Even living nearby in the UK it blows my mind how quickly the EU proposes, kills and then revives and passes controversial legislation in such a short timeframe.
What has actually happened is that after about three years of faffing about the Council finally decided on it negotiation position begore the Coreper 2 meeting last week, thought it seems they ran put of time at actual the meeting and had to have the formal approval this week.
The Council is only one of three parties that draft new laws, so now there's are still several rounds of negotiations left.
Nothing substantial has happened to the three texts since last week, it's just that "chat control is back" drives traffic and "Council preparatory body formally approves draft position that got consensus previously but didn't formally get passed because people were fighting over Ukraine stuff for too long" doesn't.
While I agree with your point, it's still crucial to raise awareness of Europe's actions. It may be a small step, but it is not insignificant.
These things shouldn't move forward, indeed. But being angry about it for years at a time when things aren't even remotely set in stone doesn't seem healthy for an individual or society at large.
This is an extremely totalitarian-style move from EU - governing bodies are exempt from the law, meanwhile peasants have to be watched 24/7 for wrongthink, all under guise of protecting the children.
Even without any argument about personal rights and what's totalitarian, I can't even square the circle of the unstoppable force of "the economy is dependent on encryption that can't be hacked" with the immovable object of "hostile governments and organised criminals undermine ${insert any nation here} and communicate with local agents via encryption that can't be hacked".
First, this can be made a crime by itself, and detected automatically because the mandatory back-doors fail.
Second, what gets talked about in public (the only thing any of us knows for sure, but also definitely not the whole picture) includes foreign governments recruiting locals via normal messenger apps.
More of a problem is that the back-doors can be exploited by both criminals and hostile powers.
You're assuming they continue to use monitored channels to carry it out.
Can you square the circle, even in principle, without questions of cost?
and the answer is no but yes - by encrypting everything E2E you can massively reduce harm done, and treat espionage/crime as policy/economic problem instead.
> Especially as perfect encryption is indistinguishable from noise.
Irrelevant. If powers can't decrypt it, powers deem it a crime to have or send.
"white-noise.wav is a test file and I'm an acoustics engineer": tough, supply the seed to the PRNG which created it or fine time.
> policy/economic problem instead
Instead? Everything about this is about groups wanting to act in secret for their best interests, and other people wanting to ensure that only the interests they share get to do that. This is true when it's me logging into my bank and criminals trying to get access to the same, when it's the Russian government sponsoring arson attacks in Europe and local police trying to stop them, and when it's the CIA promoting Tor for democracy activists in dictatorships and those dictatorships trying to stop them.
We must have unbreakable encryption, and yet also we cannot have it.
It's a photo I took yesterday. Now what? It may or may not have a secret message that only the target knows how to decrypt. Or maybe it's just more "traditional" text encryption with code names, but real human-legible text.
It's technically unfeasible to ban encryption.
If that seed doesn't generate that particular white noise sequence, or if you can't supply that photo, then you go to jail.
> It's technically unfeasible to ban encryption.
It's also economically unfeasible.
Am I using moonspeak without realising it when I say "I can't square this circle"? Is this a phrase that people are unfamiliar with and I just haven't realised?
1) Illegal telecoms equipment can be seized
2) Someone doing this on the public Internet would only get away with it if their encrypted packets *never ever* went through a government licensed router. The moment they go through a public router: instantly detected.
Can't square the circle. Crypto is too important.
Must have. Can't have. Must have. Can't have.
If it was easy to come down one side or the other, everyone in the world would be on the same page.
The tension between them is pulling everyone in both directions.
Guilty until proven innocent, the burden is on you to prove it.
you are hung up on your pre-made assumption that the EU(state) in this case can have perfect control - which is fallacious in itself - and therefore are just arguing in bad faith. When they have such perfect control this is already a totalitarian state, that requires no such thing as due process.
all of that to push forward your point:
>We must have unbreakable encryption, and yet also we cannot have it.
I'm thinking like state already, i would never trust ANY state with such powers, even the one that was perfectly aligned with my political views.
It's not issue of state, but dilution of responsibility and the way the votes are counted.
It is also an issue of unelected officials deciding things - the whole system is broken.
Before you say that heads of state were elected - this is highly contentious issue, no one ran on this in internal campaigns, and votes on this issue are counted country-wide(all for or all against), without any regards to distribution of populace's opinion on this subject.
>Even without any argument about personal rights and what's totalitarian, I can't even square the circle of the unstoppable force of "the economy is dependent on encryption that can't be hacked" with the immovable object of "hostile governments and organised criminals undermine ${insert any nation here} and communicate with local agents via encryption that can't be hacked".
You're enacting legislation that will actually empower those entities this way!
Criminals - surprise surprise - can just break the law, and use devices/software that just.. does not do content scanning, and uses true E2E encryption. Even over insecure channel by using steganography and key exchange over it.
Espionage can be handled the same way, probably even easier as they can easily use one-time pads and key phrases established beforehand in their country of origin!
Meanwhile only group affected by it are just normal citizens.
Indeed, the state doesn't need all of them.
That it's all-or-nothing is due to how the tech works, in that you can't break it *only* for the targets — a point I make when I'm trying to explain the dichotomy to the politicians who want to spy, that this absolutely will be abused to reveal *their own* secrets, too.
The way politicians talk about this stuff, suggests they think computer code is like law, that words may have precise meanings but there's still an element of human judgement and common sense, and at human speed, not cold logic operating on bits faster than us by the degree we are faster than geology, where the potential harm from errors can be irreversable total loss of an entire business due to one single error made one time by one person, nor where mistakes from 20 years ago might be discovered and exploited at any time.
That's why I said "I can't even square the circle". If I thought the government position here was just absolutely fine, it wouldn't be difficult to square the metaphorical circle.
The difficulty is that despite their wrongheadedness about the consequences of what they're trying to do, what they're trying to do is actually necessary.
And that's just the crypto parts of this.
I left the UK for two reasons: The Investigatory Powers Act, and Brexit. Kinda related cause I thought Brexit would make it harder to fight the IP Act. Went to Westminster to talk to my MP to try and convince them to vote against the IP Act. I remain convinced that the British government was straight up lying about its reasons for having that Act.
A judiciary in such a sorry state, that has not adapted to a changed reality, cannot be permitted to read private communications.
Freedom of speech is about pre-moderation. It doesn't mean your actions do not have consequences. If you yell fire in a theatre while there is none, you should be held liable. See also the case of Gennaro P. (the Damschreeuwer) who at May 4 of 2010 yelled during two minutes of silence of Rememberance of the Dead.
YES IT DOES THAT IS EXACTLY THE POINT
You obviously do not believe in freedom of speech as defined by US law. You are conflating extremely narrow exceptions with broad politically motivated violations of freedom of political speech
There's a good reason why on every half-serious index about freedom of speech or freedom of press, the best countries are Scandinavian and Switzerland, followed by West-Europe. And that data is from before the current orangutan is in office.
First you say freedom of speech is about after the speech (it is about before the speech, as after that the law is applied pragmatic).
Then you come with this KJU joke. North Korea doesn't make these indices. [1] [2] [3]. In each of these, USA is decidedly below the vast majority of the free West, including the very countries I mentioned before, each of which couldn't be further from North Korea. It is also Trump during Trump 1 who was positive about KJU (IIRC before the Rocket Man rhetoric, but still), and who is being a shill for one of North Koreans partners (China by proxy / Russia). Mind you, all of these sources are post-Trump 1 yet pre-Trump 2 (ie. from Biden 1 era).
[1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/democracy...
[2] https://rsf.org/en/rsf-world-press-freedom-index-2025-econom...
[3] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-i...
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries...
On all of the freedoms, USA tends to do best on freedom of speech. But how can you say such, when the press has less freedom than in other rich West countries? Isn't that counter interactive?
> There's a good reason why on every half-serious index about freedom of speech or freedom of press, the best countries are Scandinavian and Switzerland, followed by West-Europe. And that data is from before the current orangutan is in office.
Can you share your half-serious indicies?
I already shared them.
The Democracy Index is by The Economist [1]. The USA was #28 there (2024), well below Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, and well below Germany, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, and various others. That's from 2024, before Trump's attack on the US democracy.
World Press Freedom Index by Reports Without Borders [2]. The USA is #57 in this list (2025), in the yellow color ('problematic').
Also, take note that both of these values are world-wide under threat, and the USA is part of being under this threat.
You also wrote in your previous post:
> By one of your own references USA is in the top 3 for freedom of speech.
But that one has incomplete data. It lacks data from like half the world. Finland, Iceland, The Netherlands, Switzerland (each countries doing well on every other index) aren't included.
> I didn't say it, your sources did.
Yeah, they couldn't know your country would be nearing a constitutional crisis by end of 2025.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index
Neither do you. The Supreme Court of the United States has repeatedly held in numerous rulings that freedom of speech and/or freedom of expression is not absolute and you can be sanctioned, prosecuted and/or imprisoned for some forms of speech and/or expression -- i.e. you do have consequences.
- Schenck v. United States (1919) -- Speech that has intent and a clear and present danger of resulting in a crime is not protected under the First Amendment
- Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942) -- The First Amendment does not protect fighting words, which are those that inherently cause harm or are likely to result in an immediate disturbance
- Feiner v. New York (1951) -- The police are permitted to take action against those exercising speech that is likely to disturb the peace
- United States v. O'Brien (1968) -- You can be prosecuted for destroying certain property as an act of political speech; the law forbidding this was not unconstitutional
- Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) -- It is permissible to restrict speech that advocates for imminent unlawful violence and is likely to incite people to perform such
- Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton (1973) -- Restrictions on the dissemination of obscene material are not by themselves unconstitutional (see also the ruling immediately below)
- Barnes v. Glen Theatre Inc (1991) -- Public indecency laws banning dancing nude are not unconstitutional
- Virginia v. Black (2003) -- Partial reversal: While a broad ban on cross-burning is unconstitutional, banning cross-burning for the express intent to intimidate is not
- Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006) -- As a public official, you can be sanctioned by your government employer for speech contrary to employment policy
- Morse v. Frederick (2007) -- Schools can ban students from sharing speech about illegal drug use at school
- Counterman v. Colorado (2023) -- True threats of violence are outside the bounds of the First Amendment, and laws covering stalking and making threats in this manner are not unconstitutional
Now the rest of Europe has much more freedom of speech than UK, but that is an example of a mean tweet about a government official that got sentenced. We don't want that in the EU.
Note that the guy was convicted even though he almost immediately deleted the tweet and apologized, the law is that bad, you aren't allowed to slip up even a little bit.
https://nypost.com/2022/03/31/twitter-user-sentenced-to-comm...
In my example the mean tweet was a insult towards the attacker, which netted her a higher sentence than the rapist got. These laws are neither desirable, nor sensible, nor just. What is actually empty is a definition about how speech gets prosecuted. It stems from older times and is abused for newer vanity, stupidity and autocratic ambitions.
It is in every appreciable way censorship via unaccountable mob. It's censorship in a way that Reddit's downvote isn't, because Reddit allows anonymous users to read downvoted posts - or at least did the last time I checked.
At the point where tensions rise beyond polite disagreement, HN ceases to be a functional social space and turns into a game of "who can make the other's opinions disappear first."
Doing so is technically against the rules, but either the moderators don't care, aren't doing it on a large enough scale to be an effective deterrent, or are knowingly complicit.
1. this wasn't fast, it took ~5 years and most (but not all) of the problematic parts have been removed
2. It also wasn't "fully rejected" or anything in the decision which gained some awareness of hacker news, just one specific draft was rejected, not the proposal as a whole (but IMHO it should have been).
3. it's not passed just approved by the council, which consists of the various head of states elected in their respective countries (i.e. is the easiest part to pass something controversial), but still needs to pass the European parliament (elected through the EU elections)
4. and then it must not be shot down by the ECJ or ECHR, both might shot it down, the ECJ for it being excessive/disproportional, and the ECHR because privacy is accepted as a human right by it (in general, there are exceptions so not 100% guaranteed). Or shut down by the German supreme court (same reason as ECJ and ECHR) which has somewhat of a veto right (or else Germany wouldn't have been able to legally join the EU), idk. if any other countries supreme courts have similar veto rights, but idk. why they shouldn't have)
This only applies where countries ceded sovereignty to the EU.
Technically in Germany non of the sovereignty was ceded but transferred based on two different articles in the German Constitution. But that transfer is neither absolute, nor automatic. Practically it means that in most situations it is "as if" it was cede, but just in most situations.
This leads to a situation where if the supreme court rules that some EU regulations or similar are against the German constitution you have a conflict between the constitutional articles which transfer authority and the ones the court ruled to have been infringed one.
But in the German constitution not all articles are equally, the first few have special protections and extra hurdles to amend. And the article which transfers powers to the EU _is not one of them_. This means that for any of the more protected clauses Germany has not at all ceded the authority of their supreme court to do a final judgement on.
In such cases if the German supreme court says no, it's means no for any application of law in German no matter what the EU courts say. And there are only 3 ways to fix that, 1. the EU amends their regulation, 2. Germany amends their constitution (practically impossible in such cases), 3. the rule informally applies to everyone but Germany, 4. Germany leaves the EU which would likely mean it's end.
So while everyone pretends there is no issue (3rd option) can in some situations be viable and given that 2 is non-viable it pretty much always ends with a compromise of amending things just far enough to not longer cause an issue with the German constitution.
Systematic breaches of privacy through mass surveillance fall under that especially protected articles in the German constitution. And option 3 doesn't really work here. So it's one of the rare cases where German Supreme court actually matters on EU level.
Through practically it hardly ever matters outside of very very few cases:
- because of Article 1 (the most protected one you could say), the ECHR has more or less implicitly the same amount of power as the supreme court, only if the ECHR does rulings in conflict with human rights would that not be the case (so in practice never)
- as one of the core founding members and the country with the largest population (and seats in the EU parliament are distributed based on population) Germany can normally make sure such a situation doesn't arise
- and the breach must really be of a constitutional article standing above the one which transfers power to the EU (which most are not)
- you have to propagate things up to the supreme court, while all other courts will rule based on EU law/ECJ decisions
but it doesn't mean that it never happened,
e.g. there had been one case where the German supreme court ruled that a) something is against the constitution and b) that the EU organ which caused this acted unreasonable in a way which isn't covered by the transfer of authority. That case go resolved with compromises, but was neither the first nor will it be the last where "in practice" the German Supreme court overruled EU decisions, even if it on paper doesn't (because it only overrules what happens with law in Germany and overruling an EU decision would affect other countries, too).
Local devices only scanning which only if there is an issue sends any information to anywhere outside of the device might actually be compatible with the German constitution by the argument that the privacy is only violated if the local validator phones home and that it only does so if there is a reasonable suspicion at which case it isn't baseless mass surveillance anymore... on a technicality iff the local scanner have close to now false positives. It's anyway a bad idea and a lot of the things it claims it's meant to help with have a lot of neglected other solutions which would improve things a lot.
The constitution is always supreme, because the ability to agree to the treaties derives from the constitution.
Yes however EU has very limited capabilities to enforce that. They can bully smaller countries a bit more but Germany can do more or less whatever it wants
Saying "forced" about this is like if someone offered me a job, me reading the offer and saying "can I do a 4-day week?", the company's response being "yes, here's a new contract for you to sign", and describing that second contract as "forced" on me.
This has been the typical modus operandi in the EU. There is always a correct answer and the people are free to choose as long as they choose it.
I'm not sure how you can have already forgotten the fact that we have to upload or face or ID to access websites.
In 2029 it's likely we'll have a more libertarian government:
https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/...
Reform will repeal some of the awful legislation that's been passed over the last few years (e.g. Online Safety Act). They've been loud critics of government overreach.
https://www.ft.com/content/886ee83a-02ab-48b6-b557-857a38f30...
As long as you are white British. If you're anything else you're probably going to be worse off under Farage.
It's a shame that if you want to vote for someone with different policies to the two main parties, you have to accept that you are also voting for an outspoken racist.
Reform policy is being drawn up by a team that’s led by a British Pakistani : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zia_Yusuf
Ordinarily we might give him the benefit of the doubt: maybe he's matured and grown up since then. But the fact that he's called all of those classmates liars says that either they are all liars, or he is dishonest about his racism.
The things said were truly disgusting.
I wouldn’t presume to speak for the Jewish community, but I would expect that they feel less threatened by something a child said in a playground during the 1970s, but rather the rampant antisemitism that has risen in our society, spearheaded by the toxic alliance of the hard left and the Islamists. Those are the ones who are assaulting Jewish people on the streets and hanging around Synagogues to “demonstrate”, or rather to intimidate them.
A lot of politicians change when they get in power.
You seem to be confused. The Libertarian Party never gets any power. The closest we get is representatives like Ron Paul, Justin Amash, and Thomas Massie, who run as Republicans (which are NOT the party of small government, despite what you may have been told) while acting much more like Libertarians.
Thomas Massie in particular is famous for frequently and routinely standing up against Trump, much to Trump's chagrin.
I believe that's the point.
The Republican Party *pretends* to be "small government", but isn't.
Haha you're so funny.
If Reform get from, what is it right now, five -- or four, or six, depending on how the wind blows — MPs to 326 MPs, which is enough to secure the majority they think they are getting, then libertarian is not what that government will be.
It will be populist, white and significantly authoritarian, because pure tabloid authoritarian thuggery is the only possible strategy that could cause a swing larger than any in history, against two parties (labour and liberal democrat) who currently hold 472 seats and represent a sort of centrist blob between them.
And this is to say nothing of the challenge they will face finding 326 non-crazy, credible candidates for 326 very different parliamentary elections. And to say nothing of the foreign influence scandal that currently engulfs senior Reform figures or the catastrophic issues already affecting Reform councils like Kent. Do you think Reform could succeed without Farage? And do you think Farage's reputation is going to somehow be improved by the Nathan Gill situation?
I accept they will be the largest minority. But the parliamentary maths to get to an outright majority is really extreme; the system does not support such things easily.
Maybe they will get to largest minority and then campaign for PR/AV/STV, and maybe finally people will understand something like it is needed. But Farage will be a lot older in that election.
(It surprises me to see people who are so keen to believe that a council election wave is necessarily predictive of a national election wave because, what, somehow everything is different now? Why is it different?)
How can you be so sure? Why do you assume that everything that the Reform chairman, Zia Yusuf (head of policy) is lies? What, from his history, suggests that he is a liar?
> catastrophic issues already affecting Reform councils like Kent.
A small number of councillors left, but KCC is still a strong Reform majority. Councillors come and go throughout the year (just look at the constant stream of council by-elections), so to call Kent a "catastrophe" is hyperbole.
> It will be populist, white and significantly authoritarian
Populist yes. But I've never understood why popular polices get such a bad rep in a supposed democracy?
White? So what? Although it's rapidly changing thanks to Tory/Labour policies, the UK remains a majority white country. Why is politicians' skin colour an issue in your mind?
"Significantly authoritarian" how? Can you name an "authoritarian" policy in Reform's last manifesto?
> Do you think Reform could succeed without Farage?
Yes. Zia Yusuf is an extraordinary man, and my money would be on him becoming the leader when Farage inevitably steps down. And your concerns about white politicians will hopefully be soothed when a second-generation Sri Lankan is our Reform prime minister.
https://www.youtube.com/@ZiaYusufOfficial
> the parliamentary maths to get to an outright majority is really extreme; the system does not support such things easily.
For that to happen, you need a strong i.e. 30%+ share, and you need numerous opposing parties with similar policies, and all polling at similar levels. That's EXACTLY what's happening, and the electoral calculus puts Reform on a strong majority (low = 325, high = 426)
https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/...
Because they are extremely short shortsighted and a wreck in a long term.
Would you say that was "extremely short shortsighted and a wreck in a long term."?
In the context of its time it was a fairly pragmatic, top-down central-government post-war-socialism project. It appears more radical in retrospect, but viewed in the light of decisions in the war effort and the post-war effort, and in a country that still had mandatory rationing for example, the NHS was a solid decision that was actually pretty evidence-based.
There are few people alive now who can tell you what the foundation of the NHS was like in terms of their professional career, but my dad did tell me about that.
In no way would that have been considered "populist"; the UK was severely negative about populists at that time, for one thing. It actually made solid logical/technocratic sense. It definitely came as a huge relief, but in many ways it formalised the resource-sharing schemes in place in various regions, especially London.
I am not sure you understand what populism is, along with not understanding that securing a number of seats is not something that logically follows from projections of numbers of seats, particularly in the context of an entirely new party with divisive leadership. We don't have PR, so aggregate data like that is not easily interpreted, and council election data is not that strongly indicative.
Also pretty interesting to hear someone who is so pro-Reform so confidently talking up the NHS, considering the long-standing positions of many UKIP/Brexit Party/Reform people that it should be privatised. Free at the point of use healthcare is under threat from Reform in a way that no other political party in the UK would risk, as a consequence of that. Presumably you think we should still have an NHS but the state shouldn't own it. Given the international figures who gather around Reform and the hard right in this country, there is no way the NHS would survive Reform intact.
I don't know an exact definition of a populism but for me it's when political messages are designed to trigger strong emotions, ignore complexity, promise simple solutions to hard problems. All politicians to some extent lie, over-promise and under-deliver but populists tent to take this on a next level.
Right populists tend to promise tax cuts (which unsurprisingly benefit their sponsors the most) and to balance budget they either increase debt or undermine public services (which is bad in a long term). Left populists promise to tax the rich ignoring that it's can be bad for economic growth and taxing alone would not give enough revenue to significantly benefit poor/middle classes.
In the UK, is it all about media ownership or something?
Yes.
GBNews launched in 2021 with a strong anti-establishment mandate. The growth in its audience surprised everyone, surpassing both BBC News and Sky in viewership. For four consecutive months (July-October 2025) GBNews has been Britain's number one news channel (Source: BARB).
Crucially it also has 2.5bn views on YouTube since launch.
The establishment try to write off and condescend GBNews, but in doing so they condescend the large and growing section of the UK public that GBNews represents (e.g. for example - people on both the Left and Right who are frustrated with 110,000 undocumented migrants entering the UK over the last three years, many of whom have been put up in hotels at taxpayer expense).
As the elite condescend and push away large swathes of the population, they are creating increasing loyalty toward GBNews, and by extension, the Reform Party.
Can't see the Tories bouncing back in a few mere years. Labour are heading rapidly into the same unelectable territory.
Which leaves us with Reform vs a Green-LibDem coalition?
But the Greens have chosen to embrace their own form of populist lunacy. And some will never forgive the Lib Dems for their last coalition.
Well, populist lunacy is how Reform got so popular, so I can see why it would be tempting for the Green party.
Main thing that's weird right now with the UK is that because it's first-past-the-post and the current polling is Reform:~29%, Lib/Lab/Con/Green:~16%, I would not be surprised by any of these parties forming a minority government nor any one of them getting a massive parliamentary majority.
That said I will find it very very funny if the Conservative party ends up last from that list.
Removing the 2 child benefit cap? Increasing NHS spending? Returning to New Labour levels of net immigration, being a country with borders?
> That said I will find it very very funny if the Conservative party ends up last from that list.
At least we agree on that. The Tories deserve to be confined to the dustbin of history.
Also the small possibility of being a Russian asset of course.
You mean replacing it with renewable five year visas that have reasonable salary thresholds and English language criteria, and which still allow the holder to apply for citizenship?
Why is that lunacy?
ILR is the immigration equivalent of "squatters' rights" - completely immoral IMO.
> the small possibility of being a Russian asset of course
The Left tried that with Trump too. It didn't work out for them, and I doubt this tactic will damage Farage either. It smacks of desperation IMO, just like all the silly childhood racism heresay.
Immigration is always a funny one for the UK especially, given how people tend to look at gross numbers instead of which sectors the immigrants work in, and the discourse about why locals demonstrably do not fill those roles is mostly just insisting that locals can no matter what current unemployment levels actually are. Before I left the UK, the stereotype was all the Poles moving to the UK and building houses: UK should have invited over more builders, then there wouldn't be a shortage of houses.
Immigration is a shared bit of populist lunacy Reform have in common with the Conservatives and Labour: promises to be tough on immigration, then they get power and look at what the consequences would be of doing that, and put all the blame on asylum seekers* that are banned from working and therefore safe to kick out no matter how at risk they are in their countries of origin.
* https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-whilst-an...
* £10bn+ per year - Adjusting how the Bank of England (BoE) treats reserves — e.g. stopping interest payments to commercial banks that receive money under quantitative easing (QE)
* £11bn+ per year - Rolling back expensive "net zero" policies
* £9bn+ per year - Alter eligibility for welfare
* £25bn - Scrap HS2
* multiple billions - Reducing foreign aid budget and cost of housing illegal migrants.
It's likely that pro-growth Reform policies such as lowering corporation tax to make the UK more competitive will significantly increase the corporation tax take - as was shown when the Tories entered power in 2010, lowered the corp tax rate and corp tax revenue increased significantly. In general, Reform's tax cuts are aimed at increasing the tax base.
These in particular are fictional. That's an obsolete (due to tech improvements) estimate of the private sector costs.
At this point, with the tech now available, almost everyone gets rich by doing net zero, almost nobody saves money by abandoning it.
> * £9bn+ per year - Alter eligibility for welfare
"Welfare" includes e.g. the child benefit cap. You can save a lot by spending less. Do you want to spend less? OK, fine. But that's the cost: a majority have to agree who gets to be the next scapegoat, and the child benefit cap was itself introduced back when parents with too many kids were the scapegoat.
> * £25bn - Scrap HS2
Scrapping a one off payment to save money in the short term, at the cost of worsening long-term economic benefits by failing to improve national logistics.
> housing illegal migrants.
Do you mean asylum seekers? Reason I ask is that people who are actually in the UK illegally (which is different), don't cost "billions". Asylum seekers are housed because they're banned from working, theory is that if they work they might stay, IMO this is BS and everyone would benefit if they were allowed to get jobs and look after themselves.
Even without that there absolutely are savings to be made on the cost of asylum seekers (who are not "illegal migrants"). They're looked after at a total cost of about £100/person/day, and obviously (even without changing the "banned by law from working" thing) they could be looked after at about half that (or less) given what UK incomes are. But that's a whole one billion per year you might save from not letting UK hotels rip you off, or two if you let these people work and support themselves.
> It's likely that pro-growth Reform policies such as lowering corporation tax to make the UK more competitive will significantly increase the corporation tax take - as was shown when the Tories entered power in 2010, lowered the corp tax rate and corp tax revenue increased significantly. In general, Reform's tax cuts are aimed at increasing the tax base.
Even with the best will in the world, this kind of thing is unlikely to make a dent in comparison to the core Reform policy of hating their nearest and biggest market. Brexit (and consider who owns Reform) has cost the economy an estimated 6-8% GDP by this point, per year, in lost growth opportunities — around £200bn/year.
The biggest thing any government could do to increase the tax base is to get a bigger workforce to tax. Which means more immigrants, which is why Lab and Con don't ever do anything about immigrant workers despite saying so. This was also one of the benefits of the UK being in the EU, in that all of labour, capital, and goods could move around more freely to meet business opportunities, help with growth.
The likes of Dale Vince (Ecotricity), certainly get rich by doing net zero. Significant levies have been placed on taxpayers and consumers for years, with the money flowing into the companies of politically-connected individuals like Vince.
> the child benefit cap was itself introduced back when parents with too many kids were the scapegoat.
Parents that choose to have more children than they can afford are not "scapegoats." They are breaking the social contract.
The benefit cap was not retro-actively applied. It didn't put any existing children in poverty. It only applied to future births, to parents who were choosing to have children at the expense of taxpayers.
That's why the cap is a popular policy: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/20...
> Scrapping a one off payment to save money in the short term, at the cost of worsening long-term economic benefits by failing to improve national logistics [HS2].
The project cost has ballooned to the point where it will exceed the long term projected economic benefit (benefit-cost ratio of 0.9, as per a 2022 review). It is a white elephant.
> Do you mean asylum seekers?
No, I mean illegal migrants, as I said. Genuine Asylum seekers don't throw their documents overboard and illegally enter the country on a dinghy from France.
Take the war in Ukraine and and the post-war threat from the Taliban in Afghanistan for example - in both cases, the UK government made advance provision for documented, background-checked individuals, including the elderly, women and children (as you'd expect from genuine refugees). And the UK made safe routes available for those people. That's how the system should work.
Those who illegally enter the country via the Channel are 88-90% male, most of whom are fighting-age, and most of whom originate from countries that are not currently at war.
You still believe they're genuine asylum seekers?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Channel_illegal_migran...
> that's a whole one billion per year you might save from not letting UK hotels rip you off, or two if you let these people work and support themselves.
If these people are allowed to economically benefit from illegally entering our country, it will send completely the wrong message to the third world countries they came from.
I don't want low-skilled/unskilled unvetted immigration that lowers our country's productivity, makes women and girls less safe, impacts public services and housing, divides our finite welfare spend and causes ghettoisation and (eventually) Balkanisation of my own country. Why would I want that?
> Brexit (and consider who owns Reform) has cost the economy an estimated 6-8% GDP by this point, per year, in lost growth opportunities — around £200bn/year.
I've heard various figures bandied around by continuity Remainers. They vary wildly, because at this point, nearly ten years later, it's impossible to scientifically compare a Brexit/non-Brexit scenario.
All we can know are the facts - Brexit gave us a huge opportunity to align our regulation with the precise nature of our economy, and an opportunity to avoid burdensome EU regulation (this is already happening in terms of the EU's hapless AI regulation). It's also an opportunity to avoid paying tens of billions of pounds annually into the EU's black hole unaccounted budget every year (consider the lifetime cost of that expense!)
The fact that the Europhillic Tory and Labour establishment failed to capitalise fully on Brexit is their fault - not the fault of the majority of voters who voted to leave the EU.
Luckily we have a party in 2029 who is unaligned with the Brussels and Strasbourg establishment, and who can make the bold decisions required to capitalise on our new freedoms and sovereignty. I relish this prospect.
Unlike others in the environment and green energy sector, some of whom were highly critical of Labour’s roll-back, Vince was unperturbed. “We can get 100 per cent of renewable energy with no public money,”
Vince explained that the real barriers to the green transition are not necessarily financial ones. Rather, the biggest hurdle to a fast, ubiquitous roll-out of green power is the UK’s tricky and long-winded planning system. One example he pointed to was the de facto ban on onshore wind, put in place by the former Conservative prime minister, David Cameron, in 2015.
This has been true without any subsidies for some time, including in the UK.
But there are still good reasons for government subsidies, specifically to get private homes insulated:
Another crucial national project for Labour will be their warm homes plan. Backed by £6.6bn over the next parliament, the party has said it will “upgrade five million homes to cut bills for families”. It has not yet provided details on how it plans to do so.
(Quotes from: https://www.newstatesman.com/spotlight/sustainability/energy...)
> Parents that choose to have more children than they can afford are not "scapegoats." They are breaking the social contract.
So, you're not in favour of ending the child benefit cap? Funny, I thought you were, from how you said it before. Guess that means you must regard the Reform-supported (but also actually implemented by Labour already) policy of "Removing the 2 child benefit cap" as an example of "lunacy".
After all, if someone "needs" any child benefit payments, even for the first child, then this by definition means they could not afford the child(ren); and if they don't "need" it then surely this is wasted money.
No, I think the demographic crisis in the west is because most people look at their finances and think "I cannot afford to have children". When children are below replacement rates and you restrict immigration, you have a ticking time bomb on your pension system, no matter how it's supposed to be funded.
> The project cost has ballooned to the point where it will exceed the long term projected economic benefit (benefit-cost ratio of 0.9, as per a 2022 review). It is a white elephant.
2/3rds of the cost has already been spent; cancelling it at this point only makes sense if the remaining cost exceeds the lifetime benefits, not if the total cost exceeds the lifetime benefits. That is why only bits of it have been cancelled so far, not the whole thing. If some future review ends up saying that the remaining cost isn't worth it, the government of the day will cancel it all by themselves, Reform wouldn't be special in this regard, just as they're not special for listing a bunch of things they don't really understand the details about in an un-audited campaign promise for an election they didn't win.
Also extra bonus irony points: HS2 received funding from the European Union's Connecting Europe Facility.
> No, I mean illegal migrants, as I said.
Then they don't cost anything. At least, not directly. Un-registered migrants working illegally could be said to "cost" the taxes they ought to be paying.
> Take the war in Ukraine and and the post-war threat from the Taliban in Afghanistan for example - in both cases, the UK government made advance provision for documented, background-checked individuals, including the elderly, women and children (as you'd expect from genuine refugees). And the UK made safe routes available for those people. That's how the system should work.
As per your own link, January to 21 April 2024, second biggest group on the small boats crossing the channel was Afghans, at 19.4%. Iran (lots of reasons to flee that place besides the occasional "it's not a war honest" exchange of fire with Israel), 11.3%. Sudan, in a civil war, 6.5%.
> most of whom are fighting-age,
A term so vague it encompasses basically anyone physically capable of making the trip.
Like, consider how many 12 year olds and 55 year olds could actually do this kind of journey in the first place, it's not going to be a high fraction of them.
Though to be blunt, it's also the case that very few of the total refugees get as far as the UK anyway. Back when the Syrian crisis was at it's peak, UK was losing its collective mind over a few thousand refugees from there when something like 4 million went to countries adjacent to Syria and a million went to Germany.
> most of whom originate from countries that are not currently at war.
And how many are gay fleeing homophobia, and how many are christians (or irreligious, or the wrong kind of muslim) fleeing from theocracy? Turkey's on the small boats list too: also not at war, but the authoritarian turn of the government put people at risk.
> If these people are allowed to economically benefit from illegally entering our country, it will send completely the wrong message to the third world countries they came from.
If these people are allowed to *pay taxes* and *cover their own rent*.
Look, if you don't want their money, fine. But what kind of message do you think you're sending with the current rule of "if you make it to the UK, they'll put a roof over your head, feed you, and not only do you not need to do any work to pay for this, they won't even allow you to do any work!"
(The other thing is that these people are in many cases being ripped off by people-traffickers; the "illegal" part of their entry is crossing the very busy channel on very inadequate vessels, which is illegal because it's so incredibly dangerous, a fact which kills many of these people who spent their life savings to do it).
> I've heard various figures bandied around by continuity Remainers. They vary wildly, because at this point, nearly ten years later, it's impossible to scientifically compare a Brexit/non-Brexit scenario.
If you don't want to believe financial experts' modelling, that's your call. You don't get to then claim the financial optimism of whoever you fancy instead, which is what you were doing.
> It's also an opportunity to avoid paying tens of billions of pounds annually into the EU's black hole unaccounted budget every year (consider the lifetime cost of that expense!)
Calling it "unaccounted" shows you don't understand accounting.
But then, I already knew that because of everything you've tried to claim in response to "The numbers don't add up […] the supposed cost-saving measures they're talking about mostly serve to demonstrate they don't know what the government is paying for anyway."
> The fact that the Europhillic Tory and Labour establishment failed to capitalise fully on Brexit is their fault - not the fault of the majority of voters who voted to leave the EU.
There's no kind way to say this, but you'll be better for taking it on-board: The fact you think the Tories, especially under Johnson, were "Europhillic", says you're so out of touch with reality that you don't understand how out of touch you are. Johnson literally got in trouble with his fellow journalists for making up lies about the EU, and never showed any sign of changing his ways, he and Farage are basically the reason the UK came to believe so many myths about the EU over the years.
I know that Leavers like to think that, e.g. May was a Remainer, but the fact is that nobody liked her Brexit, no matter if they voted leave or remain. Her failure was followed by the indicative votes where all possible 8 "solutions" were opposed by a majority of MPs; this was fairly representative of the country as a whole, because while a strict majority of voters wanted "a" Brexit, your preferred Brexit is one that other people who voted leave hated more than staying in the EU, and vice-versa.
(This is also why Reform are "only" on 28%, instead of getting the 52%-less-deaths who voted Leave: even your fellow travellers don't all agree on which Brexit, not even now).
Ofcom (the communications regulator charged with imposing the censorship laws) literally maintains a public list of non-compliant websites that anyone who doesn't want to give their ID to a shady offshore firm can browse for example.
can't browse?
EU politics don't play much of a role in the media. The older and more cynical I become, the more. I am convinced: that's by design. That way, national politicians can move politically wanted, but publicly unpopular things to Brussels and blame the EU. We are just exposed to that much EU lawmaking news because we are directly affected as a subculture.
During the Brexit referendum days, I learned that British friends of mine did not even know they had EU parliamentary elections - I had to prove to them via Wikipedia AND had to read them the name of their representative (who just so happened to live just down the roar), nor did they care. Made many things more clear to me.
The EU seems to be taking the opposite approach - countries push any unpopular law into the growing EU layer to prevent local backlash affecting them. As comments around this call it - "political laundering". A great term that I shall be borrowing.
[1] Relatedly, the philosopher Jimmy Carr has a great line about the failing of communism is about scale. It works locally at the family level but it can't scale to the level of a country.
The "proposal" was made something like 3 years ago, the killing never happened and the passing, if it passes, will happen in at least one year from now because this will definitely take a long time to get through parliament and even longer to get through the trilogue.
The process is many things but quick it is not
[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/
[2] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-a-new...
The attention span of the general public _shouldn't_ matter. That's why we elect politicians.
If legislative processes are so drawn out and complex that no more than a handful of ordinary citizens could keep track of them, the advantage that paid lobbyists have over the public is enormous
It would work if we could elect politicians who were both competent and trustworthy.
Of course that would require successfully electing people who are competent about a broad range of issues, able to see through well funded and clever lobbying, unblinded by ideology, and able to resist pressure.
No matter who's in charge, no matter the election results, no matter the protests - the same style of legislation is pushed.
and once something's in it is almost impossible to remove.
The democratic process needs a revamp but it shouldn’t be driven by the general populations attention span.
Regarding your specific point about using recent context to inform political opinions, if you spend any amount of time listening to the opinions of people online you'll find that not only do they fail to accurately recall past events, but they don't bother to research what actually happened, and when they do they fail at anything but the most superficial political analysis.
Where's your "factual basis" for such assertions?
> Regarding your specific point about using recent context to inform political opinions, if you spend any amount of time listening to the opinions of people online you'll find that not only do they fail to accurately recall past events, but they don't bother to research what actually happened, and when they do they fail at anything but the most superficial political analysis.
1) People regularly online are a rather specific group
2) People sharing their opinions online are a very specific group
3) Basing your views on society at large on opinions of those groups is a risky strategy, especially given how easy it has become to spread propaganda online
Anyway as for my optimism, it's based on actually interacting with people directly. Having discussions with them. Talking to them about what they believe, and why. They're usually a lot more complex and intelligent than those various descriptors used above.
(a) limited in number due to the nature of your interaction with them
(b) will express themselves differently, due to the nature of interaction. (Just like people expressing themselves online act differently.)
(c) are probably also a very specific group or bubble, which is simply the people you get to interact with. Which _might_ be more varied than the other person online, but might also be less varied. Really depends on how you pick the people you interact with.
(d) Anecdote of one person N=1 is not really a good factual basis for other people.
So if you want to show how your view is more based on evidence, then you will have to do better than anecdote and no links to statistics or cases we can peruse.
It's harder to ask, "Why are people still voting for this despite it seemingly being against their interests"
But once you do start asking that question, you'll find "they're just stupid" isn't really the only answer. At least 1 other answer would be they're responding to politics of other parties failing them too.
Is it the most rational decision for those people? No, probably not, but ignoring their motivations and chalking it up to stupidity or whatnot is really not going to solve anything - and, in fact, is only going to push those people further into what they believe. You should consider whether that's what you want.
As to why they still vote like they do:
(1) Because every 4 years the mainstream party promise to solve some problems, netting votes of the young, gullible, or inexperienced voters.
(2) Promise pension increase, netting votes of the ever increasing amount of old people, most who don't care about who or what comes after them.
(3) People are too busy, burned out, or lazy (we still have it too good here, it seems), and cannot be arsed to inform themselves before elections. We also have tons of people, who are truly learning-resistant, right out of school or "university".
(4) People think, that SPD, CDU, Greens, etc. are the only way to stop AfD.
I think we are not very high on the democratic-ability scale. Yes, we vote every 4 years, but it is more like collectively we don't really care enough to inform ourselves properly and just check a few boxes, because we want to tell ourselves, that at least we did vote and that we are fine democratic citizen.
And look, I myself am not frequently reading all parties' positions. And I myself inform myself more shortly before an election, rather than all the time. But I do have a feeling for corruption and I don't always forget scandals that happen, when the next engagement-optimized news headline comes in. I still remember Rezo's "Zerstoerung der CDU" video. I remember reading those abgeordnetenwatch newsletters about the lobby register. Or the foodwatch newsletters about Kloeckner and the Lebensmittelampel. That's why I will not vote for mainstream-promise-a-lot-but-no-delivery parties and retired people clubs. And what more I do, is to use the Wahlomat, and actually check which party's position aligns most with my own.
I don't do too much either, but most people do way less to inform themselves. They just check a box out of habit. Why they vote for CDU/SPD? Because that's what they always did. It's real friggin dumb.
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Or the commissioners that are appointed by the democratically elected heads of the member state governments?
You will never get an answer from them. But we should keep asking it anyway.
I always wondered if they live on the EU and are genuinely too stupid to understand how the bloc their country joined works or, most likely, live outside of it and the idea of the EU as a political entity offends their sensibilities or heighten their anxiety.
The head of the EU, who was nominated by the Austrian Government (and the other 26 governments) and elected by the MEPs in parliament (who were directly elected) decided on his portfolio.
Compare this to the US system, where the head of the US executive is elected by electors who themselves are directly elected. That head then appoints whoever they want.
If you were to make the US reflect the EU, you would have
1) Senate nominates the president (one vote per state)
2) Congress votes for the president
3) Senate provides the people to be secretaries
4) President selects from that list and chooses which person gets head of State, head of Treasury, etc
This would give more power to the states and less to the federal level, which itself is something many in the US want. Doesn't make it undemocratic.
Appointed, so, not elected. Thanks for answering.
Hmm, now whose fault is it that the EU institutions are so complicated and opaque? The citizens? The journalists? Or maybe...?
And in a democracy if you don't know how your own laws are made the fault is always yours as a voter
Completely immune is overstating it, and the power to initiate legislation is not that meaningful given that the EC initiates what the council tells it to initiate and can't actually turn it into law without parliament and council
You are aware that those with power to initiate legislation are appointed by national governments right?
If you are unhappy with how your country posed itself in those propositions, you can and should vote for parties that have different stances.
In the UK with a Parliamentary democracy, unpopular policy ideas can be abandoned. Manifestos are not always adhered to, but they typically include ideas that their canvassers can sell on the doorstep and there is robust media criticism when they abandon their promises. We have a strong history of U turns because our politicians are wary of unpopularity. The most recent big backlash was the Winter Fuel Allowance cut which was proposed by the two parties (with the Treasury pushing for it behind the scenes) and abandoned by both due to deep unpopularity in the Country. Even the budget this week had a run-up where various fiscal changes were unofficially floated through the media, to see which ones had the smallest backlash.
This is completely different to the EU, where the Commission and Council arguably get what they want even if it takes several attempts.
Those are not Lovecraftian entities that came from undersea. Their members are appointed from the national governments. If you dislike how your country position itself on those organs, this should change your view on how the ruling parties in your country took decisions at the EU level.
But my point elsewhere in this thread is that we have the ability for future governments to overturn unpopular legislation, something that is not unusual at all in the UK.
Consider it read/write versus write-only in the EU, which doesn’t give a damn about unpopularity.
As for council or commission, I presume you can elect different national governments from time to time? I mean, unless you are in Hungary.
Nobody's attention span is infinite. I don't doubt I could understand all details of the EU legislative process and keep track of what sort of terrible proposals are underway if I put in the time, but I have a day job, hobbies that are frankly more interesting, and enough national legislation to keep track of.
If you then also say that the outcome is still my responsibility as a voter, then it seems like the logical solution is that I should vote for whatever leave/obstruct-the-EU option is on the menu. I don't understand why I am obliged to surrender either a large and ever-growing slice of my attention or my one-over-400something-million share of sovereignty.
Because your puny state is no match for the US, China or soon enough, India. Heck, even Russia in its current incarnation outmatches 80% of the EU countries.
That's it, it's that simple, conceptually.
It's basically the Articles of Confederation vs the Constitution of the United States.
Yes, it's not a pretty process, but the alternative is worse.
We can all live in La-La-Land and pretend we're hobbits living in the Shire ("Keep your nose out of trouble and no trouble will come to you") until reality comes crashing down.
Then proposals maybe turn into laws, through a complex process. We are HERE.
A good government doesn't have many with abhorrent LAWS.
They are not. People just don't bother themselves to spend half a calory in brain power to read even the Wikipedia page about it, and just repeat shit they read in forum posts.
I mean, here on HN, a website where people are supposedly slightly above average in terms of being able to read shit, the amount of times I read how EU is "bureacrats in Brussels" "pushing hard for changes" is weird.
The problem is mostly the sheer amount of things going on, you couldn't possibly keep up with it all.
If EU is a trade union this is a severe overreach, if EU wants to be a federation, there's not enough checks and balances. This is the crux of the problem.
The issue is that this is a legislation that only ones in power want(censorship on communications channel where they themselves are exempt from it), that has been pushed over and over again under different names(it goes so far back - it started with ACTA talks and extreme surveillance proposals to fight copyright violations) and details in implementation and/or excuse(this time we get classic "think of the children")
Your problem is with the leadership of countries, not with the EU as an institution. I agree that it is a problem btw, but I think you got the wrong culprit. This isn't pushed on the states by the EU, this is the states using the EU to push it and launder the bad publicity.
[1] In fact, we have helpfully seen this play out with our friendly early exiter. The remarkably self-destructive Labour party has passed their own absolute nonsense "online safety" bill, and are likely to be utterly destroyed in the next election with repealing the bill being part of the platform of the party that is polling at ~twice the share of the next largest party. With the EU providing blame-as-a-service, though, it is unlikely that anybody will be able to repeal Chat Control once rammed through, without exiting the EU entirely.
Imagine is those issues were campaign promises and part of internal(country's) elections - they aren't in reality but we can set that aside for now. as it was extremely well said by sibling post.
My country is 80% against 20% in favor(in practice it is even more skewed towards 'no' for chat control!), other EU countries are 51% for, 49% against.
Yet such 'vote' by heads of state counts whole countries in,if you were to count individual votes majority of EU citizens would be against it.
This allows you to pass undesirable or extremely contentious legislation, that would most likely prevent you from being elected in the future in your local elections but you can easily shift the blame too!
This is as far form democracy as possible, it is pure bureaucracy that serves it's own goals.
"But why can't we just leave the EU to stop this" - too late. Most EU countries have enough intra-EU migration and trade to make leaving unthinkable. The UK was a special case - and, ironically enough, actually responsible for some of the EU's worst decisions.
Furthermore, this isn't exactly an EU exclusive problem. Every supranational organization that is responsive to member states and not individual voters is a policy laundering mechanism. Ask yourself: where's your representation in the WTO, and when did you vote for them? The sum of democracy and democracy is dictatorship. Any governing body that does not respect all of its voters equally is ripe for subsumption by people who do not respect them at all.
[0] Originally, US senators were appointed by state governors. This eventually resulted in everyone voting for whatever governor promised to appoint the senator the voter wanted. Which is sort of like throwing away your gubernatorial vote for a senatorial one. This is why we amended the constitution to allow direct election of senators, and I hold that any sovereign nation that makes the mistake of appointed politicians will inevitably have to either abandon it or fail.
A unitary state would solve that problem by allowing us to have simple, Union-wide elections instead.
They then in effect elect a Prime Minister, who appoints an executive, who create laws and then put them to parliament
In the US you can vote for the leader of the executive directly. 64% of Vermont voted for Harris, yet they still got Trump.
> in practice it is even more skewed towards 'no' for chat control
My understanding is that the public as a whole do not want chat control, yet the democratically elected heads of each member government do want it. The problem here is the democratically elected heads of each member government.
Doesn't take many council members to be against it to stop it in its tracks.
I wonder who could have a vested interest in depicting the EU as a repressive regime...
Well, here is the guy from where that comes from, the minister of justice of Denmark. He certainly represents a good part of Denmark, even though he may be irrelevant to any other EU country.
its more likely than it has been in a very long time with multiple smaller parties gaining seats. Nationalists in Scotland and Wales have been around a whole, and NI always had its own parties, but on top of that we now have Reform and the Greens making gains.
Are you predicting a minority government in the next election? Time will tell!
It did not pass.
I think the problem here is that you don't understand how the system works.
The EU parliament still would have to approve this for it to become legislation.
This is akin to a national government proposing a law, and the congress having to vote for it.
There is a lot wrong with the EU (the system). Opaque power structures, backroom deals, corruption. But I wouldn't call it an autocracy.
Similar to the Political Bureau in former communist countries, but still an autocracy.
> But I wouldn't call it an autocracy.
It has most certainly started to walk and quack a lot like an autocratic duck, it wasn't the case 10 to 15 years ago, or not as visible, to say the least, but the pandemic and this recent war in Ukraine have changed that.
The EC is still democratically chosen, albeit indirectly. There is no real sign (yet) of the stretching of term limits common for autocrats.
And guess what, national governments are the ones blocking the European Parliament from proposing laws, the EP has proposed multiple times that it be allowed to laws.
So EU member states themselves are the ones that don't want the EP to become a full blown parliament.
Please don't use AMP.
Its on the same domain as the version you link to - is that still a problem?
I just did what I always do, edit out the AMP part and check that it still works. Sometimes the URL will go elsewhere or need more fiddling, this time it just worked.
Two years ago and she has received damages however similar attitudes still abound with marked police disapproval of attempts to display the English National flag - in England.