British Politics Thread

And IIRC, Swinney is only slightly more popular with the party than... Forbes? And it's flipped for the electorate as a whole—although we're talking 20% values anyway°. You'd think if the party's support was policy driven, that continuation of the prior perspectives would be vastly more popular than the blatant homophobe. Which... nope.

°Will see if I can find the exact article when I get to a computer.

I haven't heard about Brexit for a while now, how's that going these days?

It happened and we got sick of talking about it basically

Border checks on goods are a pain and causing economic harm, we’ve had to run border check on internal goods movements (across the Irish Sea) to avoid causing Northern Ireland to explode, there have been no benefits, immigration is still high.

It made everything worse, but we’ve done a greater act economic self-harm since then (Truss) so that’s rather eclipsed things.

Rejoin has had a lead in polling average since mid-2021 (and has led in all but 3 polls since the start of 2022), but because the papers like Brexit no politician will advocate for any kind of grater integration with the EU.

Why do the papers like Brexit?

They feel they have control over Westminster but not Brussels.

Murdoch famously once said “When I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice.”

Looks like Swinney is going to get the job in a walkover, as Kate Forbes has decided to take a cabinet post in exchange for not running. She's probably more popular with the overall public, but not with SNP members.

Labour and the Tories are both calling it a fix that achieves nothing; certainly as Sturgeon's former deputy, Swinney has some baggage that can be used against him, but time will tell.

Well, it's a minority government that's probably jilted the Greens too much to get a nice agreement again, so I'm guessing it's just going to put us in a holding pattern until elections.

So transphobia seems to have taken off with British politicians and journalists, almost to the point of parody. Are British people actually that transphobic tho? I'm genuinely curious. Who exactly are politicians trying to appease? Bigotry only gets you so far

I hate how Turf Island is getting more and more accurate as a name

Overall, no. Even a concerted attempt to normalise transphobia has only shifted the needle a little (although still to an alarming extent).

Problem is, the previously very small transphobic groups got a massive shot in the arm a few years back. The USA settled marriage equality at a federal level, and a lot of very angry members of the religious right needed a new cause celebre, right when the UK was starting an innocuous consultation into allowing self identification for trans folk.

There's also been a specific heated reaction to Scotland's self identity laws, which Westminster parlayed into the wider issue of whether Devolution should exist by employing their veto over the devolved parliament - the first time in the near 25 year history of the latter that said veto had been used.

This successfully muddled the debate by making it a Punnett Square - people could support or oppose the veto either because they support/oppose the bill or because they suppport/oppose the veto. One doesn't necessarily imply the other of course, but it was very much painted by the media to look like it did. The fact that the left leaning and pro-independence SNP and Greens were the architects of and main supporters of the Bill did not help this skew.

The papers, it’s always the papers.

While British politicians do try and win election by appealing to voters much (possibly most) of that appealing isn’t done directly, it’s done by making nice with the newspapers Barrons who control the national agenda and have a history of destroying the political careers of anyone who stands in their way.

The UK is kinda singular in that regard, right? At least in the Western World. I mean, there are influential News Agencies everywhere, but none have the kind of destructive powers as they have over there.

Compared to the US, in any case.

I think Australia may have a similar problem, that’s the place that spawned Murdoch after all.

The US has a much more fragmented news-scape, for one thing. Fox News and MSNBC simply aren't going to form a united front to push a single narrative. Second, the perpetual campaign cycle means that spending money to shape the narrative is generally done through non-news organizations such as campaigns and superPACs.

I found a poll, which was made in May 2022 by YouGov.

I don't know how much things changed one way or another in those two years.

...................

In summary, the poll says that two-thirds of Britons (66%),  pay too little attention or none at all to the issue of transgender rights or other "culture war" debates. (42% pay little attention, while 24% pay none)

34% said they pay a fair amount of attention.

................

In general  Half of Britons (49%) believe that discrimination against transgender people is either a major problem (16%) or a significant problem (33%) in Britain.

Among those who pay no attention at all  25% think discrimination against trans people is a major/significant problem, while 49% think it isn’t much of a problem, if it is one at all.

Among those that pay little attention  49% say discrimination against trans people is a significant problem, compared to the 37% who disagree.

.....................

When asked if the people have both the social and legal right to change gender:

38% Answered yes to both.

23% Answered no to both

17% say yes to the social change of gender, but are unsure or oppose the legal change.

The rest answered with "I don't know" to both questions.

......................

When the process of gender change is explained to people, (including that they need a doctor's permission and must live 2 years as their new gender before any legal change)

50% think the process is fine as it is

26% think the process should be made easier

The rest answered that they don't know

......................

When asked if transgender should be allowed to participate in women's sports:

61% No

16% Yes

The rest answered that they don't know

........................

When asked if allowing transgender women access to spaces reserved for women presents a genuine risk of harm, And if increased trans rights pose a risk to women's rights:

39% Yes

32% No

The rest answered that they don't know

.............................

There are other questions and more details that can be found here

https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/43194-where-does-british-public-stand-transgender-rights-1

Again, this is a two-year-old poll.

Edited by jawal on May 2nd 2024 at 9:51:09 AM

Sounds like lots of conflicting opinions there. Similar to polls I've seen in the USA on the same questions, actually.

See also John Major.

I've said this before, but the general impression I get is that most people don't really give a shit, and even people who would otherwise care one way or another are too caught up with more sensible problems to do so. It's just blown wildly out of proportion by the media, who've discovered that it's an easy way to get attention.

Most people I've spoken to personally (and I live in a conservative-leaning but overall more 'cosmopolitan' part of the country - i.e. open racism and homophobia is generally frowned upon, at least among the middle-class - so that's gonna factor into things) strike me as broadly accepting of trans people but having specific Concerns(tm) about things like access to women's-only spaces and participation in sports, and it's a little difficult to push back against the TERF narrative on those topics because that's the only one being pushed by mainstream media outlets. I've even seen LGBTQ advocates suggest that trying to counter that narrative is a non-starter for the time being, and they should instead focus on questions of basic rights and respect (I don't necessarily agree with this, just noting it here for the record). The polls cited above seem to corroborate this.

And just as a sidenote, I'm convinced that the TERF movement in the UK wouldn't be half as prominent as it is if it weren't for JK Rowling specifically, since because of Harry Potter she became something of a Sacred Cow (as demonstrated when christian fundies accused her of promoting witchcraft and were almost universally shouted down), and so when she started going off the deep end a lot of celebrities and public figures who would otherwise condemn such things instead leapt to her defence - after all, if the one and only JK Rowling says it, it has to have some merit, right? :V

I'm starting to see signs of this winding down as she and the movement she supports slides further into open craziness (including receiving glowing endorsements from people like Vladimir Putin), but it'll never go away as long as the papers insist on giving her leeway that no-one else would get.

Edited by PresidentStalkeyes on May 3rd 2024 at 11:46:23 AM

As mentioned previously in the thread, I've seen a lot of articles since the Cass Report, trying to claim it's vindication she was right all along. So it's not going away any time soon.

In more lighthearted news: Boris was caught out by his own law requiring photo id

And early signs are that Tories are getting the expected pasting in the local elections.

I’ve seen it suggested that the Boris thing might have been a stunt, either hoping to be allowed to vote without ID (so he could say the need for ID is validated and we need to be harsher) or to suppress stories of regular people being refused the right to vote via search engine optimisation (SEO). Boris was last accused of planting a story for SEO purposes when he did an interview talking about how he really liked buses, potentially to hide the story of him running the Brexit campaign with a bunch of lies on the side of a bus.

also building model buses to relax or something

I think part of it is just societal growing pains for a new and very different way of thinking about male and female spaces and activities. Especially those questions about female sports and toilets are complex issues that don't have an obvious easy answer, because those issues go into the very definition of what those things are in the first place.

We should also consider that some people simply answer they don't know because they don't feel like it's their place to decide that, or they feel the issue is too complex to give a simple answer on a form.