In the article it shows a tweet by the bookshop, about the footballer Marcus Rashford:

His dad is a Jamaican and his mum is a Kittitian. He cannot be English.

By that logic, someone whose parents are English can’t be Australian, or Canadian, or a New Zealander. Yet I don’t think white nationalists are ready to declare that white Australians aren’t actually Australian, for example.

I noticed that Clive Lewis challenged Tom Watson to a public debate about Palantir which I thought was quite funny.

Clive said:

He can defend Palantir’s ethos, while I set out the case for democratic control and public accountability.

Definitely a good point about the popular vote, I noticed that in the past that he never got a majority of the popular vote.

And yes I think the Electoral College is too flawed. I’d like to see it abolished, personally. I don’t see why voters in less populated states should get more say than voters in more populated states.

Hopefully the US and Europe can be on good terms again in the future, but who knows. I guess it depends a lot on how the 2028 election turns out.

It’s true that we in the UK have right-wing voters, but look at France and Germany for example. AfD is doing pretty well in Germany. Marine Le Pen might win the 2027 French presidential election.

The current UK government is centre-left, not right-wing. I think it’s entirely possible that a centre-left coalition could win the next UK general election. The current polls show that a Labour and Liberal Democrat coalition could form the next government if an election were held soon.

Anyway, the UK rejoining the EU is surely not going to happen any time soon. I do think it would be good if the UK and EU forged stronger ties though, and perhaps one day the UK could fully rejoin the EU.

Arguably a united Europe would be less of a pawn for the US compared to individual European countries. Even Germany, the largest economy in the EU, has nowhere near the power that the US does. But the EU together can have a similar level of power to the US. Which means the EU together has more leverage to say “no” when the US wants Europe to do something.

Forget air fryers, let’s talk about air friars.

I agree with you that trade and security are both good reasons for the UK to get closer to the EU.

At the moment I think some leave voters just don’t want to admit that they might have made a bad choice. And they have a steady stream of “influencers” from YouTube and Facebook telling them that Europe is evil.

Rejoining the common market without EU membership means we have to follow all the rules while having zero say on the creation of those rules. EU membership means we get many seats in the European Parliament; either the 2nd or 3rd highest number of seats (after Germany and perhaps France, due to population sizes). That means the UK would have a big say in the rules which would apply to us.

I’m not American. I get what you’re saying though. But the quote of Tom Morello in the article, after the bit I quoted with “vote your ass off”, then says:

…but don’t just exercise your right to vote. Exercise your right to fight for, organize for, struggle for, and manifest the kind of world you’d like to really see…

But in any and every contested race, as my mom Mary Morello always said, we have to fight the fascist every which way we can, recognizing that even if there’s but an inch of difference between two candidates, there are a lot of vulnerable people who could be greatly harmed in that inch. So vote your ass off

I think this is reasonable. A “corporate Democrat”, even if bad, can be better than a Republican in many cases. The Democrat might end up being less bad, for lots of disadvantaged people, than a Republican would be. These aren’t ideal choices to make, but you have to deal with reality as it is.

Excellent billboard.

True, but the Tories could potentially be deputies to Reform. And Reform would perhaps keep the Tories’ economic policies because both are parties run by rich people.

He’s right, and people can see he’s right, which is why they voted for him to become mayor of NYC

Meanwhile Republicans are a bunch of oligarchs who are like “No you can’t vote for socialists because… look at all this culture war stuff! Please keep us in power!”

I think it’s possible the next government could be a Reform/Tory coalition. I don’t want that to happen, but I think it’s possible.

I think we’ve been lucky to see Labour rise in the polls. This makes a progressive general election win more likely. Possibly a Labour/LibDem/SNP coalition. Possibly with Greens. The polls are in flux, it seems.

I wouldn’t rule out a Reform/Tory government though. Hope for the best but expect the worst.

Yes, of course. But the right-wing grifters on YouTube told me that brown people are bad, so I guess we should stop taking asylum seekers, even if doing so is bad for the UK.

Probably not needed but I’ll put it anyway: /s

I wonder how long it will take until tankies come into this thread and insist that every Israeli civilian flying on an airplane actually deserves to die…

Edit: the downvotes show that they’ve arrived

Maybe there is more manipulation in US elections than I’m aware of, I don’t know. Anyway, I do think it would be good if the US and Europe could be strong friends, but I don’t think that should happen while politicians such as the MAGA cabal are in control of America. I remember when Trump complained about apparent “foreign interference” of Brits in the 2024 US presidential election, only for Trump’s vice president to then actively campaign for a European political candidate, Viktor Orban.

Yes probably many Americans want to be friends with Europe so it’s a shame that the Americans who don’t like Europe are currently running America

I don’t think my view of Israel changes the fact that antisemitism exists

Alot of hate crimes happen against other different communities as well

Yes, and there are specific programmes to tackle those different types of hate crimes, motivated by Islamophobia, or homophobia, or whatever it might be

I’ve seen the usual comments across the internet from Tories saying things like “I’ve paid into the system all my life, therefore I deserve a generous pension”.

But we don’t normally apply that argument, do we? Nobody says “I know my leg isn’t broken, but I’ve paid into the NHS all my life, so I deserve a plaster cast, even though I don’t need one”.

Maybe we should just means-test the state pension. Pensioners who are genuinely poor should absolutely be helped by the state. Pensioners who are wealthy probably shouldn’t be helped by the state.