Politics Thread (encompassing Brexit) - 21 June 2017 onwards

[DJ Barry Hammond]

2 hours ago, Heathrow fox said:

Freedom of movement equals higher rent and lower wages.The race to the bottom,We all

end up shopping at Poundland.Which bit do you not understand.

 

Strange how high streets on the continent are nothing like ours? 

 

I assume you have plentiful qualifications in social economic affairs and the like to make you so certain of your point of view? To have no doubt that you might be wrong?

[Heathrow fox]

9 minutes ago, DJ Barry Hammond said:

 

Strange how high streets on the continent are nothing like ours? 

 

I assume you have plentiful qualifications in social economic affairs and the like to make you so certain of your point of view? To have no doubt that you might be wrong?

I’m sure Greece’s equivalent of Grimsby town centre is thriving 

[DJ Barry Hammond]

Just now, Heathrow fox said:

I’m sure Greece’s equivalent of Grimsby town centre is thriving 

 

Ok, but clarify the relevance of your comparison and how these two situations are directly related. 

[Heathrow fox]

At each ends of the continent but both workings classes getting bounced by the EU.

[leicsmac]

3 hours ago, MattP said:

Or if others just carrying on doing what they are, we've already seen Germany end up with the hard right in opposition because the politicians went against what a considerable amount of the people in the country wanted.

If what happens now leads to problems of that type down the line, the vast amount of responsbility will be solely that of the far-right nationalists taking advantage of the situation, no one else. Neofascists don't get to turn around and at least partially absolve themselves by saying they're a product of their environment and "what people really want", not when they do what they do.

 

There is no justification for what hard-right nationalism inevitably leads to in the form of mass oppression and sometimes death of those they consider undesirable. None.

[Alf Bentley]

18 minutes ago, Heathrow fox said:

We have had 

We have had the best part of 40 years of pro neo liberal,pro globalisation,anti union anti working class government.All major principals of the EU.Why on earth would they want to

build cheap affordable housing.

 

So therefore we are stuck with the situation of more people higher rent.My high street point was to point out the utter bleakness of our society.Amazon about sums up everything that is wrong with the world.Amazon the EUs dream

 

The EU does nothing to help or protect the working class.The gap in pay is mostly down to our only industry these days.Moving make believe money around the markets.

 

I'd agree that the EU has drifted too much towards neo-liberal, pro-globalisation policies in the last 10-15 years. That's part of the reason why I considered voting Leave at the referendum.

 

However, it has also done a lot to counter-balance that by distributing large sums to development projects in poorer regions (e.g. Wales, N. Ireland, Cornwall, Merseyside) and poorer nations (Ireland, Spain, Greece, more recently E. Europe), which have then grown and offered better trading opportunities for richer nations like the UK, Germany etc. Granted, it has enforced some harsh, austerity politics since the 2008 crash, but so has the UK Govt. The EU has also introduced a wide range of social legislation on working hours, consultation of workers, working conditions, environmental protection etc. These policies have generally been opposed by Eurosceptics - and opposed by Tory Govts, which have negotiated opt-outs from them.

 

I don't see the logic in slating the EU for its neo-liberalism and then arguing that we should leave the EU and hand all power to the UK Govt, which has presided over most of that 40 years of neo-liberal, pro-globalisation, anti-working-class policy about which you complain, which has opposed many of the pro-working-class and redistributive policies that the EU has implemented and which has insisted on much more neo-liberalism than the EU.

 

Are you seriously asking why the EU would want to build affordable housing? Housing comes within the remit of the UK Govt / local govt, not the EU. The UK Govt could have found various mechanisms for promoting affordable housing (legislation, planning rules, tax breaks, financial incentives, penalties) - but has chosen not to.

 

As for the UK having only one industry (a slight exaggeration), how is that the fault of the EU? Some other EU countries have multiple thriving industries: e.g. Germany. Even Ireland has managed to build up an impressive presence in ICT. Do you not think our over-reliance on financial services might have something to do with successive UK Govts effectively having no industrial policy and relying on laissez-faire? Maybe even to do with the party of govt being heavily funded by hedge funds and the like? 

 

Yes, I got your point about the bleakness of our city centres - but it is mainly the UK Govt that has the power to do something about that. It could have boosted local govt funding to support local development, or intervened to ensure commercial rents fell, or amended planning law favouring out-of-town retail parks, or promoted new uses of city centre areas vacated due to the shift to online retail. Instead, as usual, it relied on laissez-faire policies, assuming the market would sort it all out. It also drastically reduced funding to local govt, prevented them raising their own funds through council tax and left them over-dependent on high business rates.....while central govt slashed corporation tax, thereby distributing money from small business on the high street to big businesses such as Amazon! It also did very little to clamp down on tax havens.

 

As for Amazon, it is an American corporation, not an EU institution. It is mainly up to the UK Govt to address its wrongdoing. The EU has taken legal action and fined Amazon - and imposed a $5bn fine on Google a few days ago. What has the UK Govt done?

 

I note again that you've chosen not to answer the questions that I asked, preferring to plough on blaming the EU for everything that's wrong with the world, whether it is responsible or not.

I assume you have no answers to my questions.

[Buce]

How whistleblower thwarted neo-Nazi plot against Labour MP

A disaffected former activist was key to conviction of two members of banned National Action

 

The week after the Manchester Arena bombing in which 22 died and hundreds were injured, several men in their 20s and early 30s arrived in the city to view its aftermath for themselves.

But unlike the many others who visited the site to leave flowers and cards, the men – members of the banned far-right terrorist group National Action – had not come to pay their respects.

“They went not to condemn the bombing or pay tribute to the victims of the jihadi bomber,” said Matthew Collins of the anti-fascist campaign group Hope Not Hate. “They went to admire his work. That is what the police don’t understand. They may look like a bunch of skinny schoolboys in the main, but they carry with them an absolutely horrendous death wish.”

 

That the Observer learned of this macabre gathering is thanks to a disaffected former member of the group who blew the whistle on its activities, a move that last week led to the jailing of Christopher Lythgoe, 32, and Matthew Hankinson, 24, for being members of National Action.

Robbie Mullen, 25, exposed the hate-filled operations of an obscure organisation that hitherto had been best known for endorsing the murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox, a move which in December 2016 led to it being proscribed, making it the first rightwing group to be banned in Britain since the second world war. But his actions have also helped shine light on how the UK’s increasingly fragmented far right attracts young men to its cause.

Founded in 2013 by university students Alex Davies and Benjamin Raymond, National Action is a neo-Nazi group whose members express a hatred of Jewish people, gays and ethnic minorities.

Towards the end of its brief life, though, it had turned into something else altogether, Collins suggested.

“They weren’t even a neo-Nazi group, they were nihilists. Lythgoe’s inspirations were the IRA, the INLA, the Baader-Meinhof group, the Khmer Rouge. You’re looking at a group that towards the end admired jihadists. As a group they just wanted to be terrorists and kill people.”

It is a chilling and troubling assessment and one that shows how fluid the far right in Britain has become.

Mullen, whose father died when he was 16 and who finished school at just 14, first encountered the group at a National Front demonstration in Manchester. He had left home, had no girlfriend and was feeling isolated.

“When we first met him he assumed he would go to prison, he didn’t know what it would be for, almost like a rite of passage,” Collins said.

Mullen’s mother had been horrified when Nick Griffin, then leader of the far-right British National Party, was elected an MEP in 2009 but her son had embraced the BNP – motivated by what he had read on the internet about immigration and grooming gangs led by Asian men.

 

He got a job with his stepbrother installing satellite TV dishes in places such as Burnley. “He saw upfront an image of Britain he’d only ever seen on the internet and it reaffirmed a lot of the prejudices he’d already taken on board from watching the BNP online,” said Collins, who had been in the far right himself for six years.

Membership of National Action was conferred only after an assessment. If someone turned up at a meeting and started flinging around racial slurs such as the N-word, “he was out”, said Collins. “And if they dressed like a skinhead they were out. They had to look as normal as possible. For a group that was pretty weird anyway that was a big ask.”

Once inside National Action, Mullen initially felt at home. “He was surrounded by friends,” Collins said. “It was not like old men grooming him, it was people his own age that had self-radicalised to such an extent they thought they were superior to anyone on the far right. They’d had fist fights with the EDL [English Defence League], with the National Front, [South] Yorkshire Casuals – a far-right anti-Muslim group. They saw themselves as physically and intellectually superior.”

But Mullen grew disillusioned. The organisation, he realised, was simply obsessed with violence. He wanted to leave, to spend more time with his PlayStation and his dog. He started leaking information to Hope Not Hate. Collins promised they would use his intelligence to dismantle the group.

But the promise had to be jettisoned when, last summer, Mullen disclosed that he had been in a pub when a plan to target Rosie Cooper, the Labour MP for West Lancashire, was discussed. “We removed him from his home that night,” Collins said.

At the start of the trial, Jack Renshaw, 23, pleaded guilty to preparing to engage in an act of terrorism by purchasing a machete. The jury failed to reach a verdict on whether he was a member of National Action.

Cooper was in court when Lythgoe, who was found not guilty of encouragement to murder, and Hankinson, were sentenced. She thanked Mullen for providing information which she credits with saving her life.

Mullen himself now faces an uncertain future. “He tried to get a job,” Collins said. “But he was placed on a terrorist watch list, so who’s going to employ him?”

In the longer term, Hope Not Hate hopes to secure funding to pay for Mullen to go into schools to educate youngsters about the threat the far right continues to pose.

As for National Action, Collins suggested it was finished. Several of its members have fled abroad, others gone to ground in the UK. But its influence lingers – spawning copycat groups including Scottish Dawn and NS131.

“It’s worrying,” Collins said. “It’s not those guys who will commit a terrorist act, it will be some lonely kid in a bedroom who feels inadequate and will be encouraged to do something.”

[leicsmac]

2 hours ago, toddybad said:

 

 

Since when did most of the Leave supporters care about scientific collaboration and advancement (except perhaps in the sense that advances military superiority)?

 

This is just another consequence to shrug at.

[DJ Barry Hammond]

1 hour ago, Heathrow fox said:

At each ends of the continent but both workings classes getting bounced by the EU.

 

How exactly? 

[Guest MattP]

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

If what happens now leads to problems of that type down the line, the vast amount of responsbility will be solely that of the far-right nationalists taking advantage of the situation, no one else. Neofascists don't get to turn around and at least partially absolve themselves by saying they're a product of their environment and "what people really want", not when they do what they do.

 

There is no justification for what hard-right nationalism inevitably leads to in the form of mass oppression and sometimes death of those they consider undesirable. None.

Hang on, so even if the vast majority of a population doesn't want to engage in mass migration being enforced upon them and vote for what you considered extreme to rally against it you don't take any responsibility whatsoever for the consequences? The arrogance of that is absolutely astounding.

 

Must be great to be you, do want we want and if you don't agree it's all your fault anyway, when you actually see opinion like this it makes guys like Bannon look like the sensible side of the argument. 

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, MattP said:

Hang on, so even if the vast majority of a population doesn't want to engage in mass migration being enforced upon them and vote for what you considered extreme to rally against it you don't take any responsibility whatsoever for the consequences? The arrogance of that is absolutely astounding.

 

Must be great to be you, do want we want and if you don't agree it's all your fault anyway, when you actually see opinion like this it makes guys like Bannon look like the sensible side of the argument. 

There's a difference between voting for the Tories, who you would expect to talk about reducing immigration and to seek the means to do so in a relatively civilised manner, and voting BNP (or UKIP with the new leadership) knowing full well they'd take much more direct action if they had the chance. You make that choice to vote knowingly and you have to answer for the consequences of that vote. 

[Buce]

Article 50 extension would need major shift in UK politics, say EU officials

Only second referendum or election would boost case for extension, EU sources say

 

The UK will not be saved from crashing out of the EU via an extension of the article 50 negotiations unless there is a major realignment in British politics, most likely through a second referendum or general election, senior diplomats and European commission officials have disclosed.

Among those calling for Theresa May to be ready to ask for a prolongation of the UK’s membership beyond 29 March 2019 should a no-deal scenario appear likely are the Commons’ exiting the EU select committee, chaired by Hilary Benn, and the former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg.

Yet EU sources insist that while Michel Barnier, the bloc’s chief negotiator, has repeatedly warned that the “clock is ticking”, including during his appearances in Brussels last week, it is not a lack of time that stands in the way of a deal being struck.

EU officials and diplomats have told the Guardian it would instead require a fundamental shift in British politics for there to be any value for the EU in an extension of the UK’s membership. That position is echoed in Berlin and Paris, among other EU capitals.

Article 50 can only be extended by the unanimous agreement of the 27 other member states, and on the request of the withdrawing state, which May has already said she is not prepared to do.

On Friday, Barnier picked apart the UK’s white paper, complaining that it would leave the EU open to fraud and burden European businesses with extra bureaucracy.

 

He told reporters he had offered to hold intensive talks with the new Brexit secretary, Dominic Raab, to find a solution to the problem of avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland, without which there will not be a withdrawal agreement.

 

The Guardian understands that during a meeting of EU ministers with Barnier on Friday, astonishment was expressed at May’s comments in Belfast earlier in the day in which she accused the EU of seeking to constitutionally and economically “dislocate” the UK.

“We want to de-dramatise this, talk it all down, and so there was surprise at the aggressive tone,” one diplomat said. “It just gives her even less room for manoeuvre. If she wants to give up, she should just say so.”

But while the negotiations have rarely looked so in danger of failing, senior EU officials and diplomats do not see any purpose in an extension to article 50, the two-year negotiating period set aside for a member withdrawing from the union, unless there is a change in British politics that can offer genuine hope of a better outcome.

“If it is time just for the sake of putting off an inevitable no deal, then it will not happen,” one senior diplomat involved in the negotiations said.

Charles Grant, the director of the Centre for European Reform thinktank, said that following his discussions with French government officials and the commission it was clear that a high bar would be set for an extension.

“If there is a very good reason for it, then fine,” he said. “But if it is just because a deal hasn’t been agreed, then that’s not going to be fine. The commission and the French government say they are relaxed about a no deal, although I am not sure they are.”

The issue had yet to be formally discussed among those involved in the EU-UK negotiations, but informal discussions suggest there is limited appetite for such a development, sources in Brussels added.

“You have 27 member states who have to agree to it and I can’t see them all doing so. There will always be someone who is awkward, and wants something out of it. Spain might want to make a point about Gibraltar, for example,” said one diplomat involved in the Brexit negotiations.

“We have spent the GDP of Greece in terms of manpower in trying to first of all keep the Brits in and now negotiate on their exit. Even if the UK asked for it, and that seems unlikely, it would need a compelling reason to be given.”

Mujtaba Rahman, a former Treasury and European commission official, and now head of Europe for the Eurasia Group risk consultancy, said: “An extension can’t be an end in itself. It would need to come with political change in Westminster, a referendum, change of leader or general election, otherwise negotiations would risk remaining deadlocked. That’s the view of the commission, the European council, Berlin and Paris.”

Rahman said the European parliament would be opposed to an extension as it would play well for European populists, including Ukip, who could point to the failure of the political classes to respect the 2016 referendum result.

Officials in the parliament have taken legal advice, which suggests that extending article 50 beyond the next European elections in May would not only give 73 British MEPs a right to sit in the chamber until the UK leaves but for the full five-year term.

A source in the parliament said: “This has been repeatedly discussed. It would be the perfect opportunity for Ukip to rebuild, which is what no one wants. After all, Guy Verhofstadt [the parliament’s Brexit coordinator] has said before that the only good thing about Brexit is that Nigel Farage won’t be coming to Brussels again. The parliament won’t want them back again”.

Asked about the possibility of an extension of article 50, a senior British cabinet source said there had been no conversations within the government on the topic. He added that ministers were aware that such a request would likely prompt a collective “cardiac arrest” among leaders of member states.

[leicsmac]

31 minutes ago, MattP said:

Hang on, so even if the vast majority of a population doesn't want to engage in mass migration being enforced upon them and vote for what you considered extreme to rally against it you don't take any responsibility whatsoever for the consequences? The arrogance of that is absolutely astounding.

 

Must be great to be you, do want we want and if you don't agree it's all your fault anyway, when you actually see opinion like this it makes guys like Bannon look like the sensible side of the argument. 

If the vast majority of a population don't want to engage in mass migration they should use their vote to elect someone who believes in reasonable immigration policy (though what is reasonable or not is relative) rather than proceeding straight to extreme land and giving the ultranationalists amongst them exactly what they want. Yes, there is responsibility shared for all that took part in making the atmosphere come about, but the response seems awfully disproportionate given what the consequences can be - again, history is a pretty good marker for that. If someone can show me an example of excessive migration resulting in a fundamental change in a country and as a direct result the same kind of death and oppression as is often displayed as a direct result of extreme nationalism (other than old-style colonial expansion of course, that did a lot of that), then I'd be happy to see it.

 

I'm sorry Matt, but if you really don't consider the far right resurgence in Europe extreme and believe that Bannon looks sensible (your wording is ambiguous so I'm not jumping to conclusions on this one) then I really don't have much more to say in the conversation because it's safe to see our views on the matter are fundamentally different.

 

To clarify my stance here: I fear any potential fundamental Islamic control of governments in Europe, for the repressive nature of similiar governments in the Middle East and their treatment of women and minorities. I fear any potential fundamental nationalist control of governments in Europe more, not because I believe they'll be worse (they're probably about the same in terms of the nastiness they cause) but because I believe such a takeover is much more likely in the near future.

Edited 22 July 2018 by leicsmac

[Innovindil]

32 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

If the vast majority of a population don't want to engage in mass migration they should use their vote to elect someone who believes in reasonable immigration policy (though what is reasonable or not is relative) rather than proceeding straight to extreme land and giving the ultranationalists amongst them exactly what they want.

 

And we did exactly that. The tory party promised to lower immigration, they didn't. So who's next to vote for that promises lowering immigration?

 

We've not gone straight to extreme land, we've been pushed there.

 

How many reasonable parties across europe sit on a manifesto of lowering immigration? 

[leicsmac]

5 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

And we did exactly that. The tory party promised to lower immigration, they didn't. So who's next to vote for that promises lowering immigration?

 

We've not gone straight to extreme land, we've been pushed there.

 

How many reasonable parties across europe sit on a manifesto of lowering immigration? 

Fair enough, if those who want to lower immigration think that their only option for doing so as of now is to pick the extreme nationalists then that is, of course, their choice.

 

However, I disagree most strongly with the idea that those who do can then turn around and absolve themselves of all responsibility from what comes from electing those nationalists (which is often pretty clear) because "hey, we weren't being listened to."

 

Know what you're voting for - all the policy of what you're voting for - and own it IMO.

 

Edit: I can understand that it puts some folks in a situation where they feel they're damned no matter what - either they associate with neofascists or their legitimate concerns don't get looked at - but then the same folks often say that life isn't fair, and it isn't in this case.

Edited 22 July 2018 by leicsmac

[Milo]

1 minute ago, leicsmac said:

Know what you're voting for - all the policy of what you're voting for - and own it IMO.

Listened to a really interesting debate yesterday regarding exactly this. 

 

For the recent referendums (referenda?) in Scotland and Ireland, the details were discussed and debated for a couple of years prior to the vote - so everyone who voted knew the kind of outcome they'd be voting for.

 

Brexit vote seems to have been presented a bit half-arsed in comparison.    

 

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/research/electionsandreferendums/icreferendums

 

 

[Milo]

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

To clarify my stance here: I fear any potential fundamental Islamic control of governments in Europe, for the repressive nature of similiar governments in the Middle East and their treatment of women and minorities. I fear any potential fundamental nationalist control of governments in Europe more, not because I believe they'll be worse (they're probably about the same in terms of the nastiness they cause) but because I believe such a takeover is much more likely in the near future.

But surely this would be the fault of the EU?

 

The EU's tepid, homogenised 'one size fits all' state of nations is exactly the sort of mentality that is likely to give rise to tub thumping nationalism. The EU has eroded individual identity which is what people are pushing back against.

 

 

[Carl the Llama]

1 hour ago, MattP said:

Hang on, so even if the vast majority of a population doesn't want to engage in mass migration being enforced upon them and vote for what you considered extreme to rally against it you don't take any responsibility whatsoever for the consequences? The arrogance of that is absolutely astounding.

When did that happen?

 

1 hour ago, MattP said:

Must be great to be you, do want we want and if you don't agree it's all your fault anyway, when you actually see opinion like this it makes guys like Bannon look like the sensible side of the argument. 

Aka the Brexiteer maxim. 

[leicsmac]

48 minutes ago, Milo said:

But surely this would be the fault of the EU?

 

The EU's tepid, homogenised 'one size fits all' state of nations is exactly the sort of mentality that is likely to give rise to tub thumping nationalism. The EU has eroded individual identity which is what people are pushing back against.

 

 

In part, yes.

 

But much much more will be down to the nationalists themselves who choose to seek power, choose to prey on peoples fears of the "other", and once they have power choose to oppress and sometimes kill those they deem "unworthy".

 

We don't rationalise and apologise for Nazism, Franco, or more recent examples like apartheid South Africa, Pinochet's Chile and Putin's Russia (though that's not on the same scale yet) by saying that folks weren't being listened to and something more nationalist needed to come in.

[Buce]

Universal credit IT system 'broken', whistleblowers say

Service centre staff say glitches having harmful effect on huge number of claimants

 

Universal credit is so riddled with design flaws and process faults that it is practically guaranteed to generate mistakes and delays that would push vulnerable benefit claimants into hardship, according to whistleblowers.

 

Service centre workers have told the Guardian that glitches and errors in the “cobbled-together” system have commonly led to claimants’ benefit payments being delayed for weeks or wrongly reduced by hundreds of pounds.

One said: “The IT system on which universal credit is built is so fundamentally broken and poorly designed that it guarantees severe problems with claims.”

He said the system was overcomplex and prone to errors that affected payments and often proved slow to correct. “In practical terms, it is not working the way it was intended and it is having an actively harmful effect on a huge number of claimants.”

 

Mistakes and delays can add on average an extra three weeks to the formal 35-day wait for an initial benefit payment, pushing claimants into debt, rent arrears, and reliance on food banks. Campaigners warn that the problems could get worse next year when more than 3 million claimants start to be “migrated” to the new system.

Growing concern over universal credit, which is six years behind schedule but will eventually handle £63bn of benefits going to 8 million people, is matched by disquiet over what critics say has been a defensive and insular approach to managing welfare reform by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

The department came under withering fire last week from a cross-party group of MPs who accused it of a “culture of indifference” after it had repeatedly ignored warnings of basic process errors that led to 70,000 disabled benefit claimants being underpaid an estimated £500m over six years.

The work and pensions secretary, Esther McVey, sought to limit the damage in a speech on Thursday in which she admitted there were problems with universal credit, and promised to listen to campaigners, claimants and frontline staff to find ways to change and improve the system.

One whistleblower said many of the design problems with universal credit stemmed from the failure to understand claimants’ needs, especially where they lacked digital skills and internet access. “We are punishing claimants for not understanding a system that is not built with them in mind,” he said.

 

The DWP said it would not comment on the whistleblowers’ specific claims but insisted the system was being constantly improved. “Universal credit is a flexible and responsive benefit and we continue to listen to feedback and make any necessary improvements during the rollout with our test-and-learn approach.

“We are committed to ensuring people get the help they need and the majority of staff say universal credit gives them greater flexibility to give people the right support. The latest figures show 83% of claimants are satisfied with the system and complaint rates are low.”

Bayard Tarpley, 27, who left the Grimsby service centre last week after two years as a telephony agent, told the Guardian that he had been dealing with distressed claimants every day. “My hope is that by speaking out I can help explain why these processes have such a significant, harmful impact on claimants.”

 

He gave several examples of where poor system design and practice caused delays and payment errors, including:

• Staff are not notified when claimants leave messages on their online journal; for example, if they wish to challenge payment errors. As a result, messages sent to officials can go unanswered for days or weeks unless claimants pursue the inquiry by phone.
• Claimants are discouraged by staff from phoning in to resolve problems or to book a home visit and instead are actively persuaded to go online, using a technique called “deflection”, even when callers insist they are unable to access or use the internet.
• Callers have often been given wrong or contradictory advice about their entitlements by DWP officials. These include telling severely disabled claimants who are moving on to universal credit from existing benefits that they must undergo a new “fit for work” test to receive full payment.
• Although the system is equipped to receive scanned documents, claimants instead are told to present paper evidence used to verify their claim, such as medical reports, either at the local job centre or through the post, further slowing down the payment process.

• Small delays or fluctuations in the timing of employers’ reporting of working claimants’ monthly wages via the real time information system can lead to them being left hundreds of pounds out of pocket through no fault of their own.

Food banks were regarded as a formal backstop for when the system failed, he said. Officials are told to advise claimants who are in hardship and who do not qualify for cash advances to contact charities or their council for help. Many councils have closed local welfare provision as a result of cuts.

A second whistleblower, Joanne Huggins, who was until recently a case manager at the Grimsby centre, said that high staff caseloads and a high volume of calls to the service made it difficult to keep track of and prioritise claimants’ problems. “The system is set up in such a way that people don’t get support,” she said.

At least £1.3bn has been spent since 2010 developing universal credit. Although it is heralded as a streamlined digital replacement for the existing benefit system, a recent National Audit Office report concluded it was still in many aspects unwieldy, inefficient and reliant on basic manual processes.

The DWP says it operates a “test-and-learn” approach to constantly improve the system, although the whistleblower said in his experience staff suggestions were ignored and “top down” adjustments tended to follow media or political controversies, such as the scrapping of call charges on universal credit helplines.

Mark Serwotka, the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union that represents DWP staff, said: “The findings from the whistleblowers are in line with the ongoing feedback we get from our reps and members who struggle to deliver a service to universal credit claimants in the face of mounting cuts and increasing workloads.

Edited 22 July 2018 by Buce

[Alf Bentley]

35 minutes ago, Milo said:

But surely this would be the fault of the EU?

 

The EU's tepid, homogenised 'one size fits all' state of nations is exactly the sort of mentality that is likely to give rise to tub thumping nationalism. The EU has eroded individual identity which is what people are pushing back against.

 

 

 

I can see justification for certain criticisms of the EU:

- When people criticise the EU for its imposition of austerity 

- When people criticise the EU for dithering over how to deal with the refugee influx

- When people criticise the EU for doing too little to ensure people feel they have a democratic stake in the EU

- I also get the argument that democracy should stop at the national level, with no pooling of power beyond that, only agreements between nations....even if I disagree with that view 

 

But what, very precisely, do you mean when you refer to "the EU's tepid, homogenised 'one size fits all' state of nations" and claim that "the EU has eroded individual identity"?

 

The EU has certainly legislated for convergence and minimum standards in the economic and social sphere, in product standards, employment conditions, competition policy, national subsidies, environmental standards etc.

But that hardly constitutes homogenisation or "one size fits all", more setting minimum requirements and avoiding too much divergence in conditions....and the single market would be completely non-viable if great divergence was allowed. The same would apply within the UK market, if certain regions allowed firms to pay below the minimum wage, to dump chemicals in rivers, to give local firms massive subsidies or to sell unsafe products not permitted in other regions. 

 

What part of our individual identity has the EU eroded? We're not forced to speak franglais, drink pernod, drive German cars, wear Italian clothes, sit in a Finnish sauna or watch Spanish tika-taka football.

Continental cultures might have a bit more influence now than 40 years ago, but that's consumer choice influenced by greater travel, trade and communications, not something imposed by the EU - and British culture is still strong.

If anything, I notice more American influence "eroding" or subtly changing British identity among younger generations - from language ("I'm good!", "Love you!", "Can I get...?") to proms and bucket lists.

Anyway, there are lots of different individual identities within the UK, and even within this forum. What is this "individual (British) identity" that the EU is eroding and how is it doing it?

 

 

 

[Milo]

1 minute ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

I can see justification for certain criticisms of the EU:

- When people criticise the EU for its imposition of austerity 

- When people criticise the EU for dithering over how to deal with the refugee influx

- When people criticise the EU for doing too little to ensure people feel they have a democratic stake in the EU

- I also get the argument that democracy should stop at the national level, with no pooling of power beyond that, only agreements between nations....even if I disagree with that view 

 

But what, very precisely, do you mean when you refer to "the EU's tepid, homogenised 'one size fits all' state of nations" and claim that "the EU has eroded individual identity"?

 

The EU has certainly legislated for convergence and minimum standards in the economic and social sphere, in product standards, employment conditions, competition policy, national subsidies, environmental standards etc.

But that hardly constitutes homogenisation or "one size fits all", more setting minimum requirements and avoiding too much divergence in conditions....and the single market would be completely non-viable if great divergence was allowed. The same would apply within the UK market, if certain regions allowed firms to pay below the minimum wage, to dump chemicals in rivers, to give local firms massive subsidies or to sell unsafe products not permitted in other regions. 

 

What part of our individual identity has the EU eroded? We're not forced to speak franglais, drink pernod, drive German cars, wear Italian clothes, sit in a Finnish sauna or watch Spanish tika-taka football.

Continental cultures might have a bit more influence now than 40 years ago, but that's consumer choice influenced by greater travel, trade and communications, not something imposed by the EU - and British culture is still strong.

If anything, I notice more American influence "eroding" or subtly changing British identity among younger generations - from language ("I'm good!", "Love you!", "Can I get...?") to proms and bucket lists.

Anyway, there are lots of different individual identities within the UK, and even within this forum. What is this "individual (British) identity" that the EU is eroding and how is it doing it?

 

 

 

 

Convergence criteria - will that do for starters?

 

[Alf Bentley]

3 minutes ago, Milo said:

 

Convergence criteria - will that do for starters?

 

 

I'm certainly not keen on how the convergence criteria have been drawn up and applied - too restrictive and applied too rigidly to some (Mediterranean countries & Ireland) but not to others (France, Germany).

I can see the point of having some convergence criteria if you're going to have a single monetary system. Need more fiscal unity and redistribution alongside them, but that's a different point.

 

But, by definition, they're about convergence - getting closer together via minimum standards - not homogenization.

 

I certainly don't see how the convergence criteria are eroding anyone's individual identity

[bovril]

I'm impressed that Heathrow has managed to go this long without mentioning Soros. 

[Guest]

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