[rorygreen]

As a person from and living in the UK, I'm equally shocked and appalled as you. Everybody I know is baffled by and vehemently against these ridiculous proposals. Quite frankly I have no idea who is voting for the Conservatives. Anybody with half a brain cell and not pushing an evil agenda seems to despise the Conservative party. (I'm sure there are some reasonable Tory supporters out there, I've never met them though. I also think in this current sociopolitical climate it's plain dangerous to vote for the Conservatives, even if you believe you have good reasons to support them.)

As a country, we've lost faith in politics and I fully expect this to be demonstrated by a very low turnout for the general election in June. The issue with this is we currently have no strong enough opposition to the Tories (thanks to an incredibly effective smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour party, led by the media and perpetuated by the Labour MPs themselves) so will end up with an even greater Conservative majority and another 5 years of this dystopian madness. I very much hope I'm proven wrong.

I'd be happy to elaborate on some of these points if you're interested; I have a few theories about what is currently going on and what has led us here. It is both very interesting and incredibly upsetting to observe and analyse the state of politics in this country at the moment.

Edit: I should state that I am not a Labour party supporter, I was just trying to give a vague overview of the state of our politics at the moment.

[nebabyte]

> > How in the hell are the people of the UK supporting something like this?

> As a person from and living in the UK, I'm equally shocked and appalled as you. Everybody I know is baffled by and vehemently against these ridiculous proposals. Quite frankly I have no idea who is voting for the Conservatives

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14374899

It is important for anyone who does not wish to be continue to be blindsided by what "appears" to be surprising to be aware of and correct their own biases.

The trends in UK policymaking (namely, the fact that they're continuing rather than having been ousted) suggests a pattern, and while comments like the above feed into the denial I cite in that comment [0], objective observations (one way or another) serve to clear the air - but only when they're objective. Comments like these - that're "I'm just as confused as you are" - just end up setting discussion back, as people end up being misinformed (as I feel I have been from them in the past, and continue to be unless I make a conscious effort to consider what by all accounts seems the more likely alternative). Hard census-like data would be better than anecdota for this reason, for instance.

Perhaps as you say your anecdotal evidence supports "Everybody [you] know" being 'baffled', but as you're chiming in as a UK citizen, please be aware of any other potential selection or location biases. You're in a better position than outsiders to gauge and figure out where your blind spots are, and it's seeming more to me that the news doesn't bear out the easy-to-jump-to-conclusion (especially in the net-biased echo chamber) of your countrymen at large sharing the same view.

[rorygreen]

I'm not sure why your comment has been downvoted, this is a very reasonable point. I agree with the linked comment in that I know I am in the minority (votes-wise) but the point I was making is exactly that. Many many people have completely lost faith in politics because it seems that no matter what goes wrong or the number of insane policies presented by the Conservative party, the public opinion seems unchanging. I think there is a very complex set of reasons for this, a lot to do with the media here and the internet communities you mention.

For the above reasons I contend that these are biases, merely observations. I observe everybody around me supporting significantly more libertarian ideals and so I wonder who and where are these other people who hold opposing ideals. I'm sure I could find out the answer from census and statistical data but that doesn't bring me any closer to understanding the reasons why these people vote as they do. Part of my theory is that these opposing ideals are not ideals at all and are in fact a reflection of the efficacy of the marketing campaigns of right-wing politics.

[nebabyte]

Yes thanks. If I'd allocated more time to that comment I'd likely have edited to better get across that I'm also actively trying not to jump to conclusions on the other end of the spectrum, but I don't particularly care about votes either way and was/am just using this and the past comment to note what I might later look back on as the biased POV I was under at the time.

For GB's sake I hope some minority subdicision forms and at least manages to secure some of the crucial points of privacy or otherwise figure out how they can coexist with their system or one more suited to them... shrug The scarier aspect of globalization.

[GordonS]

Sorry, but Labour's 'Wacky' Jacqui Smith was just as bad as Theresa May. The main difference here is that May has become prime minister, so is more able to push her vile ideas.

Whether it's Labour or the Conservatives in power, it seems inevitable that they will push these dangerous ideas in the name of 'keeping us safe from terrorists and paedophiles'.

[rahoulb]

People complain about having no opposition now but Tony Blair and New Labour's agenda was very similar to the Tory one and equally authoritarian. Now we actually have some ideological differences between the parties

[dTal]

It's a disease apparently particular to Home Secretaries. Something about the Home Office seems to have a way of 'radicalising' politicians into authoritarians (not sure if I've got the cause and effect the right way around there but that's certainly what it looks like).

The trouble is, if there's a toxic authoritarian culture in the higher levels of the civil service, there's really no way of ousting it. "Whoever you elect, the government gets in".

[ScottBurson]

> Something about the Home Office seems to have a way of 'radicalising' politicians into authoritarians

Perhaps the very name of the office. "Home" is a word with a lot of powerful emotional resonance.

[rorygreen]

I completely agree and have edited my comment to explicitly state that I do not support the Labour Party. I do however think that a Labour led coalition (the only other possibility?) would be the lesser of the two evils at the moment.

[mike-cardwell]

This issue is deeper than party politics. You can blame the Tories, but the Labour party gave us RIPA. They're just as bad, if not worse. It does not matter which political party is in power at the moment, they all want to increase surveillance. And if they say they don't want to before they get into power, they seem to change their tune for some reason once they're in.

[sangnoir]

> They're just as bad, if not worse.

Im sure Americans just experienced Deja vu. Sure, they are "all the same" in some narrow way. This equivalence should only matter to single-issue voters.

[vidarh]

New Labour was as bad. Current Labour see New Labour as completely toxic. As bad as Corbyn is seen in many circles, Tony Blair now polls worse.

[api]

I bet you live in a major city.

I live in the USA and would feel this way too about Trump if I didn't know people who lived in the interior. I live in the Los Angeles metro, which is one of America's "alpha cities."

London and other major global cities have formed something almost akin to the science fiction concept of a breakaway civilization. They are their own global meta-nation. Meanwhile the interior and rural districts of their own host countries have been in a state of permanent depression for almost two decades now.

Not saying the conservatives or Trump will fix this. They're political opportunists riding a wave of dissent. All Trump had to do to get elected was to style himself the opposite of all the values and ideas popular in global Urbanity. One of the most insightful comments about Trump I've read was that his racism was more intended to offend educated white urban coastal liberals than to offend non-white races.

From what I can see Brexit and this stuff is the same.

It's a "fuck you" vote from the forgotten districts.

Edit: required reading:

https://morecrows.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/unnecessariat/

[rorygreen]

I don't. I'm situated in a very stereotypically "rural England" type place — a deeply Conservative area, within the sea of Blue you see on maps of our election results[1].

In regard to Brexit, there's actually a strong libertarian case for leaving the EU. I personally think it was shortsighted of people (and somewhat reckless) to vote with this mindset given our current government, as the exit of the EU that is desired by those libertarians is not that which will occur. However, this is a much more contentious opinion amongst people I know, many of whom would argue that this was a valid and commendable rejection of the status quo. Saying this, I don't know if the libertarian argument for Brexit was strongly enough represented in the referendum to tip the balance. Given the tiny margin by which Leave won[2] (< 1.3 million votes. It's worth noting that this majority corresponds to about 1/3 of the electorate), I think it's possible.

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results

[2] http://www.bbc.com/news/politics/eu_referendum/results

[ScottBurson]

> It's worth noting that this majority corresponds to about 1/3 of the electorate

I think you meant 1/30?

[rorygreen]

No I mean the 'majority' as in the 51.9% who voted Leave, due to the poor turnout, corresponds to about 1/3 of the electorate.

[ScottBurson]

Ah. I thought you meant the margin of victory, which was about 1/30 of the voters (not the electorate, as you point out).

[anigbrowl]

What does shitty economics outside the powerhouse of London (a thesis which I agree with but which I would argue has also been common knowledge for decades) have to do with setting up a new and stricter internet? I don't believe that disgruntled pensioners in the Cotswolds want to stick it to the globalists in London by forcing them onto a different version of the internet protocol.

[api]

Nothing directly, nor is Brexit necessarily going to help. But they will vote for politicians who set themselves up as anti-urban-values to stick it to the globalists in London.

[douche]

The urban/rural split is insane these days. In my home state, Maine, it's getting very close to a situation where Portland can wag the whole rest of the state.

Urban vs rural values and opinions are almost mirror images of each other...

[danaliv]

> London and other major global cities have formed something almost akin to the science fiction concept of a breakaway civilization. They are their own global meta-nation. Meanwhile the interior and rural districts…

Almost, except that cities are utterly dependent on "the interior and rural districts" for food.

[TomMarius]

Well, my whole country depends on other countries for food...

[anigbrowl]

No they're not. They can grow their own (and have in times of previous crisis) and most large cities are built around ports. Also, when was the last time a rural population laid siege to a city and starved it? Hundreds of years ago.

Honestly, I don't understand the fantasy world people like you live in. You seem to assume that people who live in cities are helpless kittens or something.

[keithpeter]

I suspect that most people decide who to vote for based on money, trust on things like jobs, and fear of unemployment &c. I don't think internet policy comes into the decision really for people who don't follow these things and who are not technical.

UK: anyone got a good simple page I can point neighbours at about why this should be an election issue?