Rolling Brexit Links/UK politics in the neo-Weimar era

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/80/d6/4f/80d64f2c25860c419df4a01024e5b8c0.jpg

He looks strangely like Martin Amis there

That's a waxwork, surely?

http://www.zak-ove.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/whitemagic.jpg

^^^*this* is a waxwork, by zak ove, called "white magic"

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/307483-nigel-farage-moving-to-the-us-report

later, suckers

“I think they enjoy each other’s company, and they absolutely had an opportunity to talk about freedom and winning and what this all means for the world,” she said.

Oh to be a mosquito on the wall of that meeting and give both of those fuckers malaria.

In a couple of weeks virtually your entire browsing and online purchase history will be made available to multiple government departments and no one gives a shit.

does anyone have a link to how MPs voted on this?

I see they're going to ban a lot of online porn by holding it to BBFC standards - no female ejaculation, watersports &c., good synergy there

Incidentally I don't think there is a single previous example of a politician going directly from the Home Office to Number 10. There are a lot of thwarted schemes that she's going to push straight through.

Apparently Labour didn't see this as worth opposing at all?

there is a recurring theme. I spent a lot of the last year googling Labour MP's voting/abstaining history and basically fuck about 80% of the party - they might as well not exist.

This is so obviously a policy that's going to be massively unpopular if only they could be arsed to make an issue out of it.

^^ same could be said about brexit and its consequences tbf

Is the public generally against 'spying bills'? Previous ones seem to have been derailed by the Lords rather than overwhelming public pressure iirc.

To modern eyes, there's no logic behind the rules, bar what appears to be a ban on female pleasure – facial ejaculation is allowed as long as it's male ejaculate, but face-sitting and female ejaculation are both banned. Fisting is banned, double penetration is fine. Not only will the BBFC enforce a block on sites which don't – or can't – age-verify users, it will also be checking to make sure our porn complies with illogical notions of "acceptable" sex, based on obscenity laws so old they might as well compel porn stars to wear powdered wigs.

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/non-conventional-sex-the-government-wants-to-block-perfectly-legal-porn-digital-economy-bill

Brexit is completely different, enough of the population is still heavily in favour despite everything. The proportion of people who want HM Revenue and Customs or the DWP leafing through their browsing and purchase history will be minuscule.

From what I can tell this isn't a case of individual MPs choosing to abstain or not bother, the party actively supported it.

nothing to hide! nothing to hide!

I think the proportion of people assuming that it won't be their browsing history they'll be leafing through - it'll be suspected terrorists, 'welfare cheats', etc - is fairly high though. xxp

nice, now they can even snoop on your grocery orders.

“This is all about national security, this is about dealing with crime whether it's child abuse, whether it’s trafficking, whether it's drug dealing, whether it’s the sort of criminality that we want to deal with in our society."

presumably they will be looking for subscribers to Child-abusers Times or the Drug Dealer's Digest.

if they're really blocking all porn without age-verification that's huge. are they going to ban tumblr?

It's unworkable. The only question is whether they'll realise that before they pass the law. It simply can't be done.

On the plus side this is the death knell for the Daily Mail's sidebar of shame.

The censorship regime has led to bizarre understandings between the producers and regulators, Barnett said. One is the “four-finger rule”, which limits the number of digits that can be inserted into an orifice for sexual stimulation.

http://www.nestle.com.au/kitkat/PublishingImages/kit-kat-four-finger.jpg

and all decadent sins
will reap discipline

If you're on any kind of benefits the DWP can now see (some of) what you're spending your money on. If you're self-employed or a small business owner HMRC will be able to see who you're working with and what you're buying and could increase your tax bill based on this data.

Right there is a policy that will affect people right across the political spectrum and could provoke enough outrage if framed right. But Labour has never really given a shit about privacy, especially when they were in government, and most voters wouldn't be prepared to listen to Corbyn even if May proposed to feed a quarter of the population into a meat grinder.

Christ better not buy any fancy brand Parmesan or booze, the benefits gestapo will be calling round to disapprove and sanction.

I never heard Mary Whitehouse's take on the four-finger rule, but she might have approved.

A friend likes sourly to point out that if the police are allowed to see something, it's only one bent copper away from a private investigator working for the tabloids. Which is a pretty potent way of generating specific fishing expeditions to threaten to name and shame* and thus hound or shut up critics. The actual real crime side of it, meanwhile, is going to be a blizzard of false positives, as these broad trawls always are.

*Caveat: the selfie/tumblr generation may turn out to be less shameable on this front.

It's such an ideal wedge issue for labour- likely to piss off whole swathes of people who wouldn't normally be receptive to them, strongly personally associated with the prime minister- we shouldn't be surprised that they've completely pissed it up the wall. Either Corbyn doesn't care/understand, or he's basically given up and has surrendered on this to the strong authoritarian streak in the PLP.

what are the greens saying

Shortly after the Autumn Statement was delivered, with much of the country still under floodwater, Caroline Lucas MP asked Philip Hammond how he can justify a statement which didn't mention climate change even once.

fair

LOL

OCT
2016 Wednesday 5TH posted by Morning Star in Britain
by Solomon Hughes in the security zone
HARROW MP Bob Blackman revealed the Tories’ worst nightmare at a conference fringe — Jeremy Corbyn seizing their internet search history.
Mr Blackman told delegates about the need to stop the Labour leader getting hold of their Google cache and supermarket shopping records in a standing-room-only meeting in the “Think Tent.”
The marquee has been erected outside the conference building but in the secure zone by the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Taxpayers Alliance and the Free Enterprise Group — a trio on the Tory right.
Mr Blackman revealed libertarians’ fears over regulation and security to a gathering of around 150 delegates on Monday.
He said: “Just imagine how much data Google has on you as an individual that they could actually sell and utilise in the long term on your lifestyle habits.
“At least you know on a computer you are choosing to put that information in.“But when you go to a supermarket do you realise that everything you are buying is being monitored, particularly if you’ve got rewards cards.
“So there is a real challenge in terms of personal freedom versus the monitoring that is done and the potential abuse of that information.
“If we had a totalitarian government with — god help us — Jeremy Corbyn involved, just imagine what use that data could be put to.”

xps
this time it feels so far beyond just the police being able to see stuff. The list of agencies is p247 onwards here:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/lbill/2016-2017/0066/17066.pdf
The possibilities for bentness seem endless (also, resentful stalking of ex-wives etc).
(I haven't read through the bill to see the safeguards, but I might try later. It seems terrible, just terrible.)

Caroline Lucas voted against the bill fwiw.

Police probably historically and more practically bendable than other agencies, but yes

obviously Lucas voted against the bill. she votes on the right side of all the bills. can we pls have more politicians like her? is that too much to ask?

David Davis voted against it as well!

we've come reasonably close to having compulsory ID cards a few times, I honestly think that the GBP doesn't give much of a flying one about this kind of issue, and there might even be a slim majority in favour of turning the country into a giant Panopticon

I mean, this is a classic bleeding heart liberal concern

how they voted on Investigatory Powers Bill many xps
http://simonbjohnson.github.io/MPs_vote_data_retention/

also think the "if you've got nothing to hide" line of thinking fits precisely with the mood of the country

David Davis used to be good on stuff like this, tbf. In the past it was also a classic old-school English-home-a-castle Tory concern, but they've largely died off as a breed.

(Not that Davis comes from that wing, exactly -- he's more a libertarian constitutionalistI think)

Peter Bone's keeping the tradition alive, though.

tbh if Teresa May introduced a "Police Powers to Torture Islam-looking People At Will Just in Case" bill tomorrow it would garner a terrifying amount of PLP and GBP support

Tories with Tor browsers. They'll get their kids to set it up over Xmas.

anyway, if this leads to an "Ilxors, what's on your browsing history?" thread it can only be a good and disturbing thing

come to think of it, the gov could've avoided the need for this bill amongst ILXors by just starting an ILM write-in poll for favourite porn and terrorism sites

Even Theresa May doesn't want to read 500 pained and earnest posts about why there aren't more metal jihadi sites in the list.

or why http://www.swimming.org/asa/ should be allowed as a water sports site