Political Trinity

Two topics have entirely dominated the Anglo-spheric political scene for the last five years. One has come to an end. The other is ending. Need I name these topics? I think that is probably unnecessary. But I will anyway. Brexit and Trump. The title of the post suggests there’s another topic to add. The third is a newcomer, but one that has made a big splash. The novel coronavirus. Today, I offer a three for one deal.

Trump

There’s a complaint, especially (but not exclusively) by right wingers, that Twitter and other social media companies should not be able to stifle free speech and that they are not accountable to the people. Both arguments seem factually incorrect to me. Twitter is accountable and is held to account each and every day. It is effectively in a permanent general election.

Each morning, the continued existence of Twitter, Facebook and others is entirely dependent on people logging on and using the services. Every login is a thumbs up, a vote of support in favour of the company lasting another day. When the users stop logging in, and one can ask the CEOs of MySpace and many others about this, then the company is dead.

Social media companies are not in the business of free speech. They are neither utilities, no matter how much some people argue otherwise, nor are they governments. They are private companies. You can use them or not use them – your decision. They can host you or not host you – their decision. If there is sufficient demand for a service to support the world’s bigots and village idiots, then it will exist. That their options seem a little limited at the moment is perhaps of some comfort.

Brexit

The campaign for the U.K. to rejoin the EU has begun. I’m not onboard. I decided that this wasn’t a bandwagon I’d jump on while the worthy battle for a second referendum was still raging. I’ll not be adding #rejoin onto my Twitter handle. There isn’t the public appetite for another round of Brexit politics. I don’t think the EU could trust the U.K. in any rejoin-centred negotiations. They’d be fools to enter such an agreement without imposing conditions on the U.K. that we’d be fools to accept.

Most importantly, the damage to the UK’s trade has been done and won’t be fixed by rejoining. The U.K. and the EU will develop systems that will work with each other outside the Customs Union. What would improve people’s lives would be re-entry into the Single Market. To what degree and with what conditions is up for negotiation. But it’s both worth it and doable. No to #rejoin. Yes to #smuk.

Covid19

Some women were arrested by the police in Bournemouth yesterday, drinking coffee on a park bench. It was filmed by one of their ‘friends’ and uploaded to social media accounts, framed as the police abusing their powers. We live in a totalitarian police state, or so they are trying to say. This is a common theme on social media by Covid deniers and lockdown sceptics. The story made the national press anyway and was generally sympathetic to the women.

I knew that the women were in fact one of the dozen or so nutty protesters that make a little scene in town every Saturday. I know this for two good reasons. Firstly, you really have to put a lot of effort into getting arrested or fined by the police. We simply do not have a police force of sufficient size in the U.K. to successfully operate a police state. We just don’t. You really do need to be quite the dickhead.

The second reason? One of the women started up with the Covid conspiracy theorist chant, requesting the police officers to ‘choose your side’. The greatest irony here is that these lunatics seem to genuinely believe they are represent ‘the people’ and have the support of ‘the people’. The reality is that most people would like them to be thrown in prison and/or have their legs broken, depending on their sense of fair play.