royal family, she’s also brought out after each general election.
Makes sense. So what does she actually talk about?
The post-election Queen’s Speech is a quick summary of all the major policies the party-in-power hope to implement over their term. Not everything will make it in: the past two Tory manifestos pledged to repeal the ban on fox hunting, but the policy never featured in the speech.
When was it meant to happen?
The speech was originally scheduled for June 19th (next Monday). No date has been set yet for when we’ll end up hearing it.
Okay, but why has this one been delayed then?
Right, so this is where it gets a bit more complicated, mostly because at this point we move into the realm of speculation. Never a good thing for an article on politics, y’know?
Theresa May ran on a promise of strength and stability. She was hoping to get a huge majority for the Tories to (a) put Britain in a better negotiating position with the EU and (b) bolster her self-esteem. This didn’t go to plan: we now have a ‘hung parliament’.
All those policies the Tories could have put in the Queen’s Speech suddenly look doubtful to pass a vote in the House of Commons. Right now, senior Tories are going over and over their manifesto looking for the bits and pieces that stand a chance and coming to terms with the policies they’ll have to lose. This is one of the reason’s it’s going to take longer than usual to prepare the speech.
Didn’t the Tories make that deal with the DUP to avoid this sort of thing though?
The DUP agreement is a Confidence and Support deal rather than a full on coalition. What this means is that the 10 DUP MPs in the Commons keep their right to vote against Tory policies if they don’t agree with them.
A good example is triple-lock pensions. This is a promise by the government to increase state pensions each year in line with inflation or wage growth, or by 2.5% (whichever of the three is highest). The Tory manifesto pledged to do away with this, whereas the DUP strongly support keeping the protection. In a Commons vote, the Tories will face a real struggle to secure the majority vote needed to scrap the scheme.
It’s also likely that the delay is partly because of this deal: the DUP will be making some demands of the Tories in exchange for their support that the Tories just won’t be that willing to accept.
So what does this mean for the government then?
As of right now, Theresa May’s Tory party still hold the power. The delaying of the Queen’s Speech has made them look weaker to the public and has potentially put a dent in the timetable for Brexit negotiations (will we even have an official Prime Minister when they’re due to start in 9 days?).
There’s rumour that Corbyn is poised to take full advantage of this perceived instability. Labour are supposedly planning to try and block each and every policy the Tories try to include in their Queen’s Speech. If a speech cannot be agreed upon, then there’s a series of steps that could be followed to give Corbyn a chance to form his own minority government.
That’s only a very remote possibility though!
tl;dr The Conservative Party have delayed the Queen’s Speech as they struggle to edit their manifesto to a more centrist position.
![Tory Leadership Possibilities: Tag Yourself [x]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/24ef22a37caabc3d86d88e8a72258428/tumblr_orge9dJcf21w8r8xio1_1280.png "Tory Leadership Possibilities: Tag Yourself [x]")
