UK & EU Politics Thread

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**Kilkrazy**

Alexa Bradley, who focuses on crime statistics and analysis for the ONS, wrote: the two sets of figures showed the "picture of crime" had been "fairly stable", with levels much lower than the peak seen in the mid-1990s.

So yes, crime is up, but it is up from historically low levels and hasn't nearly reached historically high levels.

While we shouldn't be complacent, the picture is hardly the post-apocalyptic wasteland promised for after Brexit.

I wonder if rising crime always attends a Tory administration?

**Future War Cultist**

@ DINLT

It is sad to see. Here in Northern Ireland paramilitary punishments are also on the rise. It’s a catch 22 for us over here; we have less muggings, burglaries and hard drug use than I imagine England Scotland and wales have but it comes at the cost of shadowy gangsters all over the place who will quite literally blow your leg off if you draw attention to yourself.

I have personal experience of it. My cousin was ‘put out’ of his home area for various crimes (car theft and assault), and somebody was recently shot at the end of my aunts street. Oh, and my cousin was awoken one night to find that her neighbour had been beaten to a bloody pulp right outside her door. His crime was smoking pot and having loud parties. I don’t know what the punishment for that is in the rest of the uk but here it’s apparently a fractured eye socket and severe blood loss.

**AlmightyWalrus**

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Regular posters here will no doubt be familiar with my tough stance on the crime that blights this great nation, so it gives me no pleasure to once again highlight an increase in crime!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43905407

As always, I'll probably be shot down in flames for posting black and white evidence. Again!

but we can't deny truth or facts here.

OAPs are cowering behind curtains, too frightened to walk the streets. Criminal gangs roam the streets with impunity.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/26/lordship-lane-the-london-road-paying-a-heavy-toll-for-gang-warfare

The courts and judges have their hands tied, and the Police seem unwilling to do anything about it

Normally, I would say the country's going to the dogs, but we're moving beyond that

Read your own links. Please.

BBC article that you just linked yourself wrote:A separate survey on the public's experience of crimes in the two countries said there had been no change in overall violent offences.

The reason you get shot down repeatedly is because what you think is black and white evidence isn't, and you're too stubborn and/or ignorant to realize this despite having been called out multiple times on the issue already. Stop it.

There's also a rather marked difference, as Kilkrazy pointed out, between a rise in crime and "criminal gangs roaming the street with impunity". You're trying, and failing, to deal with matters of methodology that you clearly do not understand. Again. For the umpteenth time.

**Herzlos**

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Regular posters here will no doubt be familiar with my tough stance on the crime that blights this great nation, so it gives me no pleasure to once again highlight an increase in crime!

Crime is up, a natural consequence of gutting the police forces. No-one (apart of May) is trying to deny that.

However, the UK is not the crime ridden dystopia you seem to think it is.

**Herbington**

Herzlos wrote:
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Regular posters here will no doubt be familiar with my tough stance on the crime that blights this great nation, so it gives me no pleasure to once again highlight an increase in crime!

Crime is up, a natural consequence of gutting the police forces. No-one (apart of May) is trying to deny that.

However, the UK is not the crime ridden dystopia you seem to think it is.

Just reading past the headline would have shown that the headline doesn't match most of the content in the article.

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

Kilkrazy wrote:
Alexa Bradley, who focuses on crime statistics and analysis for the ONS, wrote: the two sets of figures showed the "picture of crime" had been "fairly stable", with levels much lower than the peak seen in the mid-1990s.

So yes, crime is up, but it is up from historically low levels and hasn't nearly reached historically high levels.

While we shouldn't be complacent, the picture is hardly the post-apocalyptic wasteland promised for after Brexit.

I wonder if rising crime always attends a Tory administration?

Well, the Tories have been in power for the vast majority of the last 100 years, so you're probably right about crime.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Future War Cultist wrote:
@ DINLT

It is sad to see. Here in Northern Ireland paramilitary punishments are also on the rise. It’s a catch 22 for us over here; we have less muggings, burglaries and hard drug use than I imagine England Scotland and wales have but it comes at the cost of shadowy gangsters all over the place who will quite literally blow your leg off if you draw attention to yourself.

I have personal experience of it. My cousin was ‘put out’ of his home area for various crimes (car theft and assault), and somebody was recently shot at the end of my aunts street. Oh, and my cousin was awoken one night to find that her neighbour had been beaten to a bloody pulp right outside her door. His crime was smoking pot and having loud parties. I don’t know what the punishment for that is in the rest of the uk but here it’s apparently a fractured eye socket and severe blood loss.

Yeah, sadly, that's the price to be paid in the name of peace - turning a blind eye to former paramilitaries turned gangsters.

I have no doubt that the security services and PSNI know them all, but their hands are probably tied.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Herzlos wrote:
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Regular posters here will no doubt be familiar with my tough stance on the crime that blights this great nation, so it gives me no pleasure to once again highlight an increase in crime!

Crime is up, a natural consequence of gutting the police forces. No-one (apart of May) is trying to deny that.

However, the UK is not the crime ridden dystopia you seem to think it is.

Well, you wouldn't catch me walking the streets of London after dark, that's for sure.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Herbington wrote:
Herzlos wrote:
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Regular posters here will no doubt be familiar with my tough stance on the crime that blights this great nation, so it gives me no pleasure to once again highlight an increase in crime!

Crime is up, a natural consequence of gutting the police forces. No-one (apart of May) is trying to deny that.

However, the UK is not the crime ridden dystopia you seem to think it is.

Just reading past the headline would have shown that the headline doesn't match most of the content in the article.

Knife and gun crime is up - and that's a fact. The rest is just blather.

**Kilkrazy**

A quick back of an envelope tot-up shows that Conservatives have formed the government in 53 of the past 100 years. If you count the coalition of 2010-15 as Conservative, it's 58/42.

**Herzlos**

Crime has been trending down for a long time, due to various societal improvements.
Crime hype is probably up, due to our obsession with it, on-demand news and social media.

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

Well, you wouldn't catch me walking the streets of London after dark, that's for sure.

Yet literally tens of thousands do and live to tell the tale. Sure there are probably parts of London I'd avoid on my own, it's still not a crime ridden dystopia with gangs roving the street with impunity.
Reality and statistics just don't agree with your take on crime.

Knife and gun crime is up - and that's a fact. The rest is just blather.

And so are acid attacks. But it's still a very small part of the picture.

**Kilkrazy**

Knife crime is down in Scotland, though. They have been policing it with different methods to the Met(ropolitan) Police. Apparently they treat it like a public health epidemic, rather than as isolated instances of criminality

**reds8n**

https://twitter.com/theipaper/status/989486603814031360

.. Rudd's reply .. ?!

so we've got Theresa May who has full confidence in Amber Rudd, who is facing calls to resign over terrible things that mainly happened at the Home Office when Theresa May was running it.

.. you couldn't write his eh ?

who could ;possibly have foreseen etc etc etc

**Inquisitor Gideon**

[quote=Do_I_Not_Like_That 724548 9948748 6b6299a0e27a2d6386133e3a3a4e49af.jpg Well, you wouldn't catch me walking the streets of London after dark, that's for sure.

**Future War Cultist**

reds8n wrote:
https://twitter.com/theipaper/status/989486603814031360

.. Rudd's reply .. ?!

so we've got Theresa May who has full confidence in Amber Rudd, who is facing calls to resign over terrible things that mainly happened at the Home Office when Theresa May was running it.

.. you couldn't write his eh ?

who could ;possibly have foreseen etc etc etc

As a non wargaming related image, is that allowed? I ask because Creed had his taken down. Have the rules changed?

**BrookM**

The image is not attached to the Dakka servers and hosted off-site, so yes.

**Future War Cultist**

Fair enough.

**Graphite**

I'm honestly starting to think that DINLT is posting from Necromunda.

**Kilkrazy**

Maybe he is posting from the future, after Brexit has turned Britain into a Mad Max style psot-apocalyptic wasteland.

**Da Boss**

I don't see how anyone could be surprised that the extra paperwork caused by Brexit would lead to increase administrative fees. I wonder how many times the Mail and Express have used the "EU must be joking" line?

**Future War Cultist**

£6 isn’t that much.

It is funny though how these new rules or proposals are coming out now at this particular point in time. If I was cynical, which I am, I’d say it was motivated by spite.

**Da Boss**

If you say so. It hardly matters what it is motivated by though.

**Kilkrazy**

Future War Cultist wrote:
£6 isn’t that much.

It is funny though how these new rules or proposals are coming out now at this particular point in time. If I was cynical, which I am, I’d say it was motivated by spite.

More likely the process to Brexit is a long negotiation which takes several years, and no-one could think about all the details right at the beginning.

Some of us Remainers were talking about the possible future difficulty of visas last year. Though I must say I thought we would go back to the old pre-1971 system. That said, IDK if visas cost anything to process back then.

**Future War Cultist**

Well sure, the beginnings of this plan probably begin years ago. The timing was just unfortunate.

I honestly don’t care though. It’s no different to how we deal with every other country on the planet.

**reds8n**

The process began/was formulated in 2016

https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/etias/

It was also pointed out during the referendum but was -- surprise ! -- dismissed as more scaremongering.

TBF it's not impossible that the UK could negotiate some form of membership or exemption but that of course would rely upon the people doing our Brexit negotiations not being effectively useless.

It's really not that different that the visa one needs to go to the USA

https://euobserver.com/justice/141705

British tabloids roared in disapproval on Thursday (26 April), after EU diplomats advanced plans for new border checks and fees.

"EU must be joking!" the Daily Mail, the headline of one top-selling newspaper said. "BREXIT BOMBSHELL: Britons could be forced to pay €7 for European visa after EU split," the Daily Express, another anti-EU paper, said.

The reference to a "European visa" was misleading, but the new European Travel Information and Authorisation System (Etias), agreed on Wednesday, will impose "a travel authorisation fee of €7" on all "visa-exempt third country nationals" when it enters into life.

Etias, which is modelled on the US visa-waiver system, is designed to increase border security in times of mass migration and a heightened terrorist threat.

Visitors to the EU, including from the US, will have to file an online application, which will be cross-checked against EU states' crime databases and those of Interpol, the international police agency.

Most will get a travel permit "automatically and quickly" and the €7 fee will keep them covered for three years.

But if the databases score a "hit", or if there are "doubts" or "elements requiring further analysis" they will be told - within 96 hours - that they were denied entry into Europe's so-called Schengen travel zone, which includes 26 countries.

That was the deal agreed by EU member states' ambassadors in Brussels on Wednesday.

It is likely to enter into force by 2020 after MEPs and member states add final touches.

"We will be better able to stop those who may pose a threat to our citizens," Valentin Radev, the interior minister of Bulgaria, which holds the EU presidency, said on Wednesday.

"We need to know who is crossing our borders," the European Commission, which first proposed the scheme, said.

It said Etias was needed not just for security reasons, but also to reduce "migration risks of travellers benefiting from visa-free access to the Schengen area".

The British tabloids roared because the UK will become a "visa-exempt third country" when it exits the EU next year, falling under Etias, unless it negotiates an exemption.

Border problems already lie at the heart of Brexit talks, amid questions on how to keep free movement between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland when the UK leaves.

The Daily Mail promoted the idea of one British MP that the UK should impose a £10 (€11) on EU travellers in return for Etias to raise an extra £150m a year for the British treasury.

The British papers said the Schengen fee would raise money for the EU budget, but that was also partly misleading.

The Etias scheme is to cost €200m to launch and around €85m a year to maintain, the EU said.

There were 39 million visitors to the EU last year. If each one paid €7, it would generate €273m in revenues, helping to cover Etias costs, but the figure would diminish in subsequent years due to the three-year duration of the Etias permits.

What is depressingly predictable is the reaction -- see above -- of the papers and the anti EU crowd.

They're the ones who are making things more awkward.

For example :

Professional Liar Dan Hannon has been tweeting again :

Turkey is in the customs union, yet it has heavily policed borders with the EU. Norway and Switzerland are not, and have free-movement deals with their neighbours like that between Ireland and the U.K. Their borders are largely unmanned and invisible.

which is certainly a take.

In the real world however :

https://www.thelocal.ch/20170405/italians-angered-after-switzerland-closes-border-crossings-at-night/amp

or you can go here :
http://www.pwebapps.ezv.admin.ch/apps/dst/?lang=4

and see the customs post in Switzerland

Click on some of them and you'll see the words:

"No merchandise customs clearance"

or bits like

or you can go here :

https://www.ezv.admin.ch/ezv/en/home/information-companies/declaring-goods/importation-into-switzerland/declaring-goods.html

Goods intended for final import into Swiss customs territory must be delivered to a Swiss customs office and declared for customs clearance. The accompanying documents listed below must be presented along with the duly completed import customs declaration.

from last year :
https://www.ft.com/content/2d30482c-da7e-11e7-a039-c64b1c09b482

When you land at Geneva Airport with the intention of driving onwards, you have a choice. You can pass through Swiss immigration and head straight for the car hire desks. Alternatively, you can go up an escalator, along a corridor and cross into the French sector where the same multinational car hire companies will offer you a different deal.

Swiss regulations insist that hire cars have winter tyres fitted between the autumn and spring and they will also have a “vignette”, paying the annual SFR 40 ($40) road tax allowing the car to drive on Switzerland’s motorways. Cars hired from the French side have neither and often differ in specifications, but are generally much cheaper. From the same rental company, it is currently possible to hire a family car for the February half-term holiday for roughly half the price if you are willing to pick it up and return it to the French sector of the airport.

Even though car hire is a competitive business with essentially the same product on offer, the national border separates markets and allows price variations far in excess of the product quality differences on offer. It is bad news for Switzerland, where consumers have to pay more even though the regulatory differences are minimal.

If you choose to save the money, and accept you cannot drive on Swiss motorways without a further charge, you will soon notice other ways in which borders matter. As you come to the end of the airport approach road and hang a right, aiming to drive through Geneva city centre and then back into France, you are immediately stopped by heavy border infrastructure.

Three beige buildings with French and Swiss customs confront you, along with offices for both tax authorities. Europeans, accustomed to crossing other internal land borders within the EU, find this quite odd. Switzerland is part of the EU’s Schengen area, so there are no passport checks required for entry. For food and almost all tradeable industrial and agricultural goods, Switzerland’s regulations are also fully aligned with those of the EU. Both sides accept the others’ regulations. In reality, the Swiss copy and paste Brussels regulations into their domestic laws, allowing the landlocked state effectively to be a member of the EU single market for goods.

Border infrastructure and customs declarations are necessary, however, because Switzerland is not part of the EU’s customs union or value added tax regime, which are separate from the single market. This difference requires both sides to build and staff a hard border with sometimes significant delays.

The French worry that someone might, for example, buy a frighteningly expensive Swiss watch, receive a Swiss tax refund since the watch is for export, and then not declare it for French VAT. The Swiss rigorously check that people have not spent more than €300 each on goods from France, depriving its exchequer of sales taxes.

For trading companies, each load requires a customs declaration, multiple forms and stamps by the tax authorities to ensure that the formalities are closed on each side before goods cross the tax border. Within the Union none of this applies because complete regulatory alignment is married to an EU VAT regime, all within the customs union. This VAT system has its problems, but ensures that goods can flow across borders with no formalities.

The Swiss-French border is efficient. There are no applicable tariffs. Regulations for goods are fully aligned. There is a common travel area between the two countries without the need for passport checks. But the border requires hard infrastructure because Switzerland is not in the EU VAT regime nor its customs union. Border frictions have separated markets either side of the border to the detriment of consumers.

Regulatory alignment would remove only some of Brexit’s border barriers in Ireland. The UK and Ireland should take note.

But why let the actual facts get in the way of a rant about how the EU are being mean and blah blah etc etc.

Norway/Sweden border checks :

https://www.toll.no/no/om-tolletaten/om-oss/nokkeltal/

525,600 minutes in a year ..

so .. 229,286 vehicle checks is what.. about 1 every 2 minutes or so ?

**Vaktathi**

Future War Cultist wrote:
If we don’t leave the customs union then we don’t leave the eu. The whole thing will have been a complete waste of time and it’ll confirm my believe that your vote means jack gak if it’s inconvenient to the establishment.

Lets be fair, there was a nonbinding referendum to "remain in, or leave, the EU", with absolutely no clearly stated goal beyond that, no further detail of what leaving would mean, what it would entail, or how it would be done, and then the government took the result as a binding mandate and had to define all those things...after the vote.

So, it's hard to stick the government for making a vote meaningless when the issue voted on was almost completely undefined in the first place

**Kilkrazy**

There was an interesting piece on Radio 4 this afternoon. They have been doing a series on the high-tech industries the UK is rather good at, which form our future hopes of national prosperity.

You can probably guess where this is going...

Anyway, today's report was on a company making virtual reality training systems for medical purposes. These systems have haptic feedback, allowing the student to experience the sensation of pushing a needle into flesh, without the need for a live patient to endanger theirself at this point of the new doctor's training.

So, blah di blah the reporter is highly impressed (and sickened) by the realism of the simulation of pushing needles into virtual cheeks and tongues, and decides he won't retrain as a surgeon.

Reporter's next question: How does Brexit affect you?

VR Scientist: Well. we've already lost a couple of big contracts because of the uncertainty.

As well as that, I don't think the government understands that this kind of science isn't done by a few academics in a small room any more. It's big science. It needs a lot of investment. We won't be getting the Future 2020 funding any more.

Reporter: If you could say one thing to the PM and David Davis, etc, what is the most important thing?

VR Scientist: It's about the people. A visa system won't give the scientists and researchers the freedom they need to move around. I'm worried we won't be able to attract the talent.

Tomorrow -- Artificial Intelligence.

**Whirlwind**

Kilkrazy wrote:
Maybe he is posting from the future, after Brexit has turned Britain into a Mad Max style psot-apocalyptic wasteland.

Well as a supporter of Wrexit I can imagine then DINLT benefits from leaving. In such cases I think I know who DINLT really is....And the answer is Tina Turner!

In other news Theresa May is getting the decorators in to Number 10 making one of the rooms nothing but gold with plenty of showers...

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/donald-trump-visit-uk-13-july_uk_5ae1f258e4b02baed1b7d12d?utm_hp_ref=uk-homepage

Placards to the ready....

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kilkrazy wrote:

VR Scientist: It's about the people. A visa system won't give the scientists and researchers the freedom they need to move around. I'm worried we won't be able to attract the talent.

Tomorrow -- Artificial Intelligence.

The Day after - Is there any intelligence in the Tory party?

Sensibly it doesn't really seem to compute with the current government that science is no longer about sitting under a tree waiting for an apple to drop. It works on a mulitnational basis. Scientists work for months and months in universities on sabbaticals as part of their research. The more restrictions that the government place on immigration the harder it is to work in this way. If you are EU scientist the idea that you could work for three months in the EU on a project and then come back to find your rights revoked is horrifying. The govenment make all the right sounds, but in reality they won't achieve anything if the people that make it happen simply don't want to be here.

**Shadow Captain Edithae**

Whirlwind wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
Maybe he is posting from the future, after Brexit has turned Britain into a Mad Max style psot-apocalyptic wasteland.

Well as a supporter of Wrexit I can imagine then DINLT benefits from leaving. In such cases I think I know who DINLT really is....And the answer is Tina Turner!

In other news Theresa May is getting the decorators in to Number 10 making one of the rooms nothing but gold with plenty of showers...

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/donald-trump-visit-uk-13-july_uk_5ae1f258e4b02baed1b7d12d?utm_hp_ref=uk-homepage

Placards to the ready....

A quote from Sadiq Khan in that article...

If he comes to London, President Trump will experience an open and diverse city that has always chosen unity over division and hope over fear. He will also no doubt see that Londoners hold their liberal values of freedom of speech very dear.
— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) 26 April 2018

https://twitter.com/SadiqKhan/status/989552253852889088

Since when the feth did Sadiq Khan care about Free Speech? It was only last month that he was labelling a tweet from a Female Genital Mutilation campaigner criticising his inaction on FGM as "Hate Speech".

But now that Trump's coming to town, all of a sudden he's all over Free Speech? I call bullgak..

**whembly**

Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

A quote from Sadiq Khan in that article...

If he comes to London, President Trump will experience an open and diverse city that has always chosen unity over division and hope over fear. He will also no doubt see that Londoners hold their liberal values of freedom of speech very dear.
— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) 26 April 2018

https://twitter.com/SadiqKhan/status/989552253852889088

Since when the feth did Sadiq Khan care about Free Speech? It was only last month that he was labelling a tweet from a Female Genital Mutilation campaigner criticising his inaction on FGM as "Hate Speech".

But now that Trump's coming to town, all of a sudden he's all over Free Speech? I call bullgak..

Well... do you really have protected free speech when UK authorities can jail you for simply giving the traffic cameras the birdy?
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6126475/driver-jailed-flipping-camera/

*he did have an illegal device tho.

Better example is this imo:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/25/alfie-evans-struggling-after-treatment-withdrawn-court-told

**Future War Cultist**

Free speech? In this country? No fething way.

Count Dankula? Crap tasteless joke invoking a pug equals arrest, trail, conviction, massive fine and criminal record. Girl quotes dead friends favourite rap song as a tribute and gets convicted too?

No, we do not have free speech in this country.

**Kilkrazy**

Yeah, apparently the UK has dropped dramatically down the press freedom ranking recently due to various government initiatives.

**Whirlwind**

whembly wrote:

But now that Trump's coming to town, all of a sudden he's all over Free Speech? I call bullgak..

Well... do you really have protected free speech when UK authorities can jail you for simply giving the traffic cameras the birdy?
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6126475/driver-jailed-flipping-camera/

*he did have an illegal device tho.