General British politics discussion thread

Ya legal but shouldn't be but that's not the Greens fault. It is their fault they choose him though and I would be livid if I voted for him because I doubt voters knew this.

Hadn't realised that. Odd for British politics.

Only two parties in the Scottish parliament are Scottish. The rest (four of them) are registered in England with 'Scottish' as their brand name in Scotland other than Reform UK who don't pretend to be a Scottish political party.

Some more detail on the history

In 1990, what was then the UK-wide Green Party – which had initially been established as the PEOPLE Party in 1973 – divided into the Green Party of England and Wales, the Scottish Greens and the Green Party Northern Ireland. Since 1990, they have been three completely separate and unique political parties, with their own separate leaders, memberships and policies

An independent Scotland would decide how much it could afford. Their choice, their decision. At the moment, they have neither choice nor decision-making power.

For me nothing has symbolised Starmer's leadership more than the way that he has handled the Palestine Action group.

Firstly by designating them as a terrorist group, thereby putting them in a category of groups in the UK that includes ISIS, Al Qa'ida, Hamas, the Wagner Group, the IRA and the UVF.

I found it shocking then when hundreds of people, many of whom were elderly and disabled, were arrested for nothing more than holding up signs saying "We oppose genocide, we support Palestine Action".

I remember when people were being arrested for holding up blank pieces of paper in Moscow. This wasn't a million miles from that.

A better politician would have realised the hole they had dug themselves into at this stage and managed to find a ladder to climb down from. Not Starmer though. He kept doubling down. When a legal challenge was mounted against the proscription of Palestine Action not only was it robustly defended by the government but one of the Judges overseeing the case was removed a week beforehand and replaced by 3 new judges who appeared to be more in line with the government.

The court still found against the government anyway. The government immediately appealed. The police announced they'd no longer be arresting protesters but then made a U-turn and began to do so again pending the government appeal.

The whole thing is insane. It just seems to be driven by a personal vendetta that he has against these people. Maybe he associates them with the very people who he purged from the party when he took over the leadership.

At the end of the day though it's terrible politics. He's actively driving people away from the party especially in an era where there is a viable option on the party's left flank.

No fan of Starmer and I think I would be happy to see him go . But I was watching BBC and Ch4 news yesterday which included interviews with the 'man and woman' on the street and the one thing that came up repeatedly is ' we voted for change and we want change' followed up by saying Starmer must go. This 'meme' ( is that the right word) of voting for change was taken up by some politicians as well.

There seemed little criticism of policy or strategy. Just a desire for change. It seems he has had his two years and now more change is needed. This seems extraordinary to me. The voters seem to want change for the sake of change. And I know there are many good policies reasons for wanting Starmer gone but that is not what is being said in these vox pops.

It the political debate in public has been reduced to these 'sound bites' then I think the political establishment must take some responsibility. Because they are all promises 'change' with little detail of the policies they are offering. An honest engagement with the public might get the discourse back onto policies and how the parties intend to implement those policies .

Or do the practices from marketing trump all serious discussion?

It's being reported that Streeting is going to resign tomorrow and start a leadership challenge.

"An ally of the health secretary has told Sky News that he is preparing to resign, as first reported by The Times.

The paper cites allies of Wes Streeting as saying he told Sir Keir Starmer in a brief meeting this morning that he is going to mount a formal challenge for the leadership of the Labour Party"

And he tried to ward off the Reform advances by turning fully in their direction and his speech that echoed Enoch Powell's river of blood along 

Really?

Its this sort of stuff that is actually pushing voters to reform.

That debate in house of commons is going to be interesting say the least