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Comment by louisswiss | Hacker News Reader

PM Theresa May on her reasoning for the snap election:

"In recent weeks Labour have threatened to vote against the final agreement we reach with the European Union.

"The Liberal Democrats said they want to grind the business of government to a standstill.

"The Scottish National Party say they will vote against the legislation that formally repeals Britain's membership of the European Union.

"And un-elected members of the House of Lords have vowed to fight us every step of the way.

"If we do not hold a general election now, their political game playing will continue."

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I for one hope their 'political game playing' will only intensify in the future. After all, it's their job to provide opposition.

Dark and scary times indeed.

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Theresa May, 6 months ago:

"“I’m not going to be calling a snap election. I’ve been very clear that I think we need that period of time, that stability, to be able to deal with the issues that the country is facing and have that election in 2020.”"

Calling an election is dark and scary times?

Democracy is about more than one party winning a popular vote.

This is the last chance the UK has to avoid fascism.

I wish that was hyperbole. But I really don't think it is.

I hear you. You even see people openly embracing Enoch Powell's ideas again.

Brexit and Trump removed the taboo on fascism and those long time closeted fascists are now very openly pushing their propaganda. The rest of us are too busy defending their right to destroy our society and our values.

As a Tory and a Brexit voter, let me reassure you that I (and my Brexit voting friends) are not closeted fascists. The idea is quite offensive, actually. :)

As a student of history, let me point out that the point of being a "closeted fascist" is to not admit one's fascist tendencies in public.

I'm not sure if my English is good enough, but that's not what I said.

I said that Brexit and Trump removed the taboo about fascism and fascists are raising their voices.

Why would you think I called Brexit, Tories or Trump voters fascists? It would be over-simplifying demographics and politics.

Second reply to the same comment, because I was curious as to why would you create a throwaway for this debate...

And turns out your other comments are 2 oversimplifying The Guarding and The Independent editorial line / quality and the other two are misleading or a straight lie.

That makes me wonder if you really misunderstood my comment here or are you stirring the pot on purpose? That would explain the need to create a throwaway.

>The rest of us are too busy defending their right to destroy our society and our values.

Which values are those? Unfortunately, I would argue that England has never had values I'd agree with. What about values of privacy and civil liberties? You can't even have certain drawings (yes, even their possession is illegal) and ISP have to keep your Internet usage for a year.

Bourgeois democracy cannot protect the values of the people.

Privacy, freedom, protection from the tyranny of the majority, equality, fraternity, respect for minorities, socialised and universal healthcare, feminism, ecologism (firefox says this is not a word?)...

Those are the ones I care about and I think are at danger.

Democracy is "tyranny of the majority" no matter which way you look at it (I'm still in favour of it though). And I think equality, fraternity, respect for minorities, socialised and universal healthcare, feminism and focus on ecology would be much better served without capitalism.

Why didn't you include the right to privacy and freedom of expression too?

Democracy is not the tyranny of the majority. Direct democracy might be, but that's a very narrow view of democracy.

> Why didn't you include the right to privacy and freedom of expression too?

Privacy is literally the first one on my list :)

Freedom of speech (freedom of expression seems a literal translation from Spanish "libertad de expresión" which is "freedom of speech") I agree. I just forgot about it :)

I could add others like separation of powers that I also forgot (and they're under attack if you follow UK politics).

This is literally the most hyperbolic thing I've read in a while.

Are you a writer for The Independent by any chance?

(Seriously, you're saying that this will be the last ever democratic election in the UK?)

We've already had it! Any democracy without a free vote is a sham. Democracies have free speech, and their citizens ought to have a free conscience and privacy is a cornerstone of that - or do you wish to find out what we have to hide (plenty), make windows into all our souls and still want to know what we really, really think? Certainly democracies do not depend on nudge politics, dog-whistle tactics or the thought police, allow people to associate freely and not have to submit to arbitrary detention and interrogation and most often of all have a Law which is the same for everyone regardless of status and those who make the Law make it and those who rule on the Law do not fear for their lives! Democracies rarely have chiefs of police warning about police states. Perhaps you are unawares of your party's late-night retro-active legislation making what was once illegal legal. What sort of democracy is that? One more redolent of Pyongyang than Putney. Brexit is a nasty little englanders' nationalist working class pipe dream on something that will never be again. If you don't want to be offended by being called a fascist don't support a fascist party and hold fascist views actually.

Leaving the EU is fascism? Can you substantiate that?

Nationalism is the road to war in Europe, and always has been. It's not fascism I fear, but nationalism.

No, you were right first time. It is. Of course if you'd like to defend your comment with a supported argument that might be more interesting. First off you might define what you mean by fascism. On the other hand, this is not what HN is about.

No - but communicating to the public that the reason you are calling an election is to silence the opposition parties and other bodies holding you to account (and espousing the view that the opposition should effectively shut up and put up) definitely registers high on my dark and scary times scale

Especially when the mandate for Hard Brexit is so weak.

Nobody is silencing anyone.

The Lib Dems campaigned for an EU referendum [1], and now want to reverse it because the result wasn't what they wanted.

The SNP campaigned for Scotland to leave the EU (as it would have done if leaving the UK) in their independence referendum, and now behave as if leaving the EU is unthinkable.

Both are playing politics. The ground has shifted, and so it's helpful for the government to get a new mandate.

[1] http://www.newstatesman.com/sites/default/files/images/Clegg...

The statement that the SNP campaigned for Scotland to leave the EU is a bald-faced and deliberate lie. Please do not spread misinformation like this; there are enough lies kicking around already.

Silencing someone with open election that would show that they have no support doesn't sound very sinister. If anything, it sounds like the best possible way to resolve such a situation.

No. This is a common (and very cunning) straw man and I hope it stems from a position of ignorance not deceit.

Silencing someone should never be the goal. If the Conversatives are experiencing difficulties pushing through their agenda due to opposition from other parties, then the best way to resolve that is either via compromise or by calling an election to increase their majority in parliament which should allow them to push through their agenda more easily.

Even if (arguably especially if) the Conservatives win 99% of the seats in the House of Commons, the remaining 1% should be opposing, scrutinising and holding to account as well and as loudly as they can.

Yet Theresa May is after something different here (a tactic which we've heard recently, but by no means exclusively, from many Brexiteers as well) - she is implying that unless opposition parties can beat the Conservatives in a general election, then they should put up and shut up as the public have spoken.

That's not how democracy works.

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edit: For those who don't see the straw man here, it is that while silencing someone who is standing up for the beliefs of people who don't exist is okay, in real life the parties who are currently opposing the government are guaranteed to be defending a none-zero number of British citizens, who we cannot allow to be silenced on principle (even if we act against their wishes).

Party before country.

How is giving people a chance to vote putting Party before Country?

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