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Theresa May Becomes UK's 'Spy Queen' and New Prime Minister (arstechnica.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via Ars Technica: Theresa May has become the new British Prime Minister. As she sat down with the Queen on Wednesday, a controversial surveillance draft legislation that looks to significantly increase surveillance of Brits' online activity will be debated during its second committee stage day in the House of Lords. Ars Technica reports: "The Investigatory Powers Act could be in place within months of May arriving at Number 10 -- if peers and legal spats fail to scupper its passage through parliament -- after MPs recently waved it through having secured only minor amendments to the bill. As home secretary, May fought for six years to get her so-called Snoopers' Charter onto the statute books." According to Ars Technica, Theresa May's key political moments on the Investigatory Powers Bill start in 1997 when she became the Member of Parliament for Maidenhead. During her opposition years, her home affairs record shows that she generally votes against the Labour government's more draconian measures on topics such as anti-terrorism and ID cards. Mid-2009: May votes against requiring ISPs to retain certain categories of communications data, which they generate or process, for a minimum period of 12 months. 2010: She was appointed home secretary in coalition government between the Conservatives and junior partner the Liberal Democrats. 2011: The previous government's shelved Interception Modernization Program is rebranded as the Communications Capabilities Development Program (CCDP) by home office under May. Mid-2012: The CCDP morphs into Communications Data Bill, which is brought before parliament. Late-2012: May's Snoopers' Charter bid fails as deputy PM Nick Clegg orders the home office to go back to the drawing board. Mid-2014: May rushes what she characterizes as an "emergency" Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill through parliament, after the European Court of Justice invalidates the Data Retention Directive for failing to have adequate privacy safeguards in place. Late-2015: British security services have intercepted bulk communications data of UK citizens for years, May reveals to MPs for the first time as she brings her revamped Snoopers' Charter bid -- this time dubbed the Investigatory Powers Bill (IPB) -- before parliament. Mid-2016: MPs support thrust of IPB as it passes through the House of Commons. July 13, 2016: Theresa May becomes the UK's new prime minister as peers in the House of Lords undertake a second day of committee stage scrutiny of the Investigatory Powers Bill. UPDATE 7/13/16: Boris Johnson, the former London mayor who led the Brexit campaign, has been made foreign secretary by the new Prime Minister Theresa May.
Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary isn't the only Cabinet Minister she's appointed which will have international implications, she has also created two new cabinet posts;
Secretary of State for Exiting the EU - David Davis
Secretary of State for International Trade - Liam Fox
The first is getting us out of the EU, the second is for getting new trade agreements for when we are out of the EU.
All these three are Brexiters, and will be responsible for the aftermath. Very clever - as May was a Remainer, she has effectively delegated responsibility for the success or failure of exiting the EU on to those who campaigned to get us into this situation in the first place!
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. - Blake
Well we can vote to rejoin the EU, sure, if all 27 other countries want us back, and if we join the Euro, and join the Shengen border free zone. And pay the full contribution without the rebates we negotiated. Personally I think we should do all that, and get over ourselves and stop being an awkward antagonistic special snowflake in Europe.
Europe is massively more democratic than it is perceived in the UK. The commission is headed by 28 representatives appointed by their democratically elected governments (albeit appointed to act in the interests of Europe) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... the European parliament is made up of MEPs voted in directly. The council is the elected heads of state of the member countries. Junker was the first president of the commission elected to the post by the elected European parliament.
There is a reasonably plausible democratic path to everyone involved, naturally there are lots of civil service type staff employed by the whole thing, and it is a bloated gravy train of bureaucracy, but that in itself is reformable and not undemocratic.
It's a shit question.
"Remain a member of the European Union" is ok, you know what is being voting for - and, equally importantly - the people who voted for the other option also know what its proponents were voting for.
"Leave the European Union" is utterly stupid. Nobody knows what it means. For some leave voters it means stop immigration at all costs. For other leave voters it meant "continue the free movement of people and goods within Europe".
Compare this question with the 2011 alternative vote question:
At present, the UK uses the "first past the post" system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should the "alternative vote" system be used instead?
"alternative vote" was defined https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Imagine instead if this question had been:
At present, the UK uses the "first past the post" system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should a proportional voting system be used instead?'
I would expect that this would have carried. Much like the EU question, the alternative to the status quo is a shifting target that can be defined to whatever the proponent wants. Of course, had that question been asked then we'd then have had a mess to sort out when everybody wanted a different PR system.
What should have happened is that DC should have negotiated with Europe on, say, Britain adopting the Norwegian model and leaving the EU. Once he'd got approval then gone to the country with
"Remain a member of the European Union"
"Adopt the Norwegian model of membership in the EEA"
(Or he could have gone for a no-free movement of people or goods WTO rules model alternative)
Now the question is clearer - and even if it had gone against DC, at least everybody would have known what was going to happen.
Britain is utterly crap at negotiating. We have an adversarial system, both in parliament and in the judiciary. Most European nations have had much more experience with having to establish coalitions. It's going to be interesting to see how the next two years go and whether the press is reporting how those "evil Europeans are ganging up on us" when almost certainly none of them are arguing for what they really want but instead for what they understand they can really get.
At least for some things in Europe we used to have a veto. That gave us a lot of clout - however awkward we were we couldn't be completely ignored (and the 10-12% control of the vote helped too). We also tended to hold the balance of power in Franco-German differences - so neither country to afford to upset us too much. We're giving all that up. That might mean Europe now tears itself to pieces or it might mean that Europe can now rebuild itself stronger in a more cooperative model.
We've now got idiots saying that any deal with Europe should now go to another referendum. I predict that there is NO deal that can be made that will attract a majority of the votes. The single largest minority is probably "remain in the EU" which has already been rejected. I suppose we could put two deals on the referendum and force people to chose one or the other - just make sure that the other option is so bad that it cannot win.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
It wasn't that hard:
£350 - nope, that was a lie.
71 failed no votes - true, but that amounted to 3%, we actually got our way about 90% of the time.
EEA without free movement - we were constantly told this wouldn't happen, and still are being told this.
Fisherman won't have to deal with quotas - even if that were to happen, how long would it take for them to be reintroduced after they return to over-fishing indiscriminately?
109 laws on pillows - John Oliver covered that nicely.
The EU need us more than we need them (trade deficit) - only if you ignore the fact the EU's GDP is five times greater than the UK's.
All you had to do is check if there was a modicum of truth in what you heard.