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alias-milamber · 4 months

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UK Elections For People Who Have No Real Reason To Care

(The following post has many personal opinions and is not meant as an unbiased view on UK politics)

The UK Prime Minister, Rish! Sunak (although if you've lost track, that's not on you) has announced a general election, meaning a massive reelection of all 650 MPs that sit in the House of Commons.

General Elections may be called at any time, but must be announced before the 5th anniversary of the last one, but no less than 25 days before it happens. Sunak had until mid December to call one. He's opted for July 4th, probably so Biden doesn't notice he's not in charge anymore.

Why now? Inflation has fallen for the first time in fucking ages, and nothing's gone disasterously wrong for nearly three weeks, so he thinks it's the best time.

Who will win? The Labour party would have to absolutely fuck themselves directly and repeatedly to lose the upcoming election.

So the Tories again, probably.

Who are these people?

The UK currently has various party blocks. All these parties are a series of smaller parties in a raincoat, to a greater or lesser official extent, but they haven't scuttled between raincoats for a bit.

*deep breath*

Conservatives, blue, Have held the biggest majority (and therefore the premiership) since 2010. Traditionally the party of the right, currently under the banner of "One Conservatism", which is basically "Plebs stay in your lane, we'll stay in ours, and if we all do our bit it'll be the 1800s again before you know it". Over the last score years have slowly drifted further and further right as the disaster-capitalists at the core depowered and destroyed the last vestiges of sanity. They've never been the good guys, but right now they're clinging on by a thread. Been through four leaders in five years, and scraped the bottom of the barrel to find Rishi Sunak, a man without any personality traits at all married to a woman with a very large number of government contracts in her company. Informally known as the Tory party, for reasons historical. Traditionally suprisingly good on LGB issues, increasingly shit on T issues. Current policies include saying anything to make people on the right vote for them.

Labour, Red. The party the Tories have been trading off with for the last hundred years or so. In theory a party "Of The People" standing for worker's rights and the unions, in practice they've been drifting centre-right for the last forty years to capture tory voters as they're flung overboard by that party's fleeing right. A lot of their support still comes from the trade unions, but there's a vast and increasing gulf between the party leadership and Labour's traditional positions. The current leader, Sir Keir Starmer, is a soapstone edifice to police power, dedication to which got him a knighthood. Generally considered The Less Worse Option. Traditionally good on LGBT issues, increasingly shit on LGBT issues. Especially T issues. Current policies include saying anything to make anybody vote for them.

Liberal Democrats, Yellowy Orange. The traditional third party, who were the ones trading power with the aristocracy party up to 100 years ago when Labour took over. After slowly building up a reputation for solid and dependable politics with sensible aims, they hit it big in 2010 when their leader at the time - Nick Clegg - was charismatic enough to get them actual media attention during a general election. They finished third as ever, but took enough of a bite out of the blues that the only way to form a majority government was to form a coalition with either of the leading parties. Labour refused, so the Con/Dem Coalition was formed. Over the next few years, the Dems traded all of their power for magic beans, and took the fall for all of their policies being vetoed by their partners, especially the abolition of student loans - a cornerstone of their campaign and the source of a great deal of their millennial popularity. Nick Clegg is now the head of communication for Meta, and the LibDems have rotated through a series of blank pieces of paper where their leadership used to be, having probably blown their chance of leadership for another century. Most famous currently for putting out leaflets saying "Only LibDems can win against the tories!" with the kind of mislabelled graphs that would get you kicked out of maths class. Most people couldn't pick the current leader out of a lineup, or name a current policy.

Green Party, Green. Probably the most progressive party of the lot, and have really capitalised on the collapse of the LibDem support. Very good on green initiatives, but the aging hippy at the core of their leadership occasionally veers into Edison Was A Witch anti-technologist, especially around anything to do with nuclear power. Extremely good as an argument candidate locally, but have a rough time getting their arguments onto the national stage. Their democratic internals are also somewhat prone to slate-manipulation which has recently put non-socially-progressive candidates in high positions. Which is a more polite than they deserve way of saying that they are occasionally terfy as fuck.

SNP, Yellow & Black: Current Governors of Scotland. To be absolutely honest, I don't know much about them apart from their extremely hard - and justified - boner for getting independence of Scotland from the rest of this shitshow. They've had a bit of a rocky road internally for the last couple of years, but unless they completely fuck everything in the next 40 days, they're unlikely to be dethroned. They're also unlikely to get their way any time soon, more's the pity.

Alba, Blue & White: The former leader of the SNP - Alec Salmond - went to set up his own party with blackjack and hookers after he was turfed out on sexual abuse allegations. Has, to date, only managed to gain seats by converting sitting SNP members. Terfy as fuck.

Sinn Fein, dark green: The party of Irish republicanism, both north and south, though the north is the only bit that is part of this general election. Commenting on Sinn Fein is so far out of my swim lane that I'm liable to be eaten by a shark.

Various Nationalist Parties, Misc. Reform UK (nee Brexit Party), UKIP, Britain First, etc. It's been half a century since Britain had any kind of national identity, really, but that's not any excuse to go back to that one. A selection of gammon-faced shouty-men (and, it's 2024, women) will happily take your vote in return for a promise that Britain can once again crush the world under its heel and get rid of all the darkies once and for all. There's really no reason for them to to be in the section below, but the BBC and other media keep booking them and giving them the oxygen of attention for "balance", and that means they keep coming up like the spaghetti which gave you food poisoning. Which they hate. Because it's foreign.

Misc. There are various single-issue and low population parties, and independent MPs, who don't make this list. I hope one day some of them do.

As a reward for reading all of that, here's a dog photo:

#uk politics

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mariacallous · 3 months

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France’s far-right National Rally (RN) party and its allies won 33 percent of the vote on Sunday in the first round of snap parliamentary elections. This puts the group on track to form France’s first far-right elected government since World War II. The second (and final) round of elections will be held next Sunday.

The left-wing New Popular Front secured 28 percent of the vote, and French President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Together coalition won just 21 percent. Some experts have compared Macron’s gamble to secure power as an “Icarus” moment, or even akin to then-French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s failed campaign to invade Russia in 1812.

“Macron’s move to call new elections was a miscalculation and has now probably contributed to strengthening the far right,” German Green party co-chair Ricarda Lang told Politico. The RN is on track to finish the second round just shy of establishing a majority in parliament. Macron has said he will not resign from power until his term expires in 2027, but an RN win could significantly hamper the French president’s legislative abilities.

The National Rally hopes to replace Macron’s pro-Europe, pro-business agenda with its populist, anti-immigration platform. Formed out of a fringe movement whose leader once called the Nazi gas chambers a “detail” in history, the RN is now run by far-right figure Marine Le Pen and 28-year-old leader Jordan Bardella, who is running for the prime minister’s office. The RN seeks friendlier ties with Russia, stricter migration policies, and rolled back pension reforms.

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal accused nearly one-fifth of the RN’s parliamentary candidates last Thursday of having made “racist, antisemitic, and homophobic remarks” in the past. And New Popular Front leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon said on Sunday that the alliance would withdraw all of its candidates who came third in the first round of elections to help unify around Macron’s ruling coalition. “Our guideline is simple and clear: not a single more vote for the National Rally,” Mélenchon said.

International leaders also appear worried about the RN’s success. “This is all really starting to smell of great danger,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said. But some far-right European governments have celebrated the move, with Balazs Orban, the Hungarian prime minister’s political director, warning that “change is coming.”

Right-wing parties made major gains in the European Parliament elections held last month. On Sunday, Austria’s Freedom Party, the Czech Republic’s ANO, and Hungary’s Fidesz announced their plans to establish the so-called Patriots for Europe faction. Lawmakers from at least four other EU member states must join the far-right group by Thursday for it to become an official coalition. “We think this is the day when European policy begins to change,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Sunday, one day before he began his six-month rotation as president of the European Union’s Council of Ministers.

Patriots for Europe has pledged to end EU support for Ukraine and begin peace talks with Russia. Austria’s Freedom Party, the organizing force behind the alliance, is expected to win the Austrian national election in September after doubling its number of EU parliamentary seats last month.

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birdsthatsingaftermidnight · 2 years

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Today, in UK Politics

I'm going to have to start putting a date on these things. I'm referring to 20/10/22.

The Prime Minister resigned. She lasted nearly nine Jane Greys (8.889 if you want to be exact), or 4.4 Scaramuccis.

So anyway, Liz is out and this means there's someone new to come in. Yay! Hopefully this is the last new PM before Christmas.

In the July leadership contest, when the Tories finally realised that maybe, just maybe, Boris was a terrible Prime Minister, a candidate has to be nominated by 20 Tory MPs to be included in the first round of voting's ballot. They then held the vote, and anyone with less than 30 votes was withdrawn from the competition. Voting continued with the MP with the lowest number of votes being withdrawn (and others withdrawing even if they did scrape in) until two people were left, and then all Conservative Party members, that's MPs as well as paid up members, then voted. It's obviously a lengthy process (this started in July and ended with Liz Truss the winner in September).

This time they've decided it'll all get done by the end of next week. Nominations close on Monday, and anyone with 100 nominations goes through. Given that there's currently 357 sitting MPs, that obviously means a maximum of three people going through. "If three candidates reach the threshold there will be an vote of Conservative MPs. The top two will then be subject to an indicative vote of Conservative MPs before going froward [sic] to an online vote of Party members. This will be completed by 28 October 2022. If only one candidate secures the required nominations there will be no confirmatory vote of Party members and the candidate will be confirmed leader on Monday 24 October 2022."

In case the last two bullet points were too lengthy, here's the TL;DR - I've had colds last longer than this leadership contest.

But why take your time over an important decision like who should run the actual country. It feels like something you should rush, right?

Jeremy Hunt says he doesn't want to be in charge. Probably very wise of him, honestly. (Seriously, though, remember when he was the worst Tory MP you could think of?! What sweet summer children we were!).

Neither does Michael Gove (remember when he was also in the running for worst Tory MP you could think of? Ah, the naivety of trusting vaguely to the political process).

Jacob Rees-Mogg, allegedly the Business Secretary, but we all know he's really the Minister for the 18th Century / a Victorian scarecrow haunted by a dead Victorian industrialist, is said to be encouraging people to nominate Boris Johnson, who apparently does appear to be in the running.

Boris Johnson.

The good news is, the suggestion of nominating Boris has immediately split the party. Because that's what they need. More divisions.

BBC political correspondent Ione Wells said that some senior Conservatives have said they would consider standing down and thus triggering by-elections if Boris gets the job back. On the other hand, Cabinet Office Minister Brendan Clarke Smith insists that the former prime minister was a proven winner who could restore his party's fortunes. This must be true, because everybody's favourite Boris fan, Nadine Dorries, says he's a winner! Her credibility - for want of a better term - is currently a little shot right now.

Penny Mordaunt, currently the Leader of the House, appears to be in the running, and so does Rishi Sunak, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer until he resigned in July and kicked off the whole getting rid of Boris things.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said his party was on an election footing, with a manifesto at the ready. I imagine they've been getting it into electioneering-ready status amidst the surprise that the Tories, handed a metaphorical rope by Labour's tabling amendments on the fracking legislation that had to be voted on, put said metaphor around their own necks and started shoving each other off the equally metaphorical battlements.

Also demanding an election is Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, and Wales's First Minister Mark Drakeford.

Not that they can force one, unless Labour can convince enough Tories to vote with them in a vote of no confidence, which they're unlikely to try for anyway. It's so much more useful for them if the Tories keep shoving people who cannot do the job into the PM job and burn their own party down from the inside.

Which will make a nice change for Labour, who over the last few years have been cheerfully engaging in the left wing's favourite hobby - schisming. Gosh, but the left love a good schism.

The next general election is not required to take place until at least 2024 (and by January 2025 at the latest) and, at this stage, it looks unlikely that date will be brought forward.

Because we're British, this is also happening, and it is magnificent.

#uk politics #bye bye liz #larry for PM #WHY OH WHY WOULD YOU BRING BORIS BACK #the man was ousted because he was JUST AWFUL #I'm sure the official paperwork phrased it differently #BUT HE WAS AWFUL #What even is happening #quickest election ever

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another-clive-blog · 10 months

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au where clive runs for prime minister just to try one-upping b*ll h*wks

Anon, I want you to know this may be my favorite ask so far. The AU itself is amazing, but the censoring Bill Hawks' name ? Priceless. I feel like Socrates himself has come to enlighten me with incomparable wiseness-

Alright so sketches and writing under the cut ! =) No trigger warnings for this one. I had fun, I'd love to do more about this AU whenever I get the time !!

When you didn't think things through 😔 Which leads us to the fanfic-

"Professor, look !!"

Hershel Layton put down his cup of tea, anticipating the moment his apprentice would shove his newspaper in his face. With a patient smile, he took the paper in his hands and let Luke point out what piece of news had caused such excitement.

"'Clive Dove as the new prime minister' ?" Layton read out loud.

The article was front page and there was more about it in the following pages : it only made sense, with the agitation this news had caused. Bill Hawks had been prime minister before, and was the favorite candidate for this next mandate : him losing was quite surprising- quite surprising indeed.

"He doesn't look too happy," Luke said, tiptoeing to see over the professor's arm.

Layton looked at the picture in the middle of the page. On it, a shockingly young man was visibly upset, turned away from the journalists : he seemed to be yelling at someone on the side, cut off from the photo. "That is one way to put it." Layton hummed, his eyes staring at the young man a moment longer, before going to read the actual article.

"I'd be happy, I think, if I had just won the elections," Luke mused out loud. He couldn't even imagine it happening, actually : running for Prime Minister was so much work on its own !! Always giving speeches, moving around, discussing boring things- oh, and it must cost so much money too !! It must be so difficult just being a candidate.

Yeah, he'd probably be happy if he won after all that. This Dove guy was just weird.

"Say, Professor, don't you think he looks like me ? Maybe this is a sign I'll be Prime Minister some day !"

The professor didn't answer, focused solely on the paper in his hands.

-_-_-_-

"I am not doing it," Clive Dove said firmly. "I am not running this country. I quit."

John, his new personal assistant, a guy here just to listen to his every word and give him the attention Bill Hawks was desperate to get, protested loudly. "No offence Sir, but you have been prime minister for 47 minutes. The people want you as head of the country and you therefore deserve this post, especially after all the hard work and money you invested to get it."

"I don't care about the money or the people," Clive snapped. "I don't actually want this stupid job."

John was quiet for a moment, and Clive hated how unsurprised he looked. He didn't even seem disappointed or concerned, simply... irritated. It made sense for a government official : they only ever cared about things going smoothly, not making any disruptions, following the protocol.

Too bad, because Clive only cared about making their lives as difficult as they had made his.

"Well," John finally sighed, "you can always resign if you really wish to."

"Great." The faster he got out of this agonizing office, the better it would be. Clive took his coat in one hand, pushing the chair back with the other. He had no time to waste, because he was supposed to give his first speech as the new Prime Minister in about fifteen minutes.

He therefore only had fifteen minutes to leave this pathetic building and get as far away from this despicable life as possible.

Clive had his hand on the door handle when John spoke up again. "If you go through with your resignation, you'll need to sign the official declaration first."

Clive let out an exasperated sigh. Why were there declarations for everything ? Would he need a declaration to slam the door on his way out ?! "I'm leaving, what more is there to say ?!"

John was still facing the office, rearranging the files Clive had left behind : he seemed oddly calm for someone who'd have to announce both the nomination and resignation of the new prime minister. "Plenty, actually. But the more important part, the one we should focus on, is naming your successor."

Clive scoffed. "Why do I have a say in this ?"

"You don't," John simply answered. "But you'll have to confirm your official resignation, therefore leaving this post to the next best candidate. I believe Bill Hawks was the people's second choice."

Clive froze. That scum would actually get the job ? After everything he had done to keep him from it ?

Clive didn't want to rule the country- he had only run for the job to keep Bill Hawks from getting it. And he had succeeded ! But quitting now would give Hawks both the job and the pride to come out on top.

He couldn't do that. He didn't want to run the country, wasn't fit for it. He had no idea how to do it and he didn't want to learn. He hated this government, never cared about its people.

John was still rearranging the papers on the office, a peaceful smile on his face. He knew he had won, because winning was all that these miserable people cared about.

Well, Clive wouldn't let any of them win- not as long as he was head of this country. "Come on," he said, putting his coat on. "I have a speech to give."

#I actually headcanon that Clive could be a decent leader if he really tried to =)#But it would only be by accident ahah #Like he'd make a terrible decision NO ONE would have gone with and it turns out fine but it doesn't go the way he thought it would #People hate him as a person but as a leader he's passable. So it's all good really =)#clive dove #professor layton and the unwound future #professor layton and the lost future #My art #My writing #Ask

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bopinion · 10 months

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2023 / 47

Aperçu of the week:

"Anyone who wants to save money for the future these days also believes that standing still is the most energy-saving way to reach the goal."

(Sascha Lobo, German media personality and columnist)

Bad News of the Week:

Western democracies have always been able to come to terms with right-wing political currents. Even when they have established themselves. Marine LePen from the Rassemblement National, for example, repeatedly makes it to the run-off for the office of president. It seems fundamentally impossible that she would win. After all, there is always a solid majority of upright democrats who stand together and would never accept that a right-winger could actually take a seat in government.

And now that is exactly what has happened. A right politician at the head of state. In a western democracy. In our immediate neighborhood. In the Netherlands. Geert Wilders and his Partij voor de Vrijheid (Party for Freedom) won the elections there by a clear margin. He is laying claim to the office of Prime Minister. And has a good chance of forming a coalition with a solid parliamentary majority.

Wilders has made a name for himself over the years primarily as an enemy of migration - although that's what always gets me most excited about former colonial powers. Closing borders, banning the Koran, deporting asylum seekers. He has refrained from using these harsh tones in this election campaign. Certainly more out of tactical considerations than out of an actual change of opinion. And was therefore probably elected after 11 years of Mark Rutte as a contrasting program to "business as usual".

A look at Italy provides some hope. There, Georgia Meloni from the right Fratelli d'Italia became head of government for the first time in the West just over a year ago. And is proving to be much less radical in day-to-day politics than in the election campaign. "The office is stronger than the person" is often said. If that is the case, our democracies will be able to withstand it.

Nevertheless, I am increasingly worried that right-wing extremist ideas are becoming more and more acceptable in society. Elections will be held in several eastern German states next year. And the far-right (officially listed as such by the constitution protection agency) AfD is leading all the polls. Next year's European elections could also see a landslide to the right. Whereby the right-wing parties of the EU actually stand for the exact opposite of European ideals. That leaves me stunned.

Good News of the Week:

When Germany's political parties disagree on whether a law complies with the constitution, they appeal to the "Federal Constitutional Court", our Supreme Court. These guardians of our fundamental law then interpret it in a non-partisan way and the discussion is settled. So far, this has always worked excellently, the judges have always lived up to the claim and can be regarded as an absolutely neutral supreme authority.

Now they have once again did justice to this responsibility by literally upholding a decision made by the last "grand coalition" of conservatives and social democrats in 2020. It was about electoral law reform, an issue that directly affects the parties and the basis of their political activity - free elections. And therefore unsurprisingly met with little approval from the opposition parties at the time. In essence, the issue is whether a candidate for a seat in the Bundestag who wins in his or her constituency gets a seat in the parliament even if the party to which he or she belongs would actually be entitled to a lower percentage of seats nationwide. And if so, whether the other parties are then entitled to compensation. The latter was limited by the reform, the former was not.

In my opinion - and I have no legal interpretation skills whatsoever, but I do have a healthy sense of justice - this is absolutely fine. For two reasons. Firstly, according to the constitution, MPs are only bound by their conscience in their work. And therefore theoretically not to any party (not even their own). This premise has been strengthened. Secondly, every vote must be worth the same. If a candidate who has clearly won their constituency does not get a seat in parliament, their votes would no longer count. And no one in that constituency would have the representation to which they were entitled.

I am aware that the regulation - which, by the way, is being called into question by the at the moment ruling coalition in the current legislative period - mainly benefits the small parties CSU (Christian Social Union) and Die Linke (The Left). I am largely unconvinced by their programs and positions. But that doesn't change the fact that I defend their right to exist in parliament. If they are elected, they are elected. Period. In this respect, I am once again very satisfied with our political system.

Personal happy moment of the week:

On Sunday, I remembered boiling hot that I had overlooked a task from work. The shock was huge. Especially when I realized that I wouldn't be able to iron out this lapse on my own. So I dropped my pants in front of my co-workers. And I had a wonderful experience of collegiality: four (!) colleagues put their own plans for the start of the week on hold to help me out of the mess. It feels good. Thank you very much!

I couldn't care less...

...about black week. Because Germany experienced its very own kind of black week: the budget plans for 2023 were retroactively thrown out the window. And the German national soccer team saw its slight hopes of an improved performance dashed by losing matches against Turkey and Austria - what hurts us especially.

As I write this...

...winter has come to Bavaria. And it really did. Unfortunately, due to scheduling problems with the dealership, we haven't received our winter tires yet. As a result, I'm riding my bike to the station in snow flurries and minus 5 degrees Celsius (which always seems colder to me at the beginning of winter than minus 15 in February) to wait outside for a winter-delayed train. But winter is still beautiful. I bravely remind myself of that.

Post Scriptum

90 years ago, the Holodomor occurred in what is now Ukraine. The term Holodomor ( Голодомор - 'killing by hunger') stands for the famine in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in the 1930s. An estimated three to seven million people fell victim to famine during this period. Since independence in 1991, the Ukrainian government has been seeking international recognition of the Holodomor as genocide. This assessment is gaining increasing support, but is being criticized by the Russian government in particular. This is hardly surprising.

After all, it was Joseph Stalin who pursued the political goal of suppressing the Ukrainian desire for freedom and consolidating Soviet rule in Ukraine. In the spirit of Russification, Ukrainian culture was to be eradicated. This included the murder of around 10,000 clerics, the deportation of more than 50,000 intellectuals to Siberia - and the death of millions of the largely peasant population. No wonder that people in Ukraine tend to get scared when the current Russian tsar dreams of good old Soviet times.

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soapkaars · 1 year

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Well, Dutch government fell again lads. What does that mean? It might mean that it stays on as a ‘demissionair’ government till the next elections, changing nothing and pretending it can do nothing (but still trying its darndest to strip refugees of more rights, cut more welfare and blame minorities, and just generally being racist, xenophobic, and classist)

Or we get elections. Here’s a fun fact: we don’t get to choose our minister-president* directly. We choose a party, the parties form a coalition to get a majority, and they choose the minister-president (usually from the largest party… but… not always!!) So if you’re wondering why Mark Rutte has presided over four failed governments, and he still gets to become minister-president, just know that’s why, and not because people are so in love with his eating-an-apple-on-his-bicycle routine (‘look, I am so common!’)

That said, if there are elections, who’s on the roster? Well, we have about 20 parties last I checked. Of which there are the christofascists (SGP), the young fascists (FvD), the middle-aged fascists (JA21), the fascists™️ (PVV), the we-broke-away-from-the-fascist-party-because-they’re-not-fascist-enough fascists (van Haga), the agrarian fascists (BBB), the party our minister-president belongs to and where all these fascists seem to come from AND is super corrupt (‘this keeps happening!’ VVD), the ‘we can sometimes make you forget how racist we are with the few good points we make but otherwise we are SUPER racist’ socialists (SP), the ‘we’re trying our best to combat racism but we only have one member of parliament and lots of infighting’ socialists (BIJ1), the animal party (PVdD), liberals (PvdA, DENK, D66, VOLT), green liberals™️ (GroenLinks), middle-aged people (50PLUS), christian liberals™️ (CDA), christian liberals that may have grown a teeny-tiny spine but who the hell’s gonna vote for them (not fascist enough for the bible belt, not progressive enough for others CU), and a bunch of one-person parties I’m not going to bother looking up because they’ll probably dissolve with the next elections or they’ll be absorbed into other parties

Anyways I might grit my teeth and vote BIJ1 again because they may be super flawed, dysfunctional, have weird viewpoints that suddenly rear their ugly head at the weirdest times, and all kinds of petty drama, but at least it won’t feel like my vote will disappear in the hungry empty maw of the larger leftist parties (I used to be GroenLinks but man, that party is so prepared to throw down its ideals for a whiff of power that it isn’t funny anymore)

*did you know that we’re also a monarchy? So not only do we not directly choose our head of state, we also have a useless figurehead that we pay too much money to!

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thessalian · 8 months

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Thess vs Upcoming Elections

Both the US and the UK are coming up on elections this year, and the usual notifications are coming up - hell, I've posted them myself - about how people are going to try to convince you that there's no point in voting because both parties are the same, and that it's a psyop by the Republicans / Conservatives, etc. And in the US, that's probably true. But I did want to say something about the whole deal in the UK, because I actually live here, and there's one problem with that theory.

That theory doesn't hold true when we're hearing it directly from the Leader of the Opposition.

Those of us in the UK have heard Kier Starmer saying, time and again, how he will fall into lockstep with the Tories on so many issues. He's spoken in support of teachers outing transgender kids to their parents. He's refusing to condemn the genocide in Gaza. He's going to continue to 'bolster the NHS with private contracts', which basically means stealth privatisation of the service and already cost us billions during the early days of COVID. Just about every nasty policy the Tories have put out there the last few years, Starmer has more or less agreed with. I'm not sure where he stands about this stupid Rwanda thing, but he is a lawyer so I'm pretty sure that at the very least he's wary of breaking international law.

The worst part is that it feels like we're damned either way. If we don't vote Starmer, our not-two-party-system-BUT is arranged in such a way that the Tories will probably win again. This will bolster the far right element and things will get worse for us. However, if we do vote Labour ... well, Starmer's going to go on about "See, that's how you win an election" and carry on with his Tory-With-A-Red-Tie mentality, and the Tories will go, "Well, obviously we need to go further right to win the next one", and get absolutely fucking feral about it. And the Tories probably will win next time because the absolute mess the Tories have made of the economy and everything else is impossible to fix in five years, and everyone will blame Labour for it because they have the mental capacity of goldfish.

I mean, I'm going to vote Labour anyway. My borough is one of the safest of safe Labour seats, but I'm going to do it anyway. People keep saying, "Vote Green!" but ... I'm sorry, no matter how important that one issue is, I will not vote for a one-issue party. The Lib Dems have become basically wallpaper at this point, and there aren't a lot of other political entities in my borough. I mean, the absolute best we could do by voting third-party is to force a hung Parliament, but I mistrust that kind of thing ever since the Conservative / Lib Dem coalition in 2010, which was the start of this whole mess.

Anyway, I'm going to vote Labour even though I know what they are and what they're doing because I cannot imagine aiding and abetting the Tories at this point. I can hope that Starmer, who has been very cagey about his manifesto to stop the Tories from spending time during Prime Minister's Questions trying to use it as ammunition against having to actually answer the man's questions, is further to the left than he appears. Then again, we live in a capitalist hellscape and I would guess not? But at least he doesn't want to send refugees to Rwanda. Maybe. Maybe he'll actually respect international law. And maybe he'll even get rid of the idiotic voter ID laws which Jacob Rees-Mogg admitted was deliberate gerrymandering on live television and no one batted a fucking eye. In fact, Rees-Mogg said, "We just have to do it more effectively" and then there were even more draconian laws put into place around postal votes, and again, no one seemed to care.

It's sad when all the hope we can cling to in these cases is "Maybe the other guy won't be a literal criminal" ... but I guess the US knows that one too.

#Thess on politics #Thess vs the Tories

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southeastasianists · 1 year

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Undeterred by the pouring rain, a long convoy of motorbikes carrying cheering, flag-waving supporters of Cambodia's ruling party revved their engines in preparation for their triumphant final rally in downtown Phnom Penh.

People dutifully lined the road as far as you could see, party stickers on their cheeks, the sky-blue hats and shirts they had been given to wear getting steadily wetter.

Perched on the back of a truck, Hun Manet, the 45-year-old eldest son of Prime Minister Hun Sen, greeted the crowds proclaiming that only the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) was capable of leading the country.

Indeed, his father had made sure that the CPP was the only party which could possibly win the election.

Hun Sen, 70, has run Cambodia in his trademark pugnacious style for 38 years: first in a Vietnam-installed communist regime, then under a UN-installed multi-party system, and more recently as an increasingly intolerant autocrat.

The only party now capable of challenging his rule, the Candlelight Party, was banned from the election on a technicality in May. The remaining 17 parties allowed to contest it were too small or too little-known to pose a threat.

A few hours after the polls closed, the CPP claimed the expected landslide, with a turnout of more than 80%. There were quite high levels of spoiled ballot papers in some polling stations: that was probably the only safe way voters could show their support for the opposition.

With Hun Manet expected to succeed his father within weeks of the vote, in a long-prepared transfer of power, this felt more like a coronation than an election.

"I don't think we can even call it a sham election," says Mu Sochua, an exiled former minister and member of the CNRP, another opposition party banned by the Cambodian authorities in 2017.

"We should call it a 'selection', for Hun Sen to make sure that his party will select his son as the next prime minister of Cambodia, to continue the dynasty of the Hun family."

Yet there were signs of nervousness in the CPP before the vote. New laws were hurriedly passed criminalising any encouragement of ballot-spoiling or a boycott. Several Candlelight members were arrested.

"Why was the CPP campaigning so hard, against no one in this election with no real opposition?" asks Ou Virak, founder of the Cambodian think tank Future Forum.

"They knew they would win the election - that was an easy outcome for them. But winning legitimacy is much more difficult.

"They need to keep weakening the opposition, but at the same time, they also need to satisfy the people, so there is no repeat of previous setbacks and disruptions, like street protests."

Hun Sen is one of Asia's great survivors, a wily, street-smart politician who has time and again outmanoeuvred his opponents. He has skilfully played off China, by far the biggest foreign investor these days, against the US and Europe, which are trying to claw back lost influence in the region.

But he has come close to losing elections in the past. He is still vulnerable, to rival factions in his own ruling party, and to any sudden downturn in the Cambodian economy which could sour public opinion against him. So as he prepares for a once-in-a-generation leadership change, he is trying to cement his legacy.

A short drive north of the capital, a 33m-high concrete-and-marble monolith was built recently, which he calls the Win-Win memorial.

Its massive base is covered in carved stone reliefs, echoing Cambodia's greatest historic monument, Angkor Wat.

They depict Hun Sen's flight from Khmer Rouge-ruled Cambodia to Vietnam in 1977, his triumphant return with the invading Vietnamese army in 1979, and his eventual deal with the last of the Khmer Rouge leaders in 1998 that ended the long civil war - his win-win for the Cambodian people.

Delivering peace and prosperity has long been Hun Sen's main claim to legitimacy. Since 1998, Cambodia has had one of the world's fastest-growing economies, albeit from a very low base.

But it is a model of growth which has concentrated wealth in the hands of a few families - the number of ultra-luxury cars on the roads of such a low-income country is jarring. It has encouraged rapacious exploitation of Cambodia's natural resources and it has left many ordinary people feeling that they are not winning under Mr Sen.

Prak Sopheap lives with her family at the back of an engine repair shop, squeezed between the main road and one of the many shallow lakes in the low-lying land outside Phnom Penh. They have been there for 25 years, fishing and cultivating vegetables on the lake.

Today, though, much of the lake has been filled with rubble by a property developer and Ms Sopheap's family have been ordered to leave.

She showed me a document from the local council, confirming how long she had lived there, and another document, a summons to court on a charge of illegally occupying state land. She feels powerless and angry - and she is not alone.

Land disputes are among the most incendiary grievances in Cambodia. All property deeds were destroyed in the Khmer Rouge revolution.

Since the end of the civil war, millions of hectares have been allocated for commercial development, a lucrative arrangement which has made many politicians and businesses allied to Hun Sen very rich.

The courts very rarely rule against these powerful interests. Transparency International ranks Cambodia as 150th out of 180 countries for corruption: in the Asia-Pacific region, only Myanmar and North Korea rank lower.

"Hun Sen always talks about his 'win-win policy'", says Ms Sopheap. "But we feel it is he alone who wins. We cannot feel at peace, as we now face eviction. We, the real Cambodian people, who live on this land, are suffering in the name of development."

Those who have tried to campaign against land grabs and evictions have been harassed, beaten and jailed, as have trade unionists and supporters of opposition parties. I asked Ms Sopheap how she would vote in this election. "Who can I choose?" she asked. "Who can protect me?"

Half of those eligible to vote are under 35 years old. The CPP has tried attracting them by having Hun Manet and other younger party leaders run this year's campaign, with a slick social media strategy.

But as most Cambodians have no memory of war or the Khmer Rouge, Ly Chandravuth, a 23-year-old law graduate and environmental activist, says the old CPP campaign points are no longer persuasive.

"Hun Manet's biggest challenge will be that my generation is very different from previous ones, who were traumatised by the Khmer Rouge," he says.

"Since I was a child, I have watched the ruling party reminding us of that tragedy, telling us that as they brought peace, we should support them. But that argument is less and less effective. Every time the ruling party brings it up, the young generation mocks them, because they have been repeating it for 30 years."

Can Hun Manet modify the rough-house, sometimes thuggish leadership style of his father to a softer and more subtle kind of rule? Despite his Western education, his years heading the army and his long apprenticeship, he has never yet held a top political office.

With him, other "princeling" sons of Hun Sen's contemporaries, such as Defence Minister Tea Banh and Interior Minister Sar Keng, are also expected to replace their fathers in the cabinet - a dynastic shift which keeps the levers of power with the same families, but in less experienced hands. The next few years could be a delicate, even dangerous time for Cambodia.

#Southeast Asia #Cambodia #Politics #General Elections #PM Hun Sen

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beardedmrbean · 11 months

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Armed police officers wave cars off the motorway going from Poland to Germany.

They're searching for people-smugglers and their desperate cargo.

This is the German government's latest bid to show it is getting a grip on rising levels of irregular migration.

But, as we found in a rural border district, there's little sense of control.

Altenberg is a small town in Saxony, right by the Czech Republic.

Families race down a toboggan run that weaves through the forest and, when winter's here, there's even a small ski resort.

The local mayor, Markus Wiesenberg, says that - in this area alone - smugglers drop off people as often as once a day.

"The trafficker disappears and probably picks up the next load."

New arrivals put a strain on local services, he says, as well as local people.

"Sometimes they find sleeping bags and campfires in the woods and they are worried for their children."

Migration is looming large in the national debate after the far right is seen to have capitalized on the issue, fuelling recent gains in regional elections.

Ministers ordered "temporary" checks last month on Germany's land borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland.

The controls were renewed this week, as they have been for years on the border with Austria, and they are all within the EU's supposedly border-free Schengen Zone.

Registered illegal entries into Germany this year are set to be their highest since 2016.

The country remains a top destination for asylum seekers.

In August, it received around 30 per cent of the 100,000 applications lodged within the EU, Norway and Switzerland.

Inside an old youth hostel in rural Saxony, more than 50 men are waiting for their future to begin.

Thirty-three-year-old Muhammad Abdoum, from Syria, has successfully applied for asylum and hopes soon to find work.

He's adopted a leadership role at this migrant housing centre and seems naturally upbeat.

However, he becomes tearful when recounting a "lost" decade in his life with the prospect of starting again from "zero."

"I lost too much [many] friends. I lost 10 years. What did I make for myself?"

A long journey, he tells me, took him from war-torn Syria to Turkey, through the Balkans and eventually here; to what feels like a remote outpost, just metres from the Czech border, surrounded by pine trees and a heavy morning mist.

Passing through other EU nations, the last leg of his travels was on a train from Prague.

Now he dreams of having a life, maybe even a family, in Germany.

That evening, just ten minutes' drive from the hostel, a small crowd of forty to fifty people gathers in the village square of Hermsdorf.

They're protesting about the possibility that nearby apartments might be used to house migrants.

A speaker, playing anti-establishment songs, blares out from the back of a van.

Thomas clutches a damp, sagging flag of Saxony as he tells me that while an Iraqi family has integrated well into his village, "If hordes of young men arrive… we fear for our safety."

"I'm here for the children," chimes in Anja. "For me the young migrants who come here, they are armies - and when the order comes for them to take action, then we're done. Then Germany is done."

The group eventually marches off into the night to do a loop of the village.

You might think, tucked away amongst forests and hilltops, that no one can hear them - but you'd be wrong.

Polls that put the far-right, anti-immigration, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party ahead of the three governing parties appears to have spooked Berlin into action.

Plans to speed up deportations of failed asylum seekers are being introduced while Chancellor Olaf Scholz was in Nigeria this week to try and boost the number of returns.

The German leader has denied that recent AfD state election successes have forced his hand.

But a "sense of fear" has led to fresh, serious discussions in government according to Gerald Knaus, chair of the European Stability Initiative think tank in Berlin.

He's dismissive of border checks and EU plans to fast-track asylum applications, describing them all as "fake solutions."

Mr Knaus was the brains behind the contentious 2016 deal which saw Turkey promised aid and visa-free travel in return for stemming the flow of migrants into the EU.

He believes this kind of agreement should be revived and expanded to countries such as Senegal, Morocco and Rwanda.

Some senior political figures in Germany, including from within the three-party governing coalition, are also calling for third-country deals.

One idea, which has not been endorsed by ministers, could see asylum claims processed in nations that migrants pass through on their way to the EU.

"We must prevent people with no prospect of asylum to start the dangerous route across the Mediterranean," Christian Dürr, the Free Democrats Bundestag group leader, told Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Successful claimants would then proceed to Germany whereas the UK's deal with Rwanda, which is being contested in the courts, would see refugees remain in the Central African country.

On Monday Chancellor Olaf Scholz will meet with Germany's regional leaders where migration is expected to top the agenda.

A collision of factors are present in the current migration debate in Germany.

Attempts to tackle irregular migration are running in parallel with efforts to plug labour shortages by attracting skilled foreign workers.

Germany's also taken more than a million people from Ukraine - mainly women and children - following Russia's full-scale invasion.

Increased backing for the AfD comes as elected leaders are accused of ducking the debate.

Mayor Markus Wiesenberg, who's a member of Angela Merkel's Christian Democrat party, says there is a perception that the federal government is failing.

All the while, the rise in irregular migration appears to feed gains by the far right as elected leaders are accused of ducking the debate.

"It seems we didn't learn the lesson of 2015," he says - referring to the apogee of Europe's migration crisis.

"We are as unprepared as then."

#nunyas news

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allthebrazilianpolitics · 9 months

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Lula should run for reelection in 2026, Haddad says

Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said Wednesday that there was consensus among the ruling coalition that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva should seek reelection in 2026.

“I believe there is a consensus within the PT and the allied base about President Lula's candidacy in 2026. In my opinion, it's something that's well settled. It's not up for debate,” said Haddad in an interview with the newspaper O Globo. “Lula has been president three times. He'll probably be a fourth,” he added.

Asked whether he would be succeeding Lula, Haddad dismissed the idea. “I don't think about it. And it only crossed my mind in 2018 because it was a situation in which nobody wanted to be Lula's vice president. And then, one day, he said: 'Haddad, I think there's just going to be the two of us'. Inside jail. I said: 'Think carefully before inviting me because I'm going to accept'. And it ended up happening,” he added.

However, Haddad acknowledged that at some point the issue of Lula's succession will come up. “And I think there should be some concern about that,” he concluded. Lula will be 81 in the next election. His decision to run will depend on the political context of the country at the time and also his health.

#brazil #brazilian politics #politics #fernando haddad #luiz inacio lula da silva #brazilian elections #brazilian elections 2026 #mod nise da silveira #image description in alt

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eaglesnick · 1 year

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The Tyranny of the Minority

Given an election is probably only 12 months away it is perhaps time to remember a few historical facts regarding recent Tory Prime Ministers.

The disgraced liar and lawbreaker Boris Johnson first became Prime Minister when the Conservative Party members elected him leader of their party after the resignation of Theresa May. He initially came to power, not through winning the national popular vote at an election, but because the members of the Conservative Party choose him as THEIR leader. He was the first of the UNELECTED Tory Prime Ministers and has NEVER apologised for his disgraceful actions.

After Johnson was driven from power because even the Tory Party couldn’t stomach Johnson’s self-serving behaviour anymore, Liz Truss became the next UNELECTED Prime Minister. Again, it was Conservative Party members and not the national electorate who determined who would rule our country.

Just like Johnson before her, Liz Truss was also a disaster. She unleashed an economic wrecking ball, trashing the nations economic standing in the world, costing the country billions of pounds. She lasted 50 days as Prime Minister before being unceremoniously dumped by the very people who had voted for her. Despite the fact we are still paying the price for her lunatic economic failures she has NEVER apologised for her behaviour.

Rishi Sunak was the next UNELECTED Prime Minister, again chosen by Conservative Party members only. Under his watch, the country has become what many are calling “BROKEN BRITAIN”.

Surely there is a lesson here? If you vote Conservative you may not get the Prime Minister you thought you were getting and you certainly wont be seeing an improvement in your standard of living.

Conservative Party members make up 0.3% of the population. The average age of a party member is estimated to be 57 years, two thirds of the membership is male, the majority are white British, and over 40% of them live in the south of England (excluding London). Tory Party members also tend to be richer than the average citizen.

These are the handful of men and women – predominantly men- who have decided on our last three Prime Ministers. All three were a disaster for the country.

Those that decide to vote for Rishi Sunak in the coming election should remember these lessons. Sunak, even if he wins the next election, is unlikely to survive as Prime Minister for very long as the far right of the Conservative Party is already manoeuvring against him.

All voters thinking of voting Tory, given the disastrous decisions that have gone before, should ask the question, do we really want a handful of aging, predominantly male, southern England men determining the future of our country yet again? I think not.

#uk Politics #rishi sunak #liz truss #boris johnson #democracy #minority rule #dictatorship #conservative party

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mariacallous · 7 months

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The second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, on February 24th, and the continuing menace Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, presents to Europe, were always going to overshadow this year’s Munich Security Conference. But as the annual gathering of bigwigs got under way, a series of additional blows fell. First came the death of Alexei Navalny, Russia’s foremost opposition leader, in a Siberian gulag on February 16th. The next day Ukraine’s army withdrew from the town of Avdiivka, handing Mr Putin his first military victory in almost a year. America’s Congress, meanwhile, showed no sign of passing a bill to dispense more military aid to Ukraine, which is starved of ammunition and therefore likely to suffer more setbacks on the battlefield. The auguries could scarcely have been more awful.

The deadlock in Congress reflects the baleful influence of Donald Trump, whose opposition to aid for Ukraine has cowed Republican lawmakers. It was the spectre of Mr Trump’s potential return to office in November’s presidential election that cast the darkest pall over Munich. A week earlier Mr Trump had explained what he would say to an ally in nato that had not spent as much as the alliance urges on defence and then suffered an invasion: “You’re delinquent? No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them [the invaders] to do whatever the hell they want.”

Combined harms

Russia’s ever-deepening belligerence, Ukraine’s deteriorating position and Mr Trump’s possible return to the White House have brought Europe to its most dangerous juncture in decades. The question is not just whether America will abandon Ukraine, but whether it might abandon Europe. For Europe to fill the space left by America’s absence would require much more than increased defence spending. It would have to revitalise its arms industry, design a new nuclear umbrella and come up with a new command structure.

In Munich the mood was fearful, but determined rather than panicked. American and European officials remain hopeful that more American munitions will eventually get to Ukraine, but they are also making contingencies. On February 17th Petr Pavel, the Czech president, said his country had “found” 800,000 shells that could be shipped within weeks. In an interview with The Economist Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defence minister, insisted that European arms production was increasing “as fast as possible” and said he was “very optimistic” that Europe could plug any gaps left by America.

Not everyone is so sanguine. If American aid were to evaporate entirely, Ukraine would probably lose, an American official tells The Economist. Mr Pistorius is correct that European arms production is rising fast; the continent should be able to produce shells at an annual rate of 1m-2m late this year, potentially outstripping America. But that may come too late for Ukraine, which needs some 1.5m per year according to Rheinmetall, a European arms manufacturer. A sense of wartime urgency is still lacking. European shell-makers export 40% of their production to non-EU countries other than Ukraine; when the European Commission proposed that Ukraine should be prioritised by law, member states refused. The continent’s arms firms complain that their order books remain too thin to warrant big investments in production lines.

A Ukrainian defeat would inflict a psychological blow on the West while emboldening Mr Putin. That does not mean he could take advantage right away. “There is no immediate threat to NATO,” says Admiral Rob Bauer, the head of NATO’s international military committee. Allies disagree over how long Russia would need to rebuild its forces to a pre-war standard, he says, and the timing depends in part on Western sanctions, but three to seven years is the range “a lot of people talk about”. The direction of travel is clear. “We can expect that within the next decade, NATO will face a Soviet-style mass army,” warned Estonia’s annual intelligence report, published on February 13th. The threat is not just a Russian invasion, but attacks and provocations which might test the limits of Article 5, NATO’s mutual-defence clause. “It cannot be ruled out that within a three- to five-year period, Russia will test Article 5 and NATO’s solidarity,” Denmark’s defence minister recently warned. But the concern is less the timing than the prospect of confronting Russia alone.

Change of station

Europe has thought about such a moment for years. In 2019 Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, told this newspaper that allies needed to “reassess the reality of what NATO is in the light of the commitment of the United States”. Mr Trump’s first term in office, in which he flirted with withdrawing from NATO and publicly sided with Mr Putin over his own intelligence agencies, served as a catalyst. The idea of European “strategic autonomy”, once pushed only by France, was embraced by other countries. Defence spending, which began rising after Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014, has increased dramatically. That year just three members of NATO met the alliance’s target of spending 2% of GDP on defence. Last year 11 countries did, ten of them in Europe (see chart 1). This year at least 18 of NATO’s 28 European members will hit the target. Europe’s total defence spending will reach around $380bn—about the same as Russia’s, after adjusting for Europe’s higher prices.

Those numbers flatter Europe, however. Its defence spending yields disproportionately little combat power, and its armed forces are less than the sum of their parts. The continent is years away from being able to defend itself from attack by a reconstituted Russian force. At last year’s summit, NATO leaders approved their first comprehensive national defence plans since the cold war. NATO officials say those plans require Europe to increase its existing (and unmet) targets for military capability by about a third. That, in turn, means Europe would have to spend around 50% more on defence than today, or about 3% of GDP. The only European members of NATO that currently reach that level are Poland and Greece, the latter flattered by bloated military pensions.

Anyway, more money is not enough. Almost all European armies are struggling to meet their recruitment targets, as is America’s. Moreover the rise in spending after 2014 delivered alarmingly little growth in combat capability. A recent paper by the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), a think-tank in London, found that the number of combat battalions had barely increased since 2015 (France and Germany each added just one) or had even fallen, in Britain by five battalions. At a conference last year, an American general lamented that most European countries could field just one full-strength brigade (a formation of a few thousand troops), if that. Germany’s bold decision to deploy a full brigade to Lithuania, for instance, is likely to stretch its army severely.

Even when Europe can produce combat forces, they often lack the things needed to fight effectively for long periods: command-and-control capabilities, such as staff officers trained to run large headquarters; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, such as drones and satellites; logistics capabilities, including airlift; and ammunition to last for longer than a week or so. “The things that European militaries can do, they can do really well,” says Michael Kofman, a military expert, “but they typically can’t do a lot of them, they can’t do them for very long and they’re configured for the initial period of a war that the United States would lead.”

Poland is an instructive case. It is the poster boy for European rearmament. It will spend 4% of its GDP on defence this year, and splurges more than half of that money on equipment, far above NATO’s target of 20%. It is buying huge numbers of tanks, helicopters, howitzers and HIMARS rocket artillery—on the face of it, just what Europe needs. But under the previous government, says Konrad Muzyka, a defence analyst, it did so with little coherent planning and utter neglect of how to crew and sustain the equipment, with personnel numbers falling. Poland’s HIMARS launchers can hit targets 300km away, but its intelligence platforms cannot see that far. It relies on America for that.

One option would be for Europeans to pool their resources. For the past 16 years, for instance, a group of 12 European countries have jointly bought and operated a fleet of three long-range cargo aircraft—essentially a timeshare programme for airlift. In January Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and Spain teamed up to order 1,000 of the missiles used in the Patriot air-defence system, diving down the cost through bulk. The same approach could be taken in other areas, such as reconnaissance satellites.

The hitch is that countries with big defence industries—France, Germany, Italy and Spain—often fail to agree on how contracts should be split among their national arms-makers. There is also a trade-off between plugging holes quickly and building up the continent’s own defence industry. France is irked by a recent German-led scheme, the European Sky Shield Initiative, in which 21 European countries jointly buy air-defence systems, in part because it involves buying American and Israeli launchers alongside German ones. When Olaf Scholz, Germany’s chancellor, recently called for Europe to adopt a “war economy”, Benjamin Haddad, a French lawmaker in Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party, retorted, “It’s not by buying American equipment that we’re going to get there.” European arms-makers, he argued, will not hire workers and build production lines if they do not get orders.

These twin challenges—building up military capability and revitalising arms production—are formidable. Europe’s defence industry is less fragmented than many assume, says Jan Joel Andersson of the EU Institute for Security Studies in a recent paper: the continent makes fewer types of fighter jets and airborne radar planes than America, for instance. But there are inefficiencies. Countries often have different design priorities. France wants carrier-capable jets and lighter armoured vehicles; Germany prefers longer-range aircraft and heavier tanks. Europe-wide co-operation on tanks has consistently failed, writes Mr Andersson, and an ongoing Franco-German effort is in doubt.

The scale of the required changes raises broader economic, social and political questions. Germany’s military renaissance will be unaffordable without cutting other government spending or junking the country’s “debt brake”, which would require a constitutional amendment. Mr Pistorius says he is convinced that German society backs higher defence expenditure, but acknowledges, “We have to convince people that this might have an impact on other spending.” Thierry Breton, the EU commissioner in charge of defence, has proposed a €100bn ($108bn) defence fund to boost arms production. Kaja Kallas, Estonia’s prime minister, backed by Mr Macron and other leaders, has proposed that the EU fund such defence spending with joint borrowing, as it did the recovery fund it established during the covid-19 pandemic—a controversial idea among the thriftiest member-states.

Perhaps the hardest capability for Europe to replace is the one everyone hopes will never be needed. America is committed to using its nuclear weapons to defend European allies. That includes both its “strategic” nuclear forces, those in submarines, silos and bombers, and the smaller, shorter-range “non-strategic” B61 gravity bombs stored in bases across Europe, which can be dropped by several European air forces. Those weapons have served as the ultimate guarantee against Russian invasion. Yet an American president who declined to risk American troops to defend a European ally would hardly be likely to risk American cities in a nuclear exchange.

During Mr Trump’s first spell in office, that fear revived an old debate over how Europe might compensate for the loss of the American umbrella. Britain and France both possess nuclear weapons. But they have only 500 warheads between them, compared with America’s 5,000 and Russia’s nearly 6,000 (see chart 2 ). For advocates of “minimum” deterrence, that makes little difference: they think a few hundred warheads, more than enough to wipe out Moscow and other cities, will dissuade Mr Putin from any reckless adventure. Analysts of a more macabre bent think such lopsided megatonnage, and the disproportionate damage which Britain and France would suffer, give Mr Putin an advantage.

Nuclear posturing

This is not just a numerical problem. British nuclear weapons are assigned to NATO, whose Nuclear Planning Group (NPG) shapes policy on how nuclear weapons should be used. The deterrent is operationally independent: Britain can launch as it pleases. But it depends on America for the design of future warheads and draws from a common pool of missiles, which is kept on the other side of the Atlantic. If America were to sever all co-operation, British nuclear forces “would probably have a life expectancy measured in months rather than years”, according to an assessment published ten years ago. In contrast, France’s deterrent is entirely home-grown and more aloof from NATO: uniquely among NATO’s members, France does not participate in the NPG, though it has long said that its arsenal, “by its existence”, contributes to the alliance’s security.

Within NATO, nuclear issues were long on the “back burner”, says Admiral Bauer. That has changed in the past two years, with more and wider discussions on nuclear planning and deterrence. But NATO’s plans hinge on American forces; they do not say what should happen if America leaves. The question of how Britain and France might fill that gap is now percolating. On February 13th Christian Lindner, Germany’s finance minister and head of the pro-business Free Democratic Party, called in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a German newspaper, for a “rethink” of European nuclear arrangements. “Under what political and financial conditions would Paris and London be prepared to maintain or expand their own strategic capabilities for collective security?” he asked. “And vice versa, what contribution are we willing to make?”

Such musings have a long history. In the 1960s America and Europe pondered a “multilateral” nuclear force under joint control. Today, the idea that Britain or France would “share” the decision to use nuclear weapons is a non-starter, writes Bruno Tertrais, a French expert involved in the debate for decades, in a recent paper. Nor is France likely to join the NPG or assign its air-launched nuclear forces to NATO, he says. One option would be for the two countries to affirm more forcefully that their deterrents would, or at least could, protect allies. In 2020 Mr Macron stated that France’s “vital interests”—the issues over which it would contemplate nuclear use—“now have a European dimension” and offered a “strategic dialogue” with allies on this topic, a position he reiterated last year.

The question is how this would be made credible. In deterrence, the crucial issue is how to make adversaries (and allies) believe that a commitment is real, rather than a cheap diplomatic gesture that would be abandoned when the stakes become apocalyptic. Mr Tertrais proposes a range of options. At the tame end, France could simply promise to consult on nuclear use with its partners, time permitting. More radically, if the American umbrella had gone entirely, France could invite European partners to participate in nuclear operations, such as providing escort aircraft for bombers, joining a task force with the eventual successor to the Charles de Gaulle aircraft-carrier, which can host nukes, or even basing a few missiles in Germany. Such options might ultimately require “a common nuclear planning mechanism”, he says.

Mr Lindner’s talk of a European deterrent was largely dismissed by German officials who spoke to The Economist in Munich. But the nuclear question, involving as it does the deepest questions of sovereignty, identity and national survival, points to the vacuum that would be left if America abandons Europe. “There will be a European nuclear doctrine, a European deterrent, only when there are vital European interests, considered as such by the Europeans, and understood as such by others,” pronounced François Mitterrand, France’s president, in 1994. “We are far away from there.” Today Europe is closer, but not close enough. The same doubt that drove France to develop its own nuclear forces in the 1950s—would an American president sacrifice New York for Paris?—is replicated within Europe: would Mr Macron risk Toulouse for Tallinn?

The seemingly dry question of military command and control brings such issues to the fore. NATO is a political and diplomatic body. It is also a formidable bureaucracy that spends €3.3bn annually and operates a complex network of headquarters: a Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Belgium, three big joint commands in America, the Netherlands and Italy, and a series of smaller ones below. These are the brains that would run any war with Russia. If Mr Trump withdrew from NATO overnight, Europeans would have to decide how to replace them.

An “EU-only” option would not work, says Daniel Fiott of the Elcano Royal Institute, a Spanish think-tank. In part that is because the EU’s own military headquarters is still small, inexperienced and incapable of overseeing high-intensity war. In part it is because this would exclude Britain, Europe’s largest defence spender, as well as other non-EU NATO members such as Canada, Norway and Turkey. An alternative would be for Europeans to inherit the rump NATO structures and keep the alliance alive without America. Whatever institution was chosen, it would have to be filled with skilled officers. Officials at SHAPE acknowledge that much of the serious planning falls on just a few countries. Among Europeans, says Olivier Schmitt, a professor at the Centre for War Studies in Denmark, only “the French, the Brits and maybe the Germans on a good day can send officers able to plan operations at the division and corps level”, precisely those needed in the event of a serious Russian attack.

The question of command is also intrinsically political. Mr Fiott doubts that EU member states could agree on a figure equivalent to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, the alliance’s top general and, by custom, always an American. That epitomises how American dominance in Europe has suppressed intra-European disputes for decades, as captured in the cold-war quip that NATO’s purpose was to keep “the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down”. Sophia Besch of the Carnegie Endowment observes caustically that Europeans still defer to America on the biggest questions of European security: “My impression is that Americans often think more strategically about EU membership for Ukraine than many Europeans.” She sees little hope that Europe will bring bold new ideas to this year’s NATO summit in Washington in July, which will mark the alliance’s 75th anniversary.

It is certainly possible that the shock to European security will be less dramatic than feared. Perhaps America will pass an aid package. Perhaps Europe will scrape together enough shells to keep Ukraine solvent. Perhaps, even if Mr Trump wins, he will keep America in NATO, claiming credit for the fact that a majority of its members—and all of those along the eastern front, and thus most in need of protection—are no longer “delinquent”. Some European officials even muse that Mr Trump, who is fond of nuclear weapons, might take drastic steps such as meeting Poland’s demand to be included in nuclear-sharing arrangements. For the moment, there are still intense debates over how far Europe should hedge against American abandonment. Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary-general of NATO, has repeatedly warned that the idea is futile. “The European Union cannot defend Europe,” he said on February 14th. “Eighty per cent of NATO’s defence expenditures come from non-EU NATO allies.”

Forward-operating haste

Advocates of European self-sufficiency retort that building up a “European pillar” within NATO serves a triple purpose. It strengthens NATO as long as America remains, shows that Europe is committed to share the burden of collective defence and, if necessary, lays the groundwork in case of a future rupture. Higher defence spending, more arms production and more combat-capable forces will be necessary even if America remains in the alliance and under current war plans. Moreover, even the most Europhile of presidents could be forced to divert forces away from Europe if, for instance, America were to be pulled into a big war in Asia.

The difficult questions around command and control, and its implications for political leadership, are probably here to stay. In the worst case of a complete American exit from NATO, a “messy” solution would be needed, says Mr Fiott, perhaps one that would bring Europe’s overlapping institutions into greater alignment. He suggests some radical options, such as giving the EU a seat on the North Atlantic Council, NATO’s main decision-making body, or even a fusion of the posts of NATO secretary-general and president of the European Commission. Such notions still seem otherworldly. But less so with every passing week.

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shinidamachu · 2 years

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Whoa, thanks for your response. Well I hope you have more peaceful and NORMAL days ahead. 😂 Always fun chatting with you! ❤️

Of course! And thank you for your interest. It's nice to talk about this kind of stuff with other people, helps get rid of the anxiety. And on that note, here's a more in dept answer:

Lula was first elected president in 2002 and stayed in power until 2010, when he helped elect his successor, Dilma Rousseff. Which means that I literally grew up under the Workers' Party administration. A (center) leftist administration. An administration responsible for taking Brazil out of the Hunger Map.

"If at the end of my term, every Brazilian have the opportunity of having breakfast, lunch and dinner, I will have accomplished my life's mission." Lula, 2003, first speech as Brazil's president.

Lula's term, specifically, turned the country into the 6th biggest economy of the world. For the first time ever a metallurgical with no higher education was elected president and for the first time ever poor and black people were going to college, were going to airports, were hopeful.

"Brazilians are taken by a feeling of well-being, buying more cars, traveling more, acquiring their own houses and accomplishing dreamns until then unattainable. WE'VE NEVER BEEN HAPPIER." 2010, ISTOÉ Magazine.

I might have been a child then, but I remember it well. The concern for the environment, the very strong anti-guns policies, the inclusion of LGBT people in a society that constantly marginalized them and of Brazil as an international leader... That's the progressive environment I grew up in.

So when Bolsonaro was elected in 2018, it was quite a shock to me. Not because I didn't see his victory coming – I did and that's why I spent months dealing with the worst anxiety crisis I've ever had in my entire life – but because for the first time I was really seeing the racist, misogynistic, homophobic face of my country, something the Workers' Party administration had shielded me from in their attempt to erradicate it.

But there's no unseeing that now. It turned out the Brazil I naively thought was so gentle and accepting, so proud of its diversity, so full of love, happiness and love despite the difficulties, was... decidedly not so. The country I loved so much didn't love me and my people back. It was heartbreaking.

When Dilma Rousseff got wrongfully impeached, we knew dark times were ahead of us just by looking at who were the people happy about it and who was not.

The last six years have been hell, screaming in the dark as we watched with our hands tied a right winged and then a fascist government destroy in record time what we took more than a decade to build, like Sisyphus watching that damn boulder roll down the hill again: we're as good as starting from the scratch.

But honestly? There's something so inherently optimistic about the concept of starting over. It might sound exhausting but it's also a chance to try again and do better, to learn from past mistakes and then leave them behind.

When I look at Bolsonaro's ministers...

And at the ministers Lula has just nominated...

It's impossible not to get excited about the screaming difference. Especially concerning the Ministry of the Environment which now went from this:

To Marina Silva, one of the greatest, international acclaimed names regarding environment preservation and the fight against climate change:

Don't worry, I'm not under the impression that those guys are perfect heroes who are here to save us. Lula has made mistakes in the past. So did Dilma. But nothing – absolutely nothing – takes away from the fact that the Workers' Party indisputably has given Brazil its best years: economically, progressively, culturally.

Will they do it again? It's hard to say, especially with the terrible congress we elected. But I don't expect them to, because the next four years have got to be all about rebuilding. New mistakes will probably be made and that's inevitable but at least we're on the right path now.

You came to my inbox before and asked my what I was expecting from the new government. I replied with a joke about how after tasting four years of literal fascism all I can ask for is some well deserved normalcy and my point still stands.

But most of all, I expect to look forward to what the future holds for us after so many years of feeling hopeless. I want to feel again that we can dream. That things can change and that they do matter. I want my country to be what I once thought we were.

#Brazil #Brasil #Sidmailing #Politics #World Politics

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aevumrp · 2 years

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oct. 9, 9 p.m.

the reunion affair continues on in the night with grand exchanges, enough champagne to one forget they were there, and enough caviar to taste for those who haven't bathed in a luxurious night before. none of which was offered during school, but everyone is now a rightful adult an it only seems fair to return for a grand night. anyone who knows dumbledore knows he likes some flair.

at 9 p.m., dumbledore takes the podium and allows people to raise their champagne flutes in unison to wish everyone well and thank them for coming to the event.

followed by prime minister mcfee who does the same, wishing everyone well and that's when the music settles and the prime minister looks rather serious for a light evening faire.

"greetings to all and thank you for those who came and an extension to those who couldn't," the man begins. "it is a rather strenuous time in our country, but there has never been a moment we don't persevere. i've only ever meant to be an honest man and yet, there are some who confuse me with anything but the sort. i'd like to take the time here, tonight, to correct any grievances i've had. there are rumors about infidility, finances, and my reason for being in office. i recall my opening message when I was elected to be open in a friendly manner and professionally. and yet, there are some … some even here tonight, that might not agree with that. let this be my word on record that nothing that has been said has been remotely true and I'm repulsed by any accusations. we are a strong country. we are a good country full-full of-" he says and begins coughing, putting a hand over his mouth to excuse himself. "my apologies…we are a good country full…" those that are more near the prime minister are first to see the hand he used to cover his mouth now tainted with crimson. almost simaltanously, the prime minister notices too and he seems to pale at the sight.

mere moments before, the prime minister was giving an already questionable political speech at a social event, but what drew the eyes of many was the blood inking his lips the more he tried to talk. before anyone could call for help at the interesting scene, the prime minister wavered before stumbling backwards, gripping the podium for balance, before falling to the side in a solid thump. the prime minister has died. almost immediately the crowd is frantically cleared by the police and security on scene and everyone is ushered out of the castle immediately. it's almost a blur for everyone, the last minutes of the evening.

one thing, though subtle if noticed by anyone, is tom riddle is not in the throngs of people who flee the scene.

logistics

that concludes the first event and everyone is welcome to roleplay old threads and create new threads! the next plot drop will probably be in another week or two!

**please read below for more information:

what the law knows: the prime minister addressed concerns about the evening before going and saw some people who made him uncomfortable whether it be social or political. he had told some advisors about his aversions to the death eaters there and tom riddle himself. he also seemed uncertain about his friend dumbledore. everyone and no one is a suspect at this time if it does evolve into a murder investigation. but they do ask witnesses not to leave the country while the investigation continues. he died at 9 p.m. determination of death has yet to be announced

what the death eaters know: weeks before the evening, tom riddle had a meeting at the government offices to talk to the prime minister. it didn't go well. tom riddle told his friends that he needed to change the prime minister' mind about making the private school private again, including baiting the prime minister with a loan or investment which wasn't pursued. tom riddle seemed more annoyed at dumbledore than the prime minister about this matter. he told some people at the event that tonight dumbledore would change his mind.

at 8:47 p.m., tom riddle was seen by some, going down to the dungeons. what the order knows: dumbledore had addressed the order about the night being a beginning and end for many reasons but never specifying why in his dumbledore way. he told many that there will be a lot of people from the government there and it would be a good time to talk to some people in charge about regulations if they saw fit. at 7:34 p.m., some saw dumbledore accept a drink from tom riddle and the two talked in hushed and heated discussions that made them avoid each other for the rest of the night.

what others know: the prime minister died in front of everyone with blood pouring from his mouth. the scene was cleared but the confusion wasn't.

#aevumevenet

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