UK politics thread – meet the new boss, same as the old boss

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
Yeah. Was a bit weird. I guess it’s reinforcing the idea that the Tory party = British state in some way. Apparently less than 200,000 people are Tory party members, which is a small proportion of a country with seventy million people in it…
I wonder how that stacks up to membership of the other parties. I could see the UK just being full of officially-nonpartisan people. In the US, you have to belong to a party to vote in most states' primaries (Ohio being one of the exceptions), so there's incentive to sign up just to participate in the democratic process.
 

Anonymous X

Well-known member
Citizen
I wonder how that stacks up to membership of the other parties. I could see the UK just being full of officially-nonpartisan people. In the US, you have to belong to a party to vote in most states' primaries (Ohio being one of the exceptions), so there's incentive to sign up just to participate in the democratic process.
IIRC, the Labour Party has more registered members, but that’s more to do with Labour membership being given to people who join affiliated trade unions.
 

Anonymous X

Well-known member
Citizen
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The British media are raging about the long delays at British ports in Kent caused by Brexit, which they’re blaming on France. (Passports didn’t need stamping when the UK was in the EU due to freedom of movement.)
 

Rust

Slightly Off
Citizen
Brexiteers actually told us that Brexit would only stop people coming in, and wouldn’t affect British people going out.
I'm reminded of what I thought at the time to be just a hyperbole meme - that English vacationers in Spain were complaining that everyone was speaking Spanish.
 

MrBlud

Well-known member
Citizen
It’s so disheartening, both here and there, “the resistance” basically consists of like five young people with their head on straight in power and the rest of “the Leadership” are ancient, out of touch, Dinosaurs that think this is still the 1960’s…
 

Anonymous X

Well-known member
Citizen
Both Tory leadership contenders have said that they want to ban unions from striking. Not sure how I feel about that, seeing as trade unions all wanted Brexit, which inevitably was going to lead to the Tories scrapping our employment rights (most of which derived from EU social legislation)…
 

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
Just goes to show that unions are a necessary evil, something that a truly progressive party should be trying to make obsolete with sweeping labor reform legislation rather than prop up.
 

Nevermore

Well-known member
Citizen
As a (German) union member, I wholeheartedly disagree. I'd argue that you simply have shitty unions.

Still, unions are not just a "necessary evil". They're necessary, and at least here in Germany, they offer additional benefits for their members, with one of the most important ones being legal protection (which is covered by the standard membership fee).
 

MrBlud

Well-known member
Citizen
I think Pocket is coming at things more in the “a government could guarantee Union type benefits as a matter of law” rather than it falling to people in the industry to unionize for.

Which I don’t think is necessarily wrong but I think you’d lose a lot of stuff in a one size fits all thing like that,
 

wonko the sane?

You may test that assumption at your convinience.
Citizen
As a (German) union member, I wholeheartedly disagree. I'd argue that you simply have shitty unions.

Still, unions are not just a "necessary evil". They're necessary, and at least here in Germany, they offer additional benefits for their members, with one of the most important ones being legal protection (which is covered by the standard membership fee).
North american unions USED to be very good, and very needed. Between years of corruption, fat living and the endless propaganda from the rich: unions are generally viewed at large as either bad for workers, or generally useless. It IS changing again, and attitudes are swinging back the other way, but it's hard to live through a poison pill.
 

Anonymous X

Well-known member
Citizen
As a (German) union member, I wholeheartedly disagree. I'd argue that you simply have shitty unions.

Still, unions are not just a "necessary evil". They're necessary, and at least here in Germany, they offer additional benefits for their members, with one of the most important ones being legal protection (which is covered by the standard membership fee).
Unions are ridiculously better in Germany by all accounts, in terms of what they offer as benefits of membership and being better organised…
 


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