UK Politics General Discussion

[DiogoJ42]

I've seen that story, and with no knowledge of the case the account given simply does not stack up. It's almost like it os one sided clickbait designed to enrage...

It's nothing personal mate, but I fully believe we are now in the early stages of a police state.
I know not all cops are [redacted]s...... But I do know someone who quit the force because he refused to be a part of what he was ordered to do. They made no effort to stop him, after spending so much on his training. Almost as if they didn't want anyone who has a sense of morality?
(I shall say no more on that particular incident he told me about.)

 

[pluk]

It's nothing personal mate, but I fully believe we are now in the early stages of a police state.
I know not all cops are [redacted]s...... But I do know someone who quit the force because he refused to be a part of what he was ordered to do. They made no effort to stop him, after spending so much on his training. Almost as if they didn't want anyone who has a sense of morality?
(I shall say no more on that particular incident he told me about.)

Hmmm. Intriguing, but... odd. Policing is not a job, you are not employed. You take the oath and hold powers to use without fear or favour. You can't really be told to do anything much; an unlawful order cannot be enforced. If what they were ordered to do was legal, well than that's the law and is to be upheld whether you agree with it personally or not, if it was not lawful then it can be ignored and you get on with your day, and if you dont know the law then as a police officer it's time to learn! That law extends not only to the laws of the land, but also police powers.

There are laws I dont personally agree with, but I will uphold them, and there's nothing that's so outrageous (I can't think of anything with any equivalence to the old homosexuality laws, for example) that I can't do so without a clear conscience. All I can do is act with some sense of proportionality.

There can be pressures, from inside and outside the police, but it always comes back to without fear or favour. I think you'd be hard pressed to find an officer with any amount of experience that hasn't given someone of rank a good hard 'no' at some point. I certainly have.

And no, I've never heard of the job trying to dissuade anyone from leaving, that's not really how it works. It's not a business and mostly isn’t run like one. The last thing you want is someone working there that doesn't want to do it, that's not compatible with the level of self sufficiency that's required.

EDIT: that's not to say I'm dumb enough to think that policing, and police officers, are perfect. There's plenty of incompetence about in every walknof life. We are a hell of a long way from a police state though, and I dont think if we were heading that way the plight of a bloke on an alotment that admitted an offence and accepted a caution woukd be the sign we needed to look out for.

 

[DiogoJ42]

I respect you, I understand what you have said, and I have no wish to get in to an argument with you.
But no-matter how honourable any LEO's [is that term too American? It feels too American] intentions are, it is a job, and you are employed.

But anyway, the real beef here is not with the frontline workers who are "only following orders" [do NOT read anything in to that!!], it's with the clowns who make these rules from their ivory towers, who have not set foot in the real world since I was in school.

(For anyone who roleplays, why do I feel like this is how all arguments over "alignment" start? )

Oh , and just for balance, I've spent a couple of hours this evening watching YT compilations of morons who FAFO with police, and get what they ****** deserve.

 

[DistortAMG]

Policing is not a job, you are not employed. You take the oath and hold powers to use without fear or favour.

But it is a job, they are paid and they are classed under law as employed. I am almost certain they also hold the same protections and rights under employment law as anyone else in the country.

Yes, they hold powers to use without fear or favour, but say an operations manager at Amazon also holds powers within that organisation to use without fear or favour, or as it is more commonly known in the corporate world, equally. It is just that the organisation and remit of the Police, to exercise their much more powerful powers are country wide. But the principles are quite similar, no?

 

[pluk]

But it is a job, they are paid and they are classed under law as employed. I am almost certain they also hold the same protections and rights under employment law as anyone else in the country.

Yes, they hold powers to use without fear or favour, but say an operations manager at Amazon also holds powers within that organisation to use without fear or favour, or as it is more commonly known in the corporate world, equally. It is just your organisation and remit to exercise your much more powerful powers are country wide. But the principles are quite similar,

...and @DiogoJ42 as multi quote fail.

Not quite. Google AI gives (for once!) quite a neat overview...



In real life these are far more than just technicalities, and this is the structure for good reason exactly to prevent misuse of police officers by those in power outside the police, and of rank inside the police. It means police here could never hide behind any sort if 'I was just following orders', which is ultimately how misuse of police as a force and a police state occurs.

And no, most employment law is not relevant to police, including the big ones; no right to strike at one extreme, and no mechanism for redundancy at the other.

 

[Alsty]

But it is a job, they are paid and they are classed under law as employed. I am almost certain they also hold the same protections and rights under employment law as anyone else in the country.

I am not sure what point you are trying to make, but police officers are employed by the Crown and they do not have contracts of employment. This means they are not protected by many employment laws, e.g. they cannot bring a case for unfair dismissal. They also cannot strike, to name another difference from "anyone else in the country".

 

[Matt N]

It would appear that the heat around illegal migration has reached new heights, as Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe yesterday reported a charity rowing crew off the coast of Great Yarmouth to the authorities as he mistakenly thought that they were “potential illegal migrants”: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdd32lnq445o

The boaters were allegedly then greeted along the Great Yarmouth coastline by people lined up shining lights at them to try and send them away.

Admittedly, Lowe did admit his mistake and donate £1,000 to the MND charity, and it is good that he’s trying to stand up for what his constituents believe in, but I do feel that the paranoia around illegal migration has maybe been taken too far when an utterly innocuous boat is reported to the coastguard as potential illegal migrants despite having done nothing wrong.

In another political news story, Labour’s homelessness minister was forced to resign after she evicted tenants from a house and then re-let it weeks later for £700 more per month… in direct contrast with a law that is currently being drafted by Labour to stop landlords from doing this: https://www.theguardian.com/politic...s-calls-to-resign-over-tenant-eviction-claims

I do fear that stories like this one from the Labour government only add to the impression that “they’re all the same” and fuel the momentum behind insurgent populist movements like Reform. That’s not what Starmer will want; he sold the government on being a government of integrity, and having a minister resign for hypocrisy detracts from that impression.

 

[Benzin]

I mean at least they resigned which is better than the previous incumbents.

But landlords are just awful no matter what tie they wear.

 

[Dave]

It's nothing personal mate, but I fully believe we are now in the early stages of a police state.
I know not all cops are [redacted]s...... But I do know someone who quit the force because he refused to be a part of what he was ordered to do. They made no effort to stop him, after spending so much on his training. Almost as if they didn't want anyone who has a sense of morality?
(I shall say no more on that particular incident he told me about.)

We are nowhere near the early stages of a police state (you need a higher proportion of police to population for a start ).

There are laws you might disagree with, for instance categorising Palestinian action as a terrorist organisation I think is poor, even if I disagree with the tactics of the group (I agree with their aims, but I don’t think damaging our own military equipment is right). I think there are ways of legislating to make such action bring liability to the wider group without making the existence of the group itself illegal.

But you are allowed to contact your MP and tell them you disagree with the government on this, you won’t get a knock on your door taking you to some gulag if you do. So no it’s not a police state.

 

[DiogoJ42]

.... yet.

 

[Dave]

.... yet.

Well if Farage becomes PM I will start to worry for sure but until then no.

 

[DiogoJ42]

It is possible to be very concerned with the current state of the country, without wanting extremist nutters to take over.

 

[JAperson]

It would appear that the heat around illegal migration has reached new heights, as Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe yesterday reported a charity rowing crew off the coast of Great Yarmouth to the authorities as he mistakenly thought that they were “potential illegal migrants”: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdd32lnq445o

The boaters were allegedly then greeted along the Great Yarmouth coastline by people lined up shining lights at them to try and send them away.

Admittedly, Lowe did admit his mistake and donate £1,000 to the MND charity, and it is good that he’s trying to stand up for what his constituents believe in, but I do feel that the paranoia around illegal migration has maybe been taken too far when an utterly innocuous boat is reported to the coastguard as potential illegal migrants despite having done nothing wrong.

In another political news story, Labour’s homelessness minister was forced to resign after she evicted tenants from a house and then re-let it weeks later for £700 more per month… in direct contrast with a law that is currently being drafted by Labour to stop landlords from doing this: https://www.theguardian.com/politic...s-calls-to-resign-over-tenant-eviction-claims

I do fear that stories like this one from the Labour government only add to the impression that “they’re all the same” and fuel the momentum behind insurgent populist movements like Reform. That’s not what Starmer will want; he sold the government on being a government of integrity, and having a minister resign for hypocrisy detracts from that impression.

Lowe was too extreme for reform, so I'd take little note of what he says. Although will give him one thing over Farage he does seem to actually engage with his constituency and care about it. About the only good thing about him being anywhere near parliament.

In other news that I'm sure both Lowe and Farage will conveniently ignore and disregard as wrong (even though they've literally being calling for this exact thing), illegal immigrants will be deported straight the way upon committing a crime.

 

[rob666]

Not on committing crime, but on conviction.
Massive difference when the individuals involved are routinely not taken into custody.
So generally, six months after the crime is committed, if they turn up at court.

 

[Dave]

So Regorm have released their plan for dealing with asylum seekers, the plan is kind of irrelevant for the actual purported problem, but for those tempted by their message here is the truth of the matter:

Reform don’t care about immigration, legal or otherwise, they have a problem with the UK Human rights act and the European Court of Human rights and today they announced they would repeal the Human rights act and pull of out the ECHR.

Now the Reform fans will rejoice I’m sure as for sure both those things do limit government action on migrant crossings to a point, but here is the Truth of it, they don’t want to remove the migrants rights they want to remove British people’s rights. Most employment rights, rights to freedom of expression and rights to a private life come from those acts/ institutions and reform hate that you have rights as an employee, minority and that they can’t control your private life.

They also hate freedom of speech (despite saying they are defending it), like Trump they only want freedom of speech for those that agree with them( hence why Farage kicked out a US politician from an event he chaired as they publicly disagreed with him.

So by all means folks vote for Reform, but you will find out just like Americans are now doing that they will create a bogeyman for you to fear but they are coming after you.

 

[rob666]

Sorry, folks, by all means don't vote for reform.
Simple.
Hey, idiot, leave that mini roundabout alone.
Highways Act 1980.
Legs need smacking.

 

[DiogoJ42]

I'll vote for any party that will repeal the OSA.

 

[Dave]

I'll vote for any party that will repeal the OSA.

Although I agree the OSA is bad legislation if you think this is of higher consequence than human rights I fear the phrase turkeys voting for Christmas springs to mind.

 

[BarryZola]

This is the problem again you see, when we get to the next general election. None of the main parties + Reform are worth voting for. I don't have faith that any of them will implement the changes needed to make any real improvements to the country, and the one party that does seem willing to take drastic action with regards to boat crossings wants to tear up the human rights legislation to do so, which also seems unacceptable. So, unless reform can sort the mess out without ripping up that legislation, then they can't be voted for either. That leaves smaller parties that have no chance of winning. Once again, no point in voting, as things stand, although I did waste a vote on the Greens in protest last time as I knew Labour would be no better than the Tories in any noticeable way.

I mean, at the point that Starmer and Reeves couldn't even get their policies through on disability benefits and the winter fuel allowance, being that they were two of the biggest things that they had come up with, they should have resigned if they had any self respect and weren't just willing to put up with it to keep their heads in the trough.

 

[Dave]

I mean, at the point that Starmer and Reeves couldn't even get their policies through on disability benefits and the winter fuel allowance, being that they were two of the biggest things that they had come up with, they should have resigned if they had any self respect and weren't just willing to put up with it to keep their heads in the trough.

That’s a big misunderstanding of our political process, if a government had to resign every time they lost a vote (they didn’t lose the winter fuel one, they just decided to change the parameters due to political pressure), then we would be going through governments at a rate of 1 a year on average. It’s clear governments fall when either they lose a vote of no confidence or lose a vote on the budget which is a defacto VoNC.

As it stands with the current government I’m still
on the fence. For key points my opinions are:

Online safety act - Tory legislation, Labour would have done better to amend it but I guarantee if they had the media would have just screamed they where siding with criminals.

Winter fuel - personally had no issue with the principal of the change but thought it was politically dodgy due to the power of they elderly vote.

Trans rights - Yeah 60% of the population are now gender critical but it’s not a major vote swinger except for those people it actually impacts (trans people and their friends and family) so dumb thing to come down hard on and morally bad.

Disability cuts and subsequent u-turn - Personally think this is the big thing they have messed up. There is an argument that something needs doing but it was ham fisted and cruel. Both practically and politically dumb.

Farmers inheritance tax - Bunch of posh rich people moaning about nothing.

NI increase - mostly done very little but lots of greedy corporations have enjoyed using it as an excuse.

Economy - Fastest growing economy in the G7 even during Trumps attack on global trade, not sure anyone else would have done any better. Think if they where a bit braver and hadn’t banged on about the 20 billion black hole as much they might have been even faster growing but there you go.

Workers rights bill - really like

NHS - Slowly improving, see how it goes.

Planning reform - really like

Environmental plans - really like

Foreign policy - Good on Ukraine, kept away the worst of Trump tariffs, slow on Isreal and Gaza but understand their reticence with the parties anti-semitism accusations under Corbyn. Think using terrorism laws against Palestinian action was extreme (though people who say PA are a peaceful protest movement are fools).

So yeah, it’s mediocre but Reform and the Tories and what ever Corbyn decides to call his party would bonfire the country. Lib-dems would be as mediocre as Labour I suppose but slightly to right of centre.