I haven’t checked my account on here for a while but now I’ve seen your replies.
Maybe we will just have different views on the monarchy. If you like the monarchy then fair enough. I think I would prefer an elected official having command over the armed forces and police (which is surely already de facto the case) instead of a monarch. The elected official would probably be somewhat competent because they have had to win the backing of the British people in an election.
Reform UK is only supported by about a third of the electorate at the moment. More than any other single party, but if there was an election for a British head of state, and that election ended up being a choice between Farage and one other person, Farage could very well lose.
Also you said in another post that “President Farage could remove elections”. I think that if we have an elected head of state then they should only have similar powers to what the King has now. Parliament should still be sovereign.
I think one of the best aspects of the UK is political freedom. Perhaps I am a subject of the King (I don’t know if that’s legally true but it might be), but in any case, I can still say that I hope the UK will get rid of the monarchy and replace it with a democratically elected head of state.
This reminds me of the hubbub surrounding Rishi Sunak’s Englishness and David Lammy’s Englishness.
Maybe anyone who lives or has lived in England could reasonably call themselves English. Just like if you live or have lived in Liverpool then you could call yourself a Liverpudlian, regardless of your ethnicity or anything else.
International law might not always be properly enforced but it’s still real. When it’s not enforced properly I guess there are two obvious ways in which we can respond. We can either say “oh well international law is obviously useless, let’s not bother with it” or we can say “international law should be upheld consistently across all countries - let’s support politicians who will implement this”.
I don’t think China is automatically bad but I do think countries around the world should be careful with China. It seems to me that the PRC government is determined to expand Chinese power aggressively, even if this means breaking international rules. E.g. a UN tribunal ruled that China’s claims in the South China Sea aren’t valid, but China does not respect this ruling, and China continues to seize islands in this region. Then of course you have the PRC cracking down on free political expression, and seemingly mistreating ethnic minorities.
Probably beyond my hoodwinking skills. Also I’m not northern myself, I was just wondering what kind of person they would consider to have a “socially appropriate background”. Posh accent, wealthy family, and from South East England, I would expect.
I was a manager at Woolworths back in the day, I swear… but this family would probably say my accent isn’t posh enough to tutor their child.
the British are brainless
I don’t think it makes sense to make judgements about the intelligence of everyone in a country based on an action done by some people in that country.
I remember the crisis in Sudan a number of years ago, the Brits were still stuck there while the Irish had already been evacuated by the Germans on account of the EU. I believe every EU diplomatic mission is actually supposed to support EU citizens regardless of nationality, although possibly in cases where their home country’s mission is inaccessible.
That’s cool. I guess Brits will have to go without such benefits for the time being. And if Reform are the next government then the UK’s ties to Europe will probably be reduced. I suppose there is time for the public to change their voting intentions before the next election though.
Another advantage of the Irish passport over the British passport is that the Irish passport allows you to live and work in 26 other European countries. But hey ho.
Green energy is good, but I’m sceptical of China’s intentions these days. They seem to have a pretty aggressive stance towards other countries, as seen in their handling of the nine-dash line.
I just get the sense that China is less interested in helping the whole world, and more interested in subjugating the whole world.
Yes that’s a fair point about trying to rejoin with a slim majority in favour. The majority could flip after some time, potentially.
Realistically I don’t think the UK is going to rejoin the EU for the next few years, but I think it could well become a more popular political idea over time, as the effects of Brexit become more apparent. People might start to feel it in their pockets more. So maybe the UK will end up rejoining in the next 20, 30, 40 years. Who knows though.
Yeah I think Ireland’s system is pretty good. They have the Taoiseach, the equivalent of our prime minister. Then they have a president who is mostly ceremonial.
Arguably though, if the UK was even more democratic, then those two phenomena may have turned out differently. E.g. Boris only won 43.6% of the votes in the 2019 election, which of course is a minority. If the UK had proportional representation then I guess we’d be more likely to see consensus-building leaders ruling the country. Germany has some degree of proportional representation and they have been led by coalitions between the two main blocs (centre-right Union and centre-left SPD) for much of the last 20 years.
With Brexit, maybe there should have been a second referendum to determine what sort of Brexit would be implemented, since that question was not asked in the first referendum. The UK could have taken a path similar to Norway or Iceland, being outside the EU, but still taking part in the single market.