Britain and Brexit business

[Italiangirl]

So we are less than a month from Brexit, and as much as I have understand of the last development, nothing is really changed, right? 

Do you think that after the council of the 17 we will know something more? 

 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

1 hour ago, Italiangirl said:

So we are less than a month from Brexit, and as much as I have understand of the last development, nothing is really changed, right? 

Do you think that after the council of the 17 we will know something more? 

 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯  <--- this is my current attitude towards brexit, I just wish it to be over soon, one way or another. I'm feeling brexit fatigue.

[unsafetydancer]

An update on the ferry service between Scotland and the Netherlands.

https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/traffic-and-travel/fife-holland-ferries-could-launch-as-soon-as-late-october-under-ambitious-plans-1-4989548?fbclid=IwAR2pFtlGFI8fJDLaYmdODbn_LwoqKZXRvQH0Ab6gyy8pp2R2Re1cCoU4BPg

Maybe this is some sort of Great Escape style plan to just build a network of ferries between Scotland and everyone else. I'd be down for that at this point.

[Smash!]

In answer to your question: You register at the town hall. They share their population databases (which also includes births, marriages, divorces and deaths) with the national one. Our registration system eliminates the need for census taking too.

Same in Switzland. Our taxes and health care prices depend on where you are registered as with cities being more expensive than the rural areas.

[Glasgowghirl]

Leave EU have posted on twitter a horrible poster featuring Angela Merkel: I have hidden what it says because it is so offensive to both Merkel and German people.

Spoiler

We didn't win two world wars to be bossed about by a Kraut

 

[Ozlsn]

2 minutes ago, Glasgowghirl said:

Leave EU have posted on twitter a horrible poster featuring Angela Merkel: I have hidden what it says because it is so offensive to both Merkel and German people.

  Hide contents

We didn't win two world wars to be bossed about by a Kraut

 

Some people seriously would rather be serfs as far as I can see. As long as the overlords speak the same language and look like them they're happy as vassals - and of course it's all the fault of those that don't look like them, or speak different languages and they can't see that they have more in common with those they have been taught to fear than those who teach them.

[Glasgowghirl]

4 minutes ago, Ozlsn said:

Some people seriously would rather be serfs as far as I can see. As long as the overlords speak the same language and look like them they're happy as vassals - and of course it's all the fault of those that don't look like them, or speak different languages and they can't see that they have more in common with those they have been taught to fear than those who teach them.

Yes, it's down to that they mistrust anyone who speaks a different language or are a different colour or religion. I have had it because I was raised Catholic and have an Irish background, a lot of leave voters complain about foreign people coming to the UK but often are planning to move to or have holiday home in Europe, they want to be free to move in Europe but not have people doing the same in the UK. 

I finish my degree next year and I'm considering moving out of Scotland and Brexit is a big part of why I want to move, I fear not being able to get a good job and wouldn't want to start a family while this mess is going on.

[Ozlsn]

10 minutes ago, Glasgowghirl said:

leave voters complain about foreign people coming to the UK but often are planning to move to or have holiday home in Europe, they want to be free to move in Europe but not have people doing the same in the UK. 

I'm actually finding that part interesting. If there is a no deal Brexit what happens with all the Brits living in Spain and France - do they need to get residency visas?  Can they still own property?

13 minutes ago, Glasgowghirl said:

I finish my degree next year and I'm considering moving out of Scotland and Brexit is a big part of why I want to move, I fear not being able to get a good job and wouldn't want to start a family while this mess is going on.

Friends of mine have one child born in Australia and one in Ireland (UK citizens, were working in different locations). The Australian-born one is apparently pissed off that that citizenship gets him nowhere useful in terms of being able to work in Europe. I think more than anything else the uncertainty is debilitating - if you knew definitely what would happen it would be easier to make decisions.

[fraurosena]

8 hours ago, Glasgowghirl said:

Leave EU have posted on twitter a horrible poster featuring Angela Merkel: I have hidden what it says because it is so offensive to both Merkel and German people.

  Reveal hidden contents

We didn't win two world wars to be bossed about by a Kraut

 

Sadly, those sentiments aren’t restricted to Brits. I’ve heard anti EU people in my country say similar things. “The Germans didn’t succeed in getting to rule over Europe with two wars, but now they get to lord it over us through the EU.”

Admittedly, this was said by people in their eighties who, having been submitted to terrible hardships as kids in WWII, have always had an inherent dislike for Germans. Their view has been skewed because of what they went through as kids, and their parents avidly hating ‘the Germans’ and not hiding those sentiments. These anti German feelings were socially accepted and lasted many decades. Remarks like “You should ask that German tourist if he’s still got my grandfather’s bicycle” were still commonplace when I was growing up. It was only in the eighties when people started to let go of the thought that ‘all Germans are nazi’s’.

Not everybody could though, and that’s why the anti EU groups have picked it up and are running with it now. 
I think it’s disgusting and akin to racism to paint a whole people with the same brush over something their parents or (great)grandparents did. The majority of Germans living today were born after WWII... they can’t be held responsible for something that happened before they were born. 

[unsafetydancer]

49 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

I think it’s disgusting and akin to racism to paint a whole people with the same brush over something their parents or (great)grandparents did. The majority of Germans living today were born after WWII... they can’t be held responsible for something that happened before they were born.

Yes to this. To be really honest, I think German people today seem to have a mostly better attitude to how to deal with nazis. They jail them.

[Ozlsn]

15 hours ago, fraurosena said:

think it’s disgusting and akin to racism to paint a whole people with the same brush over something their parents or (great)grandparents did. The majority of Germans living today were born after WWII... they can’t be held responsible for something that happened before they were born. 

Hell there are a lot of Germans alive now who were born after the Wall came down and after reunification. (I still am amazed that that is 30 years ago next month/year). At least Germany (well certainly the former West Germany) tried to teach their children about what crimes were committed by their people in WW2 and to be open about it (to an extent, as always - it's hard to reconcile the nice elderly man or woman you know with the person who forced their neighbours out of their house or murdered civilians or any of the other million things. I watched a doco about a decade ago where they interviewed an elderly man who ended up living in the UK after WW2 about being part of the Hitler Youth, and being in the German army in Russia - and midway through I realized that what he was describing were war crimes that his entire unit were responsible for. And it was utterly shocking, because here was this totally harmless looking elderly man who had been part of absolutely appalling acts. But the reason he was talking to the doco crew was that he had been so enthralled by the ideology - and he wanted to warn others because he was concerned about the rise of new fascist movements.)

Edited October 9, 2019 by Ozlsn

[Glasgowghirl]

20 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

Hell there are a lot of Germans alive now who were born after the Wall came down and after reunification. (I still am amazed that that is 30 years ago next month/year). At least Germany (well certainly the former West Germany) tried to teach their children about what crimes were committed by their people in WW2 and to be open about it (to an extent, as always - it's hard to reconcile the nice elderly man or woman you know with the person who forced their neighbours out of their house or murdered civilians or any of the other million things. I watched a doco about a decade ago where they interviewed an elderly man who ended up living in the UK after WW2 about being part of the Hitler Youth, and being in the German army in Russia - and midway through I realized that what he was describing were war crimes that his entire unit were responsible for. And it was utterly shocking, because here was this totally harmless looking elderly man who had been part of absolutely appalling acts. But the reason he was talking to the doco crew was that he had been so enthralled by the ideology - and he wanted to warn others because he was concerned about the rise of new fascist movements.)

Germany are a lot more open than Britain are about their past war crimes. In school they taught history and the empire and glossed over a lot of the terrible things the empire done, apart from a few things on slavery. That is starting to change, I watched a documentary on Churchill and it focused on his flaws, a few people complained about it tarnishing his war reputation but we can't pretend that he didn't have a lot of flaws.

[unsafetydancer]

@Glasgowghirl I was lucky to have a somewhat rebellious history teacher who didn't gloss over the nasty parts. I think he was one of a kind though.

[Ozlsn]

2 hours ago, Glasgowghirl said:

Germany are a lot more open than Britain are about their past war crimes. In school they taught history and the empire and glossed over a lot of the terrible things the empire done, apart from a few things on slavery. That is starting to change, I watched a documentary on Churchill and it focused on his flaws, a few people complained about it tarnishing his war reputation but we can't pretend that he didn't have a lot of flaws.

I always like the quote (forget from who) that travelling is when you find out a lot of your own country's colonial history. Things you have never heard of that are momentous events to other nations. The UK is especially blessed in that regard, although even here we have a lot of things that were never taught in school when I was there but are now. (Mind you, my school's history teaching wasn't the greatest. We skipped from Ancient Rome to the Dutch describing the north coast of Australia, covering all Indigenous settlement and everything that happened between those time periods with a couple of sentences. Which didn't really explain why the Dutch were wandering around there anyway now I think about it...)

[fraurosena]

History is fascinating. I love it. Sadly, my official education was rather lacklustre too. We skipped quickly from Ancient Rome to the 80-year war with Spain, to WWII, which was where almost all of the in depth attention went. All those battles were decidedly not my cup of tea. It's telling that I found out more about what really happened by reading, watching documentaries, and visiting museums. My interests lie with the psychology behind what happened in history, rather than the cold historical facts. Most of what I know about history is self-taught.

35 minutes ago, Ozlsn said:

Which didn't really explain why the Dutch were wandering around there anyway now I think about it..

The Dutch East Indies were in the neighbourhood so to speak. And trade was the name of the game. Trade in spices, to be specific.

Here's what I know about Anthony van Diemen in relation to Australia.

Van Diemen's ship went off course when he was en route to Batavia (in what is now Indonesia) and it accidentally came upon the Australian coast. It whet van Diemen's appetite for exploration and he wanted to find out more about the  mysterious Great Southern Land which was rumoured to exist, and which he thought -- correctly -- he had accidentally found. One of the explorations he funded was led by Abel Tasman. Tasman found many new islands on that voyage, most famous of which were Tasmania, which he called Van Diemensland in honour of his patron, and New Zealand.

[Ozlsn]

37 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

The Dutch East Indies were in the neighbourhood so to speak. And trade was the name of the game. Trade in spices, to be specific.

I know that from later watching and reading - like you most of my history learning has come later. We didn't even get up to WW2,  we got bogged down in the Gold Rush and then Gallipoli. It was very frustrating! 

The way it was taught was pretty much "For 60,000 years the Indigenous people lived here. The Chinese and Portuguese may have sailed here too but their maps weren't conclusive. There was some mapping of the north-west bit but they went in the Dry and decided it was all desert and not suitable for colonisation (also no trade items). Then Tasman did some more mapping and added Tasmania while missing most of the rest of it. Then Cook sailed into Botany Bay and up the east coast (1770) and 18 years later the First Fleet arrived."  At this point we switch to interior exploration (Hume, Hovell etc) and Matthew Flinders. Penal colonies are established, van Dieman's land sucks (the other ones aren't great either...) South Australia is established without convicts. Then Gold Rush!! Ballarat, bushrangers, Ned Kelly. Then for some reason we skipped Federation - which was a pretty major event - in favour of Breaker Morant and the Boer War, then jumped to Gallipoli. I blame Bruce Beresford and Peter Weir. 

Edited October 10, 2019 by Ozlsn

[prayawaythefundie]

On 10/8/2019 at 11:15 PM, Glasgowghirl said:

Leave EU have posted on twitter a horrible poster featuring Angela Merkel: I have hidden what it says because it is so offensive to both Merkel and German people.

  Hide contents

We didn't win two world wars to be bossed about by a Kraut

 

I know this is meant to be very offensive but I‘ve always found that word to be a hilarious insult considering that it simply is the German word for cabbage and - against all stereotypes - my German self despises the food so much. ?

Plus, if you‘re German and reading on the internet, you have been named worse. 

[Glasgowghirl]

On 10/10/2019 at 7:51 PM, unsafetydancer said:

@Glasgowghirl I was lucky to have a somewhat rebellious history teacher who didn't gloss over the nasty parts. I think he was one of a kind though.

Mine was the same, he told us both sides of what happened and all the details others may have found too gory to tell us. He was my favourite teacher because he didn't talk down to us and sugar coat things, the way other teacher's did.

[unsafetydancer]

In the current political context I find this very disturbing, can any Americans here weigh in on voter ID laws? I know they have been used to block mostly poor, black, latin or other marginalised groups from voting. 

Over here it is already hard to get a job if you have no photo ID. The hostile environment has made it very tough to use your birth certificate as a form of ID unless you have other documents to back it up and this has made life hard for younger people or people who have been unemployed for a while. If you have to use proof of an NI number to get a job and you have either never had a job because you are young or you have been unemployed for some time and have no proof of NI that is within date, then this can be a major challenge.

I hope that voter ID laws will be blocked here. The current system is fine and electoral fraud counts for less than 0.01% of the total votes. I would argue that we need to look at how votes are counted, especially after the 2014 independence referendum where it was pretty obvious that ballot papers were being moved around by some officials.

 

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, unsafetydancer said:

In the current political context I find this very disturbing, can any Americans here weigh in on voter ID laws? I know they have been used to block mostly poor, black, latin or other marginalised groups from voting. 

Over here it is already hard to get a job if you have no photo ID. The hostile environment has made it very tough to use your birth certificate as a form of ID unless you have other documents to back it up and this has made life hard for younger people or people who have been unemployed for a while. If you have to use proof of an NI number to get a job and you have either never had a job because you are young or you have been unemployed for some time and have no proof of NI that is within date, then this can be a major challenge.

I hope that voter ID laws will be blocked here. The current system is fine and electoral fraud counts for less than 0.01% of the total votes. I would argue that we need to look at how votes are counted, especially after the 2014 independence referendum where it was pretty obvious that ballot papers were being moved around by some officials.

 

Huh. Over here everybody older than 14 is mandated to carry an ID with them at all times. Officially recognized ID's are an ID card, a passport, or a drivers licence. We always have to show our ID's when we go out voting. 

I don't see having to identify yourself as the problem here. The problem is the availability of officially recognized ID's. For us it's relatively easy to get one, and not that expensive either. The problem is that mandating ID's should not be used to suppress voting. 

I agree that it's more important to look at vote-counting processes, and maybe at the whole voting process itself. I really don't understand how electoral colleges are even remotely considered to be democratic. It should simply be 1 person, 1 vote, and where you live should not factor into it. 

[unsafetydancer]

9 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

I don't see having to identify yourself as the problem here. The problem is the availability of officially recognized ID's. For us it's relatively easy to get one, and not that expensive either. The problem is that mandating ID's should not be used to suppress voting.

This. We held a vote on ID cards when I was in high school and the Big Brother Brigade made it out to be government spying so it failed.

There is no cheap way to get access to photographic ID unless you are receiving a free bus pass, so a pensioner or some disabled folks. A UK Drivers' License costs around £50, plus the postage for sending documents recorded delivery. A UK Passport is currently around £90, more if you want to get the post office to check that you haven't made any mistakes on the form before you send it. It's a good idea to have them check it because the form is lousy and most people struggle with at least some parts of it.

Other forms of photo ID are not usually accepted as proof of identity. Things like the Young Scot Card, a university or work ID cannot be used to prove you are who you say you are. 

Even to join a GP surgery you will usually now need photo ID, although they will still accept documents like a Young Scot Card.

Bottom line is that it's getting very hard to "prove" you are who you say you are and that you have a right to things like NHS treatment. Just look at what happened to the Windrush people.

ETA: We don't have electoral colleges here but we DO have First Past the Post which is equally undemocratic and vulnerable to gerrymandering, usually by the Tories. We also tried to have electoral reform, the Lib Dems made it the one part of their 2010 manifesto they made good on. If by made good you meant severely water it down to the point where it was what exactly no one asked for. As a result, it also failed.

In the Scottish and Welsh parliaments a weaker form of Proportional Representation is used. It could be better but it has allowed the smaller parties to have some success. Glasgow has sent Patrick Harvey of the Greens to the Scottish Parliament and Plyd Cymru are having a lot of success in the Welsh Assembly. Of course, the Labour Party take this as a personal betrayal, not as a sign that their policies stink.

Edited October 13, 2019 by unsafetydancer
Adding

[Ozlsn]

I have to admit this is one reason I like compulsory voting - you can't pull stunts like this (well as easily ). If everyone eligible has to turn up and get their name ticked off then you have to make it as easy as possible for people to vote. I usually produce my drivers licence (it makes it easier for the electoral roll officer to find my name quickly!) but in general you only need 100 points of ID to enrol and once you've done that you don't actually need ID at the polls. There is always ongoing debate about this - if you vote out of your electorate the vote includes a stat dec that you have not voted anywhere else.

[unsafetydancer]

Currently you need no ID to enrol with the electoral register, you need your full name, DOB, full address and that's it. They cross check the data with things like council tax registers, university matriculation data and HMRC data.

You don't need ID at the polling station, just your name and full address.

I wonder if this is suddenly such a pressing matter because several polls have now shown that people have turned against Brexit, now that they can see what it will actually entail. Voter ID laws like this will disproportionately affect poorer people, trans people, immigrants, women fleeing domestic violence and people recently released from prison and these are the groups most likely to be damaged by Brexit. It's just fucking sinister.

[unsafetydancer]

Angry again!

Just read a Facebook status posted by a friend who has tried to use the Home Office app to apply to stay here. She has lived here since she was a teen, attended a Scottish university and has two Scottish born children. Apparently none of this counts, as she is a stay at home parent with young kids and therefore does not pay tax. She sure as hell shows up on the council tax register, and the HMRC child tax credit register. They are claiming there is no "proof" she has been here all this time.

What about her university transcripts, her high school attendance records, her bank account statements. They will all show activity here in Scotland. She might be sent away because of this, because she cannot afford childcare if she goes to work so has stayed home until the youngest child is in school. She might be sent away from her family. 

Fuck this squarely in the arse! If they come for my friends I am chaining myself across their door, they can do what they want to me!

[fraurosena]

20 minutes ago, unsafetydancer said:

Angry again!

Just read a Facebook status posted by a friend who has tried to use the Home Office app to apply to stay here. She has lived here since she was a teen, attended a Scottish university and has two Scottish born children. Apparently none of this counts, as she is a stay at home parent with young kids and therefore does not pay tax. She sure as hell shows up on the council tax register, and the HMRC child tax credit register. They are claiming there is no "proof" she has been here all this time.

What about her university transcripts, her high school attendance records, her bank account statements. They will all show activity here in Scotland. She might be sent away because of this, because she cannot afford childcare if she goes to work so has stayed home until the youngest child is in school. She might be sent away from her family. 

Fuck this squarely in the arse! If they come for my friends I am chaining myself across their door, they can do what they want to me!

This is so idiotic. My niece moved in with her English boyfriend last year and has already gotten permission to stay. They're not married, and don't have kids. She hasn't been living in England for more than 18 months. So she can stay for the next five years only because she has a job? Sweet Rufus!