U.K. Politics: Boris Johnson referred to police (AGAIN) over potential Covid rule breaches

[Artoo]

Doubt it short memories in the UK. He will be known as the vaccinator.

This time next year all politicians will be demanding to know why the UK lost so many lives. Sir Kier will be leading the charge for an inquiry and based on his legal background, I suspect he is not going to let Boris off the hook. My biggest concern though is that I’ve always said that when the UK has money problems, we vote the Tories in to fix it (and then Labour when it’s time to start spending). I don’t think Labour have ever been voted in on an financial rescue plan at an election, and the one politician I think that’s come out of all this looking pretty good has been Rishi Sunak.

[Thriller]

Keir Starmer is a waste of time, he's presented barely any opposition for the past 12 months, at least Corbyn appeared to challenge. I thought he'd be a good leader initially but I'm yet to be convinced.

[Artoo]

Keir Starmer is a waste of time, he's presented barely any opposition for the past 12 months, at least Corbyn appeared to challenge. I thought he'd be a good leader initially but I'm yet to be convinced.

Give him time - I don’t think attacking the government was needed when the journalists were doing on a daily basis and it is possible he simply agreed with Boris’ handling of it all.

I don’t really know how Boris could have done it better without adding huge doses of hindsight, so point scoring wouldn’t have been a good look for Labour IMO.

I’m just hoping he’s kept his head down because he’s working on a big master plan to win an election.

[Spartan]

Keir Starmer is a waste of time, he's presented barely any opposition for the past 12 months, at least Corbyn appeared to challenge. I thought he'd be a good leader initially but I'm yet to be convinced.

Honestly I agree. I wanted to give Starmer the benefit of the doubt but he's done so little to challenge the Tories, so hopefully he'll be more challenging after COVID. I detest Corbyn so was really hoping Starmer would be good.

[Thriller]

The monumental waste of money on flawed projects/contracts (plus awarding work to mates) and the delay in lockdowns despite everybody practically screaming at the government to do so is a start. I know Keir 'called on' the government to act or explain themselves in certain scenarios but it all felt so soft - at least Andy Burnham attempted to put up an actual fight and stand for something... Keir just feels Blair-lite for me and I don't think he's the man to win back Labour voters, but time will indeed tell. I hope he is waiting for Covid to settle and will then reform Labour and set about his campaign for 2024.

[SholasBoy]

Honestly I agree. I wanted to give Starmer the benefit of the doubt but he's done so little to challenge the Tories, so hopefully he'll be more challenging after COVID. I detest Corbyn so was really hoping Starmer would be good.

Same. The Tories were doomed for their handling of the pandemic, but the vaccine rollout has been such a success, I think they have kind of gotten away with it...despite the circus that was the 9 months prior to that.

[Artoo]

I’m a Labour supporter but I have to honest, but I do think the Tories have done a decent job with furlough schemes and vaccination rollouts - the majority of people who couldn’t work have been able to receive furlough pay and I can’t fault the vaccination programme.

So I honestly don’t know if Labour could have done any better and I think that’s why Sir Kier has kept his head down - not a single politician in Westminster envies Boris having to navigate with a pandemic.

I also don’t know that it would have been a good look, a new Labour leader trying to use the pandemic for political point scoring again the PM. But the Labour leader, I think, is much better qualified for the top job than Corbyn ever was.

I suspect after being Director of Public Prosecutions and Head of the CPS, police reform is going to be a huge part of his manifesto, and as a human rights lawyer hopefully he’ll focus on trying to fix some of the sins of The Conservatives - like how food banks dependency has grown and next to no work has been done on fixing the reasons behind it (high rents, terrible benefit systems, low wages etc).

[Thriller]

It's funny as the Tories have almost had to be Labour in their response to the pandemic, but they will undoubtedly revert back to being classic Tories in the next five years as we see a return to austerity OR a hefty tax increase.

[Wayne]

Nicola Sturgeon cleared of breaching ministerial code over Alex Salmond saga

Nicola Sturgeon has been cleared of breaching the ministerial code over her involvement in the Alex Salmond saga.

An independent inquiry by senior Irish lawyer James Hamilton had been examining whether the first minister misled the Scottish Parliament over what she knew and when.

His report said Ms Sturgeon had given an "incomplete narrative of events" to MSPs.

But he said this was a "genuine failure of recollection" and not deliberate.

Mr Hamilton said he was therefore of the opinion that Ms Sturgeon had not breached any of the provisions of the code.

The code sets out the standards expected of Scottish government ministers, and states that anyone who deliberately misleads Holyrood would be expected to resign.

More: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotla...itics-56482878

[Artoo]

Devastating news

[Wayne]

This is getting literally no coverage in the U.K. as the media is too preoccupied with spooking people over the AZ jab but this is serious, serious stuff that we should all be very worried about...

Northern Ireland unrest: why has violence broken out?

Rioting has spilled on to streets in pockets of union areas in Derry, Belfast and towns in County Antrim

Northern Ireland has been rocked by six successive nights of violence with almost 50 police officers injured and a petrol bomb thrown at a bus.

What is happening?

Serious unrest has spilled on to the streets since Good Friday in pockets of unionist areas in Derry, Belfast and other towns in County Antrim. Cars have been set on fire and petrol bombs and masonry thrown at police, leaving 48 officers injured, including seven last night during the worst disturbances so far in Belfast.

The Northern Ireland Policing Board said the attacks on officers were “truly shocking”.

Arlene Foster, the Democratic Unionist party leader and first minister, condemned the firebombing of a moving bus and said last night’s disturbances were an “embarrassment to society”.

She tweeted: “This is not protest. This is vandalism and attempted murder. These actions do not represent unionism or loyalism.”

On Wednesday night, protests started near the peace wall in central Belfast separating unionist and nationalist communities in the Shankill and Springfield areas, with tyres and bins set alight in the afternoon. As the evening wore on the violence escalated, with a bus petrol bombed as the driver was trying to leave the scene and a photographer for the Belfast Telegraph attacked.

Who is involved?

The violence has taken place in predominantly loyalist areas including the Waterside area of Derry, Carrickfergus and Newtonabbey, and the Shankill area in Belfast city centre.

The numbers involved have been small knots of 20, 30 to 40 people, but the sustained nature of the attacks and the seriousness of Wednesday night’s violence has shaken many and led to calls for action.

Many have expressed deep concern about the involvement of children, some as young as 12, fuelling suspicion that the violence is being orchestrated and directed behind the scenes.

What is the background to the unrest?

Tensions in loyalist communists have been heightened since Brexit checks came into force in January but there is a wider unease in the unionist community that the constitutional position of Northern Ireland, one of four countries in the UK, has been put under threat by the Brexit settlement.

Although the region voted to remain in the UK, the DUP backed Brexit in a dangerous game of Westminster politics in which the party was outmanoeuvred and its interests sidelined.

While the party saw Brexit as a means of strengthening Northern Ireland’s place at the heart of the union, the special arrangements carved out in a hard Brexit deal between Boris Johnson and Brussels made it clear that higher political causes centring on the UK’s sovereignty took precedence.

The disorder seen this week has been linked to the loyalist anger over the Northern Ireland protocol, with checks on goods being shipped from Great Britain reinforcing fears over their place in the union.

Has anything else stoked tensions?

Loyalist frustrations were given political legitimacy when the DUP launched an official campaign to have the Northern Ireland protocol scrapped, but some have blamed the violence on a “pushback against the police” after successful crackdowns on organised crime in loyalist areas.

Naomi Long, Northern Ireland’s justice minister, said Boris Johnson’s “dishonesty” over the consequences of a hard Brexit in Northern Ireland had contributed to loyalist anger, misleading them into thinking there would be checks on goods arriving from Great Britain.

If Brexit happened in January, why is there violence now?

While anger has been brewing over Brexit for months, the decision by the prosecution authorities not to take action against Sinn Féin leaders who attended the funeral of a prominent republican last summer in apparent defiance of lockdown restrictions appears to have precipitated the violence.

Foster has repeatedly called on the chief of police to resign over the matter. After a week-long standoff she spoke to him on Wednesday morning and said the “full rigour of the law” must be applied to the perpetrators.

Who is involved in the unrest?

Many believe paramilitary forces behind criminal and drug gangs are orchestrating the violence behind the scenes after police success in cracking down on their operations. The loyalist gathering at the peace gates in Belfast on Wednesday was organised via social media.

What have politicians said?

The violence has been universally condemned by politicians across the spectrum but there has been criticism about the lack of intervention in Westminster. Boris Johnson made his first comment, expressing concern, after the attack on the bus driver on Wednesday night.

What have the police said?

The Police Federation for Northern Ireland said the “shocking scenes” of Wednesday night’s violence “could set our society back years”. The federation said it thought such sights had been “consigned to history” and leaders on all sides must work urgently to end the violence.

Doug Garrett, the chair of the Northern Ireland Policing Board, called for a “redoubling of efforts to calm tension and for continued dialogue between the community and police officers at all levels of the PSNI”.

What is the worst that could happen?

Nobody expects a return to the violence of the past but many are worried that unless this is nipped in the bud the political settlement in Northern Ireland will be eroded, putting pressure on the power-sharing arrangements.

What happens now?

The Irish prime minister and the shadow secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Louise Haigh, have called for urgent intergovernmental meetings. Haigh said this would demonstrate that “constitutional politics is the way to resolve this political tension”.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...nce-broken-out

[Artoo]

Downing Street, having spent £2.6 million on a US style press briefing room, have scrapped it all together.

[android]

Do people in England, Scotland and Wales care about what happens in Northern Ireland? Those who voted for Brexit obviously didn't think or care to much about it. They might have to if the violence gets out of hand and worse if that violence once more comes to Britain itself.

[Artoo]

Do people in England, Scotland and Wales care about what happens in Northern Ireland? Those who voted for Brexit obviously didn't think or care to much about it. They might have to if the violence gets out of hand and worse if that violence once more comes to Britain itself.

That’s some shortsighted thinking - violence is never the answer. The UK voted for Brexit as a collective and a decision was made. How that decision played out was nothing more than a theatre of politics in which decisions were made by elected officials on how best to achieve the mandate from the public.

Northern Ireland’s elected officials, the DUP, supported Brexit. Why the people would vote to stay in the EU but vote for a party in support of it I’ll never know, but it is what it is and more is at work than anger at a Brexit vote from five years ago.

[android]

That’s some shortsighted thinking - violence is never the answer. The UK voted for Brexit as a collective and a decision was made. How that decision played out was nothing more than a theatre of politics in which decisions were made by elected officials on how best to achieve the mandate from the public.

Northern Ireland’s elected officials, the DUP, supported Brexit. Why the people would vote to stay in the EU but vote for a party in support of it I’ll never know, but it is what it is and more is at work than anger at a Brexit vote from five years ago.

Of course the violence is not a good thing but Brexit has put at risk the Good Friday peace agreement. Those who voted for Brexit didn't think too hard about that or that the soft border between Ireland and the North would be in jeopardy. Seemed to have failed to learn about the The Troubles that were an sectarian ethno-nationalist period of conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to the late 1990s. Selfishly didn't care about the delicate British and Irish relationship. Now the Loyalists feel betrayed because the border is moving to the Irish sea and some resorting to violence and this will lead to a response from the Catholics. There was an uneasy peace with all sides belonging to the EU now there is distrust and the unknown. Congratulations Brexit voters.

[Artoo]

Of course the violence is not a good thing but Brexit has put at risk the Good Friday peace agreement. Those who voted for Brexit didn't think too hard about that or that the soft border between Ireland and the North would be in jeopardy. Seemed to have failed to learn about the The Troubles that were an sectarian ethno-nationalist period of conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to the late 1990s. Selfishly didn't care about the delicate British and Irish relationship. Now the Loyalists feel betrayed because the border is moving to the Irish sea and some resorting to violence and this will lead to a response from the Catholics. There was an uneasy peace with all sides belonging to the EU now there is distrust and the unknown.

So we’re back to Brexit shaming are we? Okay, have fun.

[android]

So we’re back to Brexit shaming are we? Okay, have fun.

You can call it that and there is no fun but failing to acknowledge the reasons of the current frustrations will resolve nothing.

[Artoo]

You can call it that and there is no fun but failing to acknowledge the reasons of the current frustrations will resolve nothing.

The Brexit vote was five years ago and the UK left the EU over a year ago. It’s not the Brexit vote that’s at fault - the NI result was almost (but not quite) as divided as the final tally and I seem to recall NI had the lowest turn out of the four nations.

The real problem is the political decisions of elected officials that executed the public mandate to leave the EU, not the mandate itself. Don’t forget the DUP threw their hats in with the Tories to put them in power.

To be honest the whole of the UK is a nation divided. Over the last ten years there hasn’t really been a clear consensus on anything and we are divided almost down the middle on all the big issues.

Ultimately, David Cameron has a lot to answer for and history will not be kind to him, Teresa May (because nothing went right during her tenure and she achieved bugger all) nor Boris Johnson (who messed up Brexit and a pandemic). Honestly, I’ve no idea why people vote for them, I really don’t.

[theMathematician]

To be honest the whole of the UK is a nation divided. Over the last ten years there hasn’t really been a clear consensus on anything and we are divided almost down the middle on all the big issues.

Is that really a problem? The UK consists of 4 countries, which again consist of multiple counties, which have further smaller administrative division. It's totally normal that there are different or even oppositional views within the regions of the country. It's the case in my country as well, same for the US, Spain, Belgium and many others.

[android]

We be disagreeing over semantics methinks. Yes Politicians either manipulated or took for granted deep seated but ill founded anxieties over being in the EU. Where the UK and Ireland go from here is what needs to be resolved and how leaders do that with out putting people offside who have used violent means in the past is the conundrum. What happens when some loyalists don't accept the Irish sea as the new border? What happens when Irish Nationalists soon become the majority in NI?

[android]

Is that really a problem? The UK consists of 4 countries, which again consist of multiple counties, which have further smaller administrative division. It's totally normal that there are different or even oppositional views within the regions of the country. It's the case in my country as well, same for the US, Spain, Belgium and many others.

It is ok until there is violence or suppression.

[theMathematician]

I totally agree with you on that one, android. Have debates, but do it in a respectful and non-violent way ;) !

[Artoo]

We be disagreeing over semantics methinks.

Not at all - I just object to you implying the rest of the UK don’t care about NI and that we only have ourselves to blame if NI bring the violence to mainland Britain, because the majority voted for Brexit.

[Artoo]

Is that really a problem? The UK consists of 4 countries, which again consist of multiple counties, which have further smaller administrative division. It's totally normal that there are different or even oppositional views within the regions of the country. It's the case in my country as well, same for the US, Spain, Belgium and many others.

It is a problem because a nation divided on fundamental matters, such as membership to the EU or whether Scotland should remain part of the UK, has huge political repercussions in that it makes it harder for a government to govern.

In the UK we have had four general elections in the last eleven years all with varying results. To win an election, the public must vote to elect members of parliament and the political party with the most elected members wins - but a win is only achieved with a majority (326 members out of 650).

In the last eleven years, two of the elections have not had a winner, one was won by just four members (330/650 - which in practice was not enough to govern) and only the last one in 2019 offered a clear majority (365/650) - but then the pandemic hit and a lot of people aren’t happy with how it’s been handled, potentially indicating more division later.

Ideally a country united behind one leader with a clear political vision as to the future of a country. In the UK we don’t have anyone like that can unify the public and with the rise in nationalist parties, it’s actually very difficult to get an election majority.

[android]

Not at all - I just object to you implying the rest of the UK don’t care about NI and that we only have ourselves to blame if NI bring the violence to mainland Britain, because the majority voted for Brexit.

Not quite what I implied or said, more I asked the question did they care or think about the consequences for NI when they voted for Brexit. Did you think about the potential consequences of renewed violence?