You know what, I forgot how we got onto the topic of human rights for a moment there, it’s because the guy who wants to ditch our own Human Rights was angry at China for planning to do the same thing!
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It’s tricky to debate when your political arguments are just ‘this is my opinion and if you disagree you’re wrong’. There’s no real debate.
As an example, @daws1159 is obviously of a very different political option than I. Often we do not we eye to eye on things. Yet we still debate, and I’ve got respect for him for that, even if we disagree. There’s points, and counter points. Etc etc.
And on that, it’s often hard to find middle ground when one is so far away from those they’re debating. @daws1159 almost looks left wing compared to what you come out with! So how am I gong to find middle ground there?
(@daws1159 sorry for using you as an example 
)
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And as for the ECHR debate, and bringing things some what back to topic, just look at America now.
Things have been fine for years. It’s taken one rouge orange man and they’re deporting US citizens because they sound foreign. No legal oversight, so there’s nothing that can be done.
Without the ECHR, we could easily slip into a similar situation. Especially looking at the polls.
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The thing is, in a democracy, if anti-immigration policies are popular then we should be in a position to elect a government that can do something about it.
What about if killing them becomes popular? Where do you draw the line on will of the people?
There’s a reason the ECHR exists.
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There is indeed, and it has nothing to do with ‘protecting’ Brits from their own democratic decisions.
We already can, this isn’t blocked by the ECHR or any other international agreement.
What is blocked by international agreements are things like torture, arbitrary detentions, deportation without fair representations, stripping of citizenships.
In my own case, the removal of the latter has the potential to put my own ability to enter the UK, the country of my birth and where I have spent most of my life, at risk. It could do the same for every single person born in, or to parents from, a constituent country of the UK; Northern Ireland.
You may consider the risk small, but I once considered the risk that legally resident people in the UK would find themselves being deported and yet that’s exactly what the leader of a mainstream political party has been calling for recently. In theory, that could extend to me given my Irish passport.
In a worst-case scenario, Reform could call for a ban on multiple citizenships - something that’s already a popular idea with some of their supporters. Should that happen, it’s not a stretch to imagine them choosing to arbitrarily detain natural-born British citizens ahead of forced deportation.
It is international agreements that prevent this from happening, and that’s exactly why they want to get rid of it. So as far as I’m concerned, any person clamouring to scrap human rights in the UK is an enemy of the people, or at the very best enablers of enemies of the people.
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What about the first question…
Maybe if we had an English nationalist party with any kind of serious following — like they have in Scotland and Wales — that would be on the cards, but the right are generally unionists and treasure Northern Ireland as some of the most patriotic people in our United Kingdom.
As for Irish passports, personally I disagree with the complications it currently has for security vetting. Maybe not recognising dual-nationalities would simplify that situation by making people choose one nationality or the other: as was the case in Germany until very recently, despite the ECHR.
You realise that the majority of the 2 million people who live in Northern Ireland were born there?
Those who were are automatically considered to either be Irish citizens or have the right to be so. Anyone born in the UK (or anywhere else) to a parent born on the island of Ireland (including NI) is automatically considered to be an Irish citizen too - even if the parent does not and never has had an Irish passport themselves
What you’re proposing is to deliberately breach the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to the province. Not only do I find myself questioning whether your commitment to your nationalist ideology is so strong that you’re willing to risk armed conflict in the UK, but also whether it’s so strong that you want every other country in the world to question whether it can trust any agreement that the UK signs with them?
Yes, I know all that because it’s affects my own family (although none have accepted Irish citizenship, to date).
I wasn’t proposing anything. I said I disagreed with the current impact it has on clearances and thought out loud about how taking the same approach that Germany used to, and Andorra and India still do, might simplify things.
Back in topic….
This didn’t go down well.
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The mystery of the artist with poor ticket sales causing significant loss?
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Because nothing says comfort like cold hard marble.
Well, there has been a soft launch of the domain purchased in anticipation of the name change:
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I’m surprised this hasn’t made more waves -although I guess that the holiday break has kept some news items hidden away.
Look up Zaid for background information
Some rather telling comments in the overall write-up:
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Only being reported in limited sources
Waiting for the various media elements to latch onto this deposition. The second one is still not available due to applied restrictions by a judge.