(UK EURO THREAD) UK POLITICS MK2

[NoirAvlaa]

I've heard several calls, upon the Queens death, to revisit the idea of reparations for all the harms caused by the British Empire.

Is there any domestic movement on this in the UK?

Basically none, and the idea of choosing arbitrary historical events before the lives of anyone alive today and paying reparations for them but not other contemporary ills is frankly absurdly stupid. It's only become a thing in the US because there is so little social mobility or social safety net that only a mass transfer of wealth seems viable to actually undo some of the systemic injustice.

People should be paying reparations/compensation for the injustice they perpetuate TODAY, not what their great great granddad did to people who look a bit similar a hundred years ago. And there's tonnes we just choose not to validate it.

It's a good job that nothing the british empire did still has repurcussions today tbh, otherwise this post would be cringe as fuck.

Italy should be paying britain reparations too then presumably.

I didn't realise the roman conquest of britain 2000 years ago still has ongoing negative ramifications for England. But maybe the genocides and slavery the empires commited in recent history that still cause massive issues around the world aren't that big of an issue and we shouldn't try to fix it because a little bit of time has passed. Do you also say things like "I don't even see colour!" when talking about racial issues?

[Lancehot]

Bloody Romans, what did they ever do for us?

[Lallante]

I've heard several calls, upon the Queens death, to revisit the idea of reparations for all the harms caused by the British Empire.

Is there any domestic movement on this in the UK?

Basically none, and the idea of choosing arbitrary historical events before the lives of anyone alive today and paying reparations for them but not other contemporary ills is frankly absurdly stupid. It's only become a thing in the US because there is so little social mobility or social safety net that only a mass transfer of wealth seems viable to actually undo some of the systemic injustice.

People should be paying reparations/compensation for the injustice they perpetuate TODAY, not what their great great granddad did to people who look a bit similar a hundred years ago. And there's tonnes we just choose not to validate it.

It's a good job that nothing the british empire did still has repurcussions today tbh, otherwise this post would be cringe as fuck.

Italy should be paying britain reparations too then presumably.

I didn't realise the roman conquest of britain 2000 years ago still has ongoing negative ramifications for England. But maybe the genocides and slavery the empires commited in recent history that still cause massive issues around the world aren't that big of an issue and we shouldn't try to fix it because a little bit of time has passed. Do you also say things like "I don't even see colour!" when talking about racial issues?

So when you say "recent history" what's your cut off? Does Britains part in the slave trade come in? How about the Napoleonic wars? When people talk about the evils of colonialism they are mentally covering probably 500 years or more. Does stuff at the start of that count? Do only the winners of conflicts have responsibility or are evils done by the losers still relevant? Do various african tribal groups owe a tonne of African americans money for selling their great grandparents into slavery? Is the appropriate measure of damages to put someone in the position they would have been but for the wrong done to them? Can we offset the benefits the victims got as a side effect of their mistreatment?

This is all so fucking dumb. Attack structural inequality directly not through fucking nonsense like "here's a guilt payment for something we didnt do for something you didnt experience"

[NoirAvlaa]

"for something our country did for something you still experience" ftfy

We literally genocided like 3 million indians in the 1940s, amongst other things, some of the stuff is _still_ within living memory, and other things are "oh you're free now but also we still completely dominate your economy and will fuck you over 'legally' for a few hundred years so you can't get a leg up". We rigged the game against them then refuse to help even it out again except against massive public appeal and/or revolutions.

[Siv]

I swear labour should ban fringe meetings at the party conference, for some insane reason a labour MP attacked his colour when you have the open goal of him trashing the pound in a week.

Other than that I think Starmer has done ok and come out with some solid if not exciting policies.

[Alistair]

"for something our country did for something you still experience" ftfy

We literally genocided like 3 million indians in the 1940s, amongst other things, some of the stuff is _still_ within living memory, and other things are "oh you're free now but also we still completely dominate your economy and will fuck you over 'legally' for a few hundred years so you can't get a leg up". We rigged the game against them then refuse to help even it out again except against massive public appeal and/or revolutions.

Indeed, that was part of what the CNN article I linked was talking about, how modern scholarship around abuses of the British Empire is something of a new phenomena, exposing just how horrible, brutal, widespread, and in some cases, recent the crimes of colonialism have been.

It also touched on how modern British schoolkids are somewhat sheltered/misinformed in a rather idealistic way about what the Empire was for and what it did.

In truth, I tend to agree with the author they interviewed, the crimes of the British are horrific and should not be overlooked, any more than the sins of slavery in the U.S. should be overlooked. There is a real financial debt to the peoples that were harmed.

One could argue that many decades of foreign aid might have paid for some of that, or that reparations (individual or collective) are quite difficult to do right, for several reasons, but I don't think anyone can deny that the moral debt exists.

[August]

England's punishment is to continue their decline toward irrelevancy, which is their natural state before exploitation lifted them up in the world scene.

[Sandzibar]

Bloody English, what did they ever do for us?

[Siv]

Part of the BoE are doing mass quantitative easing increasing inflation while another part is raising interest rates to combat inflation so that we can pursue a policy of tax cuts for richest which has been repeatedly proven to have negligible effect on growth. It's fucking mental and crashing the economy at great speed.

Truss did promise to hit the ground from day one, it's a shame she is taking the rest of the country with her.

[Sacul]

I've heard several calls, upon the Queens death, to revisit the idea of reparations for all the harms caused by the British Empire.

Is there any domestic movement on this in the UK?

On that note, saw an interesting article on CNN today about an author and some seemingly well-researched books on the Colonial history and rampant abuses of the Empire.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/25/opini...gen/index.html

Has anyone here read these books, are they are worthy pickup?

I can tell you this. I am bit fed up with talks about reperations...money..money..money.

Many western euro countries, including UK and NL, have been paying reperations in the form of development aid to former colonies. Does that compensate for individual generation suffering no but does it mean reperations yes.

I will give a example. In 1975 our former dutch colony in south america called Surinam became 'free'. We made a deal for multi multi billion dollar aid over the next 50 years from then. 4 years after there was a military coup and our gov suspended the aid agreed upon as they did not want to support a military junta. I think that is fair.

When there was a new democratic gov after iirc 10 years we resumed the aid, inflation corrected. Also fair.
In the last 7 years there have been outrage from Surinam that we need to pay individual reparations. I find that bullshit. We did pay and are paying yearly. You cant ask for $ for ancestors 4 generations ago.

If you make your country a shithole, like Surinam, 45 years after independence with dutch aid yearly thats on you not us.

Have any Dutch banks or large companies made money out of Surinam, since independence? Or do Dutch lawyers and assets managers help the Surinam elite to siphon off billions? I think the narrative that, 'we gave them their freedom and loads of aid, yet they're still a shithole', is bullshit. Here's a story about one study of the cash flows:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-d...rich-countries

However, I'm not necessarily in favour of individual reparations. Honestly, it is a non-story. A few extreme leftists call for reparations. The main point is to give people on the right or centre something to get upset about.

Actually our gov forced the state banks we had (as in we had majority shares re voting in them) to supply loans to Surinam as both a development bank and commercial. During the junta i am sure they did something bad as it seems all banks do, not sure on those specific details.
I can tell you that half the country came to NL directly after and when the junta started. We almost have the same amount of Surinam descendent people in NL as people in Surinam right now. And those (former) immigrants are doing well, big middle class etc.

[Nordstern]

[Lallante]

Pages of nonsense about reparations. Nothing about the insanely successful Labour party conference and all the awesome policy announcements coming out of it. Keep on FHCing FHC....

[depili]

Pages of nonsense about reparations. Nothing about the insanely successful Labour party conference and all the awesome policy announcements coming out of it. Keep on FHCing FHC....

Insanely successful, so labour only lost 5% of their voters as a result? =)

[Lallante]

Pages of nonsense about reparations. Nothing about the insanely successful Labour party conference and all the awesome policy announcements coming out of it. Keep on FHCing FHC....

Insanely successful, so labour only lost 5% of their voters as a result? =)

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uks...es-2022-09-26/

[Rodj Blake]

Pages of nonsense about reparations. Nothing about the insanely successful Labour party conference and all the awesome policy announcements coming out of it. Keep on FHCing FHC....

Yes, let's talk about Starmer's announcement that Labour is now a centrist party.

[Lallante]

Pages of nonsense about reparations. Nothing about the insanely successful Labour party conference and all the awesome policy announcements coming out of it. Keep on FHCing FHC....

Yes, let's talk about Starmer's announcement that Labour is now a centrist party.

While announcing a tonne of solid centre left policies like nationalisation of the trains as franchises end, a state owned energy company competitor, free breakfast club for all children, etc etc.

Obviously this wont cut it for the "Labour never had an antisemitism problem, that was just a Israeli conspiracy and Corbyn did nothing wrong" crowd

[duckduck]

Pages of nonsense about reparations. Nothing about the insanely successful Labour party conference and all the awesome policy announcements coming out of it. Keep on FHCing FHC....

Yes, let's talk about Starmer's announcement that Labour is now a centrist party.

God, you're a hard audience. Labour presented clear strong policies and have a 33 point poll lead - yet you bellyache about the C word.

[Lancehot]

Problem is Labour can't call a general election. If anything, Truss benefits from their large poll lead, because it ensures there likely won't be enough Tory backbenchers willing to bring down the government till they have to call an election in 2024/25 (since none are going to vote themselves out of a job). By then they're probably banking on the economy/markets being on the up due to things beyond any governments control & getting to claim credit for it. Assuming, that is, they're not taking it as given that the Tories will lose the next election regardless of what they do (or at least they'll lose bad enough that whoevers in government then will have to resign), so are just pocketing what they can & preparing their golden parachutes in the meantime

[VARRAKK]

[NoirAvlaa]

Pages of nonsense about reparations. Nothing about the insanely successful Labour party conference and all the awesome policy announcements coming out of it. Keep on FHCing FHC....

Feel free to start a conversation on it yourself instead of blaming others for not starting it for you