European Union – World Solutions

UK Vol.93 (Post-EUref #Brexit Vol.22: 2017 General Election – results, et al.)

Here are articles on the general election results, et al. Excerpts are on our own.

Election 2017 – UK results | @BBC

Interactive map: Britain’s general election 2017 – Live election results reported here, seat by seat | @economist

UK general election 2017 | @YouGov ElectionCentre

Election results 2017: full list and map | @FT
GE2017uk 649results

General Election 2017 (incl London interactive) | @standardnews

Live Now: U.K. General Election Results | @bpolitics

General election 2017: expert comment and analysis from @UCLPublicPolicy

What happens in a #HungParliament? Here's our Q&A guidehttps://t.co/WSv418tfg1

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) June 9, 2017

Ungovernable Hung Parliaments are so 2010 (27/5/2017) | @robfuller91 @medium

A disastrous #GE2017 for @theresa_may, who is facing calls to resign #GeneralElection https://t.co/UUaNOHYjkx

— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 9, 2017

Labour should never have doubted Jeremy Corbyn https://t.co/jvO45V7NSE

— The Independent (@Independent) June 9, 2017

Corbyn, and an election surprise (26/5/2017) | @openDemocracy

Media coverage of the 2017 General Election campaign [report 3 – covering 18th-31st May inclusive] (w Video; 2/6/2017) | @lboroCRCC

Why do our party leaders tour the country? And will it affect Thursday’s election result? (4/6/2017) | @MiddletonAlia @PSABlog

6% lead for #Conservatives but #Labour ahead in unweighted polling. If turnout follows GE2015, CON will win #GE2017 https://t.co/2rjpeZnxI6 pic.twitter.com/4jnwiYgS5d

— SixFifty (@SixFiftyData) June 3, 2017

2017 General Election live opinion poll | @gritdigital

UK Snap General Election Polling Results 19th April 2017 (PDF) | @opinion_life

UK general election 2017 poll tracker: All the latest results as Conservatives battle Labour Polls are a crucial part of the election wallchart – even if they’ve got a bad rep. Here are the latest results and analysis of what it all means (8/6/2017) | @mikeysmith,@taylorjoshua1,@danbloom1 @MirrorPolitics

We are becoming segregated into young and old communities without realising (5/6/2017) | Albert Sabater, Elspeth Graham, Nissa Finney (@univofstandrews) @ConversationUK

The Young Vote in 2017: Stat Attack (11/5/2017) | @bennosaurus @PSABlog

An economist views the UK’s snap general election (5/6/2017) | Jan Toporowski @OUPEconomics
… On 11 May the Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney reassured the markets that the ‘good Brexit deal’ would stabilise our economy after 2019, and the markets were duly sedated. …
… For the Europeans, this will be the fourth ‘deal’ that Britain will have secured: the first on entry in 1973; the second under Margaret Thatcher in 1984 when ‘we got our money back’; the third obtained by David Cameron in 2016; and the fourth that is to come resulting from our exit from the European Union.
… Indeed the more our politicians demand that we give them ‘a strong negotiating position’ with Europe, the more they are hedging their electoral promises with the alibi that, if they do not deliver, it will be because we did not give them a sufficiently ‘strong negotiating position’, or they were taken advantage of by the Europeans. …
In this respect the election is not needed at this moment, in particular for the Brexit process which leaves our government only 21 months to settle the complex questions arising out of Brexit. Out of these questions, the more obviously insoluble conundrums are Northern Ireland…

Dr Jonathan Leader Maynard discusses what more can be done to prevent UK terrorism (6/6/2017) | @Politics_Oxford

Observer editorial: There has been a shameful lack of leadership from all parties. But we can no longer tolerate Theresa May’s agenda for post-Brexit Britain (4/6/2017) | @guardian
… She has provided no further detail about her Brexit negotiating strategy, sticking to her disastrous mantra that no deal is better than a bad deal. She has signalled immigration control will be her top priority, even though securing it will mean leaving the single market, jeopardising everything else voters care deeply about – jobs and growth and the future of our public services.
There are echoes of Ed Miliband’s social democratic priorities in parts of her manifesto and she should be applauded for signalling that unfettered free markets are not the route to social and economic justice. She sets out proposals for greater state intervention in markets that stack the odds against consumers and workers and unfairly, and often obscenely, advantage CEOs and senior executives. Dropping the commitment to the triple lock on the state pension is a tentative first step towards recognising the need for intergenerational rebalancing.
But her manifesto is thin on detail and May is no stranger to adopting contradictory rhetoric and positions. …
But Corbyn’s ability to run a decent election campaign cannot be taken as a sign he would make a competent premier. Last summer, he failed to win the support of 80% of his MPs in a confidence vote. Many had vowed to give him a chance but withdrew support on grounds of competency, with stories emerging of a chaotic operation. …

The Conservative manifesto and social care: policy-making on the hoof (22/5/2017) | @MelanieHenwood @LSEpoliticsblog
… The publication of the Conservative Manifesto unexpectedly outlined a change of direction when Theresa May seemed to dismiss the ‘capped cost’ model of funding which was brought into legislation by the Coalition Government in the 2014 Care Act, and implementation was delayed by the incoming Conservative government in July 2015 on the grounds that it would give local government longer to prepare and to have adequate resources. The manifesto made no reference either to the Care Act, or to the capped cost model, but remarked that “where others have failed to lead, we will act”. Further detail will follow in a green paper, but the sketchiness of the proposals has already proved a major flaw.
The manifesto lamented the costs of caring for older generations, “borne by working people through their taxes” and proposed a way forward that would be “more equitable, within and across the generations.” Except, it hasn’t quite played out like that. Some might think that ditching legislation that has not yet been fully implemented is disingenuous; others may see it simply as May’s blatant attempt to stamp her own brand of conservatism all over policy and political doctrine, and distance herself from her predecessors. What this episode reveals more than anything is political naivety, poor judgement, and lack of understanding of the complexity of social care. …

Theresa May, Borrowing from Labour, Vows to Extend Protections for Workers (15/5/2017) | @_StephenCastle @nytimes
Since emerging as prime minister from the political wreckage of last year’s vote to quit the European Union, Theresa May has told Britain’s voters little about what she believes, aside from stressing her desire for a clean break from the bloc.
But with an election looming, Mrs. May is promoting some strikingly centrist social and economic policies, reaching out across the political divide to traditional supporters of the opposition Labour Party, many of whose incomes were squeezed after the financial crash. …
“We are seeing a willingness to think of intervention that would have been seen as anathema by hard-core Thatcherites,” said @ProfTimBale , professor of politics at @QMPoliticsIR. …
… May’s main election strategy is to argue that she is better placed than her less popular Labour rival, Mr. Corbyn, to provide the “strong and stable leadership” which has become her mantra. …
Analysts ascribe the intellectual basis of Mrs. May’s brand of conservatism to Nick Timothy, one of her two closest aides. Mr. Timothy was raised in Birmingham, one of Britain’s industrial heartlands, and is a admirer of the type of municipal politics practiced by Joseph Chamberlain, who transformed the leadership of the city in the 19th century and whose legacy has also been cited as an inspiration by Mrs. May. …

The political economy of the Conservative Manifesto: a hallucinatory celebration of the state (24/5/2017) | Abby Innes @LSEEI
… As Hans Werner Sinn notes, since governments have stepped in when markets have failed historically, it can hardly be expected that a reintroduction of the market through the backdoor will work. More problematically still, supply-side reforms assume that if you bring businesses into the state, you get the best of states and markets and not the worst of both regimes: a lean and more efficient bureaucracy and not an informationally and organisationally fragmented state increasingly beset by conflicts of interests; the dynamism of competitive enterprises and not the financially extractive practices of low-performing public service industry monopolies.
The challenge that faces the next government is that these reforms have failed in the terms by which they were justified. Ruth Dixon and Christopher Hood find that reported administration costs in the UK have risen by 40 per cent in constant prices over the last thirty years despite a third of the civil service being cut over the same period, whilst total public spending has doubled. Running costs were driven up most in the outsourced areas and failures of service, complaints, and judicial challenges have soared. Government has attempted to resolve these self-inflicted market failures with regulatory oversight to codify tasks – consider teaching or medical care – un-codifiable in their most important aspects. Bureaucratic monitoring at levels un-dreamed of in the 1970s has joined informational and structural fragmentation, professional demoralisation and increased costs. …
A voter could not tell from this manifesto whether a Conservative government would restore the integrity of the state or follow along the path of its supply-sider predecessors whose striking achievement has been a creeping corporate extraction of public authority and funding. It is worth remembering that their putative goal in theory was the night-watchman state of libertarian fantasy: a state that protects only contract, property rights and sovereignty and that has never existed in the history of capitalism, let alone democratic capitalism. The evidence of May’s current administration is that she endorses the supply-side diagnosis. The Conservative leadership is waving Disraeli’s hat but it is still wearing Milton Friedman’s trousers.

The Hard Brexit road to Indyref2 (14/3/2017) | @IPR_NickP @UniofBathIPR
… Two factors explain Nicola Sturgeon’s decision: the intransigence of Conservative-Unionism and the weakness of the Labour Party. Intransigence is in part an artifact of the Prime Minister’s governing style, which combines “personal animus and political diligence”, as David Runciman has written. She sticks to a position doggedly and keeps things close to her in No10. She is capable of ruthless revenge, to the point of petulance, as Michael Heseltine recently discovered. It is a statecraft that has served her well until now. It is not one that is suited to sharing power in a process of negotiation and compromise across a fractured union.
Her choice of the hard route to Brexit has also narrowed her scope for flexibility. …
History is in danger of repeating itself. The last time the United Kingdom was challenged by the aspirations for greater self-determination of a significant proportion of one its nations was during the long struggle for Irish Home Rule. Conservative-Unionists met that challenge by suppression, not accommodation. It didn’t end well.
The second factor is the decline of the Labour Party. …
Labour’s vacillation on Europe means that it is currently largely voiceless in the national debate on Brexit. It is shedding votes to the Liberal Democrats as a consequence. It fears a further loss of support to UKIP and the Conservatives if it backs membership of the single market and customs union in the Brexit negotiations. But the prospect of the breakup of the UK, the unstitching of the Northern Irish settlement, and economic decline in its heartlands should give it cause to consider the national interest, not just the party interest. …

How the #Election2017 result will affect Brexit https://t.co/UhbEnCoDMT

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) June 9, 2017

Agricultural policy after Brexit (23/5/2017) | @Dieter_Helm @OUPEconomics @pixabay
… The CAP pays the bulk of the subsidies as a payment for owning land (called Pillar I). The economic effects of Pillar I subsidies are obvious: increasing the revenues per hectare raises the price of a hectare. Land prices capitalise the subsidies, creating barriers to entry. As a result, the CAP has also now established a fund to help young farmers get into the industry, in the face of the obstacles the CAP itself creates. The rest of the subsidy goes on rural development and environmental schemes (called Pillar II). These are often poorly designed.
…the first option is to shift some of the subsidy from paying to own land towards more spending on the environment – i.e. shifting the balance from Pillar I to Pillar II.
The second is more radical, switching to a system of paying public money for public goods. …

Local elections 2017: Six key lessons for the general election (5/5/2017) | @JohnCurticeOnTV @BBC

Local election 2017 results in England, Wales and Scotland – and what does it mean for the general election? (6/5/2017) | @Ashley_J_Kirk,@Patrick_E_Scott @Telegraph_Data,@Telegraph

UpVote episode 6: Labour’s surge and the secrets behind Brexit – Professor Paul Whiteley (@uniessexgovt) simulated the Brexit referendum a million times – and Remain won 66 per cent (w Voice; 1/6/2017) | @rowlsmanthorpe @WiredUK

Why Britain voted to Leave (and what Boris Johnson had to do with it) (4/5/2017) | Harold D. Clarke, Matthew Goodwin and Paul Whiteley @lsebrexitvote
… Though Leavers were divided on how to deal with immigration, our findings also point to the important role of ‘cues’ from leaders, specifically Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. Johnson had a particularly important effect –if you liked Boris then even after controlling for a host of other factors you were significantly more likely to vote for Brexit. Farage was less popular among the professional middle-classes but he was more popular among blue-collar workers and left behind voters, underlining how these rival messengers were able to reach into different groups of voters. …

Why immigration was key to Brexit vote – Brexit reflected ‘a complex and cross-cutting mix of calculations, emotions and cues’ but anxiety over immigration was the dominant factor (15/5/2017) | Matthew Goodwin @IrishTimes
… Where did Remain go wrong? David Cameron and the Remainers recognised that many voters were risk averse and concerned about the economic effects of Brexit. “Project Fear”… Although a plurality of voters felt negatively about both sides, a larger number saw Leave – not Remain – as more positive, honest, clear about their case and as having understood people’s concerns. While more than twice as many people saw Leave rather than Remain as representing “ordinary people”, more than twice as many saw Remain rather than Leave as representing “the establishment”. …

The level of economic optimism within a country may be a key factor in determining voter turnout (1/11/2014) | Troy Cruickshank @LSEEuroppblog

P.S. 10 June

Scotland’s new Conservative MPs will aim “to deliver, not divide”:https://t.co/20IiaqEUEB pic.twitter.com/fOk7Zomdzz

— ScotConservatives (@ScotTories) June 10, 2017

UK Vol.92 (Post-EUref #Brexit Vol.21: 2017 General Election – Manifestos of UKIP, Green Party)

Here are manifestos of United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and Green Party. Excerpts are on our own.

——- UKIP Britain Together: The UKIP 2017 General Election Manifesto (issuu or PDF)
3 Britain Together: Paul Nuttall, UKIP Leader
5 Introduction to the 2017 UKIP Manifesto
• Raise the threshold for paying income tax to £13,500, cut taxes for middle earners, abolish the TV licence and cut VAT on household bills
• Scrap tuition fees for science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine students
• Provide up to 100,000 new homes for younger people every year
• Maintain all pensioner benefits and the pensions Triple Lock
• Protect disability and carer’s benefits
• Spend a genuine two per cent of GDP on defence, plus £1 billion every year
• Fund 20,000 more police officers, 7,000 more prison officers, and 4,000 more border force staff
• Revive our coastal communities and fishing villages
• Cut Business Rates for the smallest businesses
• Commission a dedicated hospital ship to assist our armed forces and deliver humanitarian medical assistance worldwide
6 Brexit Britain: The Key Tests
THE EU PLAN TO STOP US LEAVING
Article 50 is not just a two-year process, as it makes provision for negotiations to extend for an indefinite time beyond that. We are likely to find ourselves facing protracted and tortuous negotiations with a recalcitrant, bullying EU for quite some time. The EU has no incentive to negotiate a ‘good deal’ for the UK because it does not want us to leave.
The UK has massive exposure to the liabilities of the European Central Bank, the European Investment Bank, and various other ‘financial mechanisms’ of the EU so long as we remain a member. We will be expected to contribute to any Eurozone bailouts. The EU will also have to plug a huge financial hole of some 12 per cent of the gross EU budget when Britain leaves. These are just two very good reasons for the EU to keep us dangling on the hook for as long as possible.
The longer the EU can keep Britain in, the greater the opportunity for a new government to reverse the referendum decision, or sign up to some kind of associated membership agreement which, to all intents and purposes, will be just like EU membership.
RESTORING BRITAIN’S FISHING INDUSTRY
… The EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) was cobbled together in 1970 as Denmark, Ireland, Norway and the UK were on course to join the then EEC. Together, these countries held 90 per cent of Western European fish stocks. 80 per cent of those stocks were British. …
THE 1964 LONDON CONVENTION ON FISHING
UKIP will repeal this little-known convention, an agreement between twelve European nations and the UK, which recognises the historic fishing rights of vessels from the contracting parties to fish in the band of waters between six and twelve nautical miles from the UK coast.
When the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy ceases to apply, the UK will automatically establish control of a 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone giving our fishermen sole access to the seas within 200 miles of the UK coastline, or at the mid-point between two countries’ coastlines. However, the existence of the pre-EU 1964 Convention could offer a back door to continued EU fishing in British waters, as vessels belonging to signatory nations could cite this legislation and claim ‘historic rights’ to fishing within the 6 to 12 nautical mile band around the UK. …
SECURING THE FUTURE OF OUR FISHERIES
…it could be worth as much as £6.3 billion to the UK economy in net-to-plate income alone. …
The British Passport
10 Sound National Finances, A Lower Cost of Living …
UKIP has always made the case for lower taxes and an end to wasteful public spending programmes. We will scrap white elephant vanity projects such as HS2, replace the out-dated Barnett Formula with a fair funding formula based on need, reduce foreign aid to 0.2 per cent of Gross National Income, and end our financial contributions to the EU budget.
These savings will provide us with £35 billion to fund our public service priorities. By keeping taxation low and incentives for wealth creation high, we will unleash the hardworking, entrepreneurial instincts of the British people. …
13 Backing Business and Investing in British Jobs …
BACKING SMALL BUSINESSES
Britain’s 5.5 million small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy, making up 60 per cent of the jobs in the private sector, according to the Federation of Small Businesses. UKIP will support small businesses by:
• Cutting business rates by 20 per cent for the 1.5 million British businesses operating from premises with a rateable value of less than £50,000
BACKING BRITAIN’S SELF-EMPLOYED STRIVERS
… There will be no quarterly tax returns, and no increase in Class IV National Insurance or taxes for our self-employed strivers. UKIP’s goal is to keep taxes and red-tape to the minimum necessary.
15 Creating Coastal Enterprise Zones
16 Solving Britain’s Housing Shortage …
Successive governments have failed to meet the housing needs of an increasing population. Of the 140,000 homes due to be built this year, 80,000 will be absorbed by population growth, exacerbated by immigration, so at best only 60,000 will begin to address the current chronic shortage. …
UKIP is the only party being realistic about what can be done to increase the housing supply and putting forward a viable solution: a bold policy to roll out high quality, low cost factory-built modular (FBM) homes, affordable on the national average wage of £26,000. …
HOW UKIP’S MODULAR HOMES BUILDING SCHEME WILL WORK
… UKIP’s proposal will bring up to 100,000 extra truly affordable homes onto the market every year. Combined with a traditional home building programme, we could build another one million homes by 2022. In addition, the FBM model would also make it feasible to deliver substantial numbers of new Council houses that have been promised, while traditional methods do not.
A REVIEW OF HOUSING ASSOCIATIONS
… Housing associations manage 60 per cent of the socially rented sector and have received £23 billion of Government funding in the past 14 years, but UKIP is not convinced they are benefiting either tenants or the taxpayer. We will launch a review into their operation.
18 Defending our National Health Service
… NHS Trusts are in deficit to the tune of £2.5 billion… UKIP will provide NHS England with an additional £9 billion a year by 2021/22. An additional £2 billion for social care will fully utilise the savings we will make from the foreign aid budget.
GIVING NURSES THE RESPECT AND RECOGNITION THEY DESERVE
… We will discontinue the one per cent pay increase cap for frontline NHS workers earning less than £35,000 (Band 6).
REMOVING BARRIERS BETWEEN THE NHS AND SOCIAL CARE
35,000 bed days are lost every month because of delayed transfers of care, and legal barriers can make it difficult to pass information between the two systems. …
A NATIONAL, NOT AN INTERNATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE
Treating those ineligible for care costs British taxpayers around £2 billion every year. …
ACCOUNTABLE MANAGEMENT
… We will limit the amount that can be spent on an external management consultancy contract to £50,000. The annual £589 million cost is far too high.
BANNING LABOUR’S DODGY NHS DEALS
… These Private Finance Initiative (PFI) deals financed £11.8 billion worth of new build but will ultimately cost the NHS £79 billion. 75 per cent of the syndicates involved are based offshore, so they do not even pay UK taxes on these enormous profits. …
21 Britain’s Challenging Mental Health Crisis
… UKIP will increase planned spending on mental health services by at least £500 million every year. This sum could fund 6,000 clinical psychologists to see 500,000 more adults and young people every year. …
CHALLENGING MEDIA STEREOTYPES
Elsewhere in this manifesto we condemn alien practices that oppress women, but we are not blind to our own failings. The ‘lad culture,’ which treats young women as sex objects and the ‘red circle of shame’ in celebrity magazines that hold women to unattainable levels of physical perfection are just two examples. Boys too are increasingly developing eating disorders and body image issues. …
ON-THE-JOB EDUCATION
To give students a head start into a job, UKIP will introduce a scheme similar to Germany’s Dual Vocational Training system, in which students attend classes at a vocational school and receive on-the-job training at a company. …
RIGHTING WRONGS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
… The politically motivated decision to increase university places has deceived and blighted a generation. UKIP will stop paying tuition fees for courses which do not lead at least two thirds of students into a graduate level job, or a job corresponding to their degree, within five years after graduation. …
24 A Brighter Future for Our Next Generation
27 Caring for Young Children; Supporting Families
29 Meeting our Responsibilities to the Elderly and the Disabled
GROWING OLD TOGETHER
The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services calculates £4.6 billion has been cut from social care budgets since 2010. The number of adults eligible to receive social care has plummeted by 28 per cent. …
…6,800 such patients every day cannot be discharged, so ambulances queue up outside A&E and planned operations are cancelled. This inefficiency costs the NHS approximately £1 billion a year, and it could get worse. …
Last year, research by BBC Radio 4’s You and Yours found 59 home care companies had already handed unprofitable contracts back to local authorities, and that one in four care homes may go out of business within three years. The Better Care Fund was supposed to improve liaison between the NHS and local councils and ease pressure on hospitals, but the Public Accounts Committee found it was ‘little more than a ruse.’ The freedom to raise council tax by two per cent to fund adult social care is of least help to councils in the poorest areas, who have less income from council tax, but the most pressing care needs.
The only answer is to reverse the cuts to care budgets. UKIP will put back money the Conservatives have removed, investing up to £2 billion every year into social care. …
INVESTING IN DEMENTIA RESEARCH AND TREATMENT
PROTECTING CARE AT HOME
In January, campaigning organisation Disability United exposed clauses in Continuing Healthcare policies that stated home-based care would only be provided if costs do not exceed residential placement costs by a certain percentage, generally ten percent. …
AN END TO UNFAIR BENEFIT CUTS
ENDING THE INJUSTICE OF PERSONAL INDEPENDENCE PAYMENTS
Personal Independence Payments, or PIPs, are replacing the Disability Living Allowance (DLA). Without a PIP, disabled people cannot access other benefits such as Carer’s Allowance or the charitable Motability scheme to get a powered wheelchair or accessible car. …
Some 300 people a day who have their benefits cut following reassessments are appealing against these new decisions, at a cost of £1 million a week to the taxpayer. They are right to appeal, as six out of ten appeals are successful, but while they await the outcome of their appeals, many are falling into debt, and have vital support or equipment taken away from them. 50,000 people have had accessible vehicles removed since PIPs were introduced. …
32 Fair, Balanced Migration
LABOUR’S GREATEST FOLLY
TORY IMMIGRATION FAILURE
BALANCED NET MIGRATION OVER FIVE YEARS
UKIP will establish a Migration Control Commission and set a target to reduce net migration to zero, over a five-year period. …
FAIR, EQUITABLE IMMIGRATION
To make immigration fair and equitable, we will introduce a new Australian-style points-based system, and a work permit system. Both will apply equally to all applicants, save for citizens of the Republic of Ireland, with whom we will maintain our current arrangements.
To give working class people in particular a chance to find employment, we will place a moratorium on unskilled and low-skilled immigration for five years after we leave the EU.
We will also operate a seasonal worker scheme based on six-month visas to support those sectors, such as agriculture…
A NEW INTERNATIONAL VISA SYSTEM
1. WORK VISAS
Highly skilled workers with a job offer sponsored by companies paying them a minimum of £30,000 per annum will have priority.
2. TOURIST AND VISITOR VISAS
…for up to twelve months.
3. STUDENT VISAS
4. FAMILY REUNION VISAS
We respect the right of British citizens to form relationships with non-British citizens; however, we will abolish the European Economic Area (EEA) family permit scheme and reinstate the primary purpose rule. …
ACCESS TO WELFARE AND THE NHS
All new migrants to Britain will be expected to make tax and national insurance contributions for at least five consecutive years before they become eligible to claim UK benefits, or access non-urgent NHS services, save for any exceptions stipulated by the Migration Control Commission, or if reciprocal healthcare arrangements are in place with their country of origin. All new entrants to the UK must have and maintain comprehensive private medical insurance for the duration of their stay, as a condition of their visa.
BRITISH CITIZENSHIP
Those arriving on Work Visas may apply for British citizenship after five years, provided they have worked, paid tax here, and maintained their medical insurance throughout that time. …
THE RIGHTS OF EU NATIONALS
UKIP will allow law-abiding EU citizens living in the UK before Article 50 was triggered the right to stay here indefinitely. We expect the same concession to be granted to British citizens living overseas within the EU.
EU nationals who entered the UK after 29th March 2017 will not have the automatic right to remain…
35 Britain United Under One Law for All
ONE LAW FOR ALL
EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL WOMEN
STANDING UP FOR WOMEN IN MINORITY COMMUNITIES
FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION
OTHER ‘CULTURAL’ CRIMES
SHOW YOUR FACE IN A PUBLIC PLACE
ENDING ISLAMIST EXTREMISM IN OUR SCHOOLS
39 Policing, Prison, Punishment
… Our approach to criminality contrasts starkly with that of the other parties. As Home Secretary, Theresa May was soft on crime. She went the way of the Labour party, putting the human rights of offenders before those of their victims, tiptoeing around even the most hardened criminals, instead of concentrating on protecting the public. …
… We will train and deploy 20,000 more police and employ 7,000 more prison officers.
STOP AND SEARCH
In 2014, Theresa May weakened Stop and Search, saying it was undermining relations with ethnic minority communities. UKIP warned this would lead to an increase in knife crime and, sadly, we have been proved right. …
THE 2003 LICENSING ACT
This Act relaxed opening hours for pubs, bars and clubs and increased the number of establishments able to serve alcohol. The social consequences have not resembled the ‘continental-style café culture’ Tony Blair claimed it would. A survey of emergency workers carried out in 2015 by the Institute of Alcohol Studies revealed 52 per cent of paramedics, 42 per cent of A&E doctors and three-quarters of police officers have been attacked in the course of their duties by people who were intoxicated. …
42 Britain’s New Role in the World
… UKIP will work constructively with President Trump. We value the special relationship between the UK and the US, and do not believe gesture politics from establishment politicians seeking to demonstrate their disapproval of his administration is helpful to our national interest. The values shared between the US and the UK will always outlast individual political administrations in either country. We are confident the Trump administration’s positive attitude to Britain will lead to a swift free trade agreement bolstering our common interests. …
UKIP supports the recent tradition of consulting parliament before our forces are committed to combat situations. We are proud of our pro-active role in opposing British participation in the planned bombing of Syria in 2013. …
… We see Russia as a potential important ally in the struggle against Islamist terror, and believe Russia should immerse itself in global rules-based relationships instead of seeming to glory in renegade status within the international community.
44 Defending Our Nation, Supporting Our Veterans
REBUILDING OUR ARMED FORCES
US President Theodore Roosevelt said the key to success in foreign policy was to “speak softly but carry a big stick.” In the modern era, British politicians have all too often shouted loudly while carrying a matchstick. …
THE ARMY
THE ROYAL NAVY
THE ROYAL AIR FORCE
A GENUINE COMMITMENT TO OUR NATO OBLIGATIONS
DEFENCE PROCUREMENT …
47 Trade, Not Aid
ETHICAL TRADE WILL ERADICATE POVERTY
… African farmers, for example, may export raw cocoa beans to the EU without paying any tariffs, but if they want to export chocolate, tariffs are high. It is the same with coffee. In 2014, the whole of Africa made just under £1.6 billion from raw coffee bean exports, but Germany alone made £2.6 billion just by exporting roasted beans, despite not growing a single coffee crop. …
THE WORLD IS OUR OYSTER
Of all the insults thrown at the Leave campaign by the Remain camp, one of the most ludicrous was the ‘little Englanders’ taunt. The polar opposite is true: those who voted for Brexit could see a brighter, more global and economically successful future outside the confines of a contracting and ever-more protectionist EU.
For decades our EU membership has been a factor in our diluted economic growth, flat-lining wages, and diminishing influence on the world stage. In future, we shall have wider and easier access to overseas markets. For British consumers, choice will increase, prices will fall, and we will not be so reliant upon monopoly suppliers. Increased competition is likely to fuel innovation and offer opportunities for the transfer of expertise and technology, which in turn means more jobs, and a stronger economy.
Leaving the EU is not about becoming ‘little Englanders,’ it is about putting the ‘Great’ back into Great Britain. It is about embracing new trading markets in all seven continents of the globe.
Naturally, we should like to agree a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the EU, and continue to trade on the same basis as at present. As the UK is the EU’s largest single export market, the EU should want to reach a swift and sensible trade deal with us. …
In circumstances where the EU continues to insist Britain pay a huge ‘divorce’ settlement of up to €100 billion, or continues to demand we accept the on-going jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and allow the free movement of people, trading with the EU within the legal framework of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) would be the far better option. …
OUR TRADE PRINCIPLES
Post-Brexit, UKIP’s aim is to establish the UK on the world market as a low tax, low regulation economy. The UK will contribute to the World Trade Organisation’s aim for trade to flow as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible. We will reduce tariffs wherever possible, unless initiating anti-dumping measures, and oppose the establishment and continuance of protectionist customs unions such as the EU. …
50 Transport: Keeping Britain Moving
UKIP WILL SCRAP
HS2 Rail travel is essential but HS2 is not. This High Speed Rail project is unaffordable, requires massive borrowing, will blight people’s homes, and destroy valuable habitats. Spending £75 billion just to save a few minutes between London and Leeds is ludicrous and, we think, unethical. …
ENDING ROAD TOLLS
DEFENDING DIESEL DRIVERS
SAVING RURAL BUS SERVICES
AIR PASSENGER DUTY
LONDON AIRPORTS AND THE SOUTH EAST
THE BRITDISC
52 Protecting Our Environment
PROTECTING OUR ANCIENT WOODLANDS
Current legislation does not go far enough in protecting natural woodland habitats. We will amend the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) to give ancient woodlands ‘wholly exceptional’ status, putting them on a par with listed buildings, registered parks and gardens, and World Heritage Sites.
Major infrastructure projects will be required to give much more respect to irreplaceable natural habitats. HS2 is a prime example of this: we will scrap HS2 and ensure no infrastructure project will ever again be allowed permission to wreak such catastrophic environmental damage. …
CREATING SMALL GREEN SPACES
GENERAL ELECTION DAY IS WORLD OCEANS DAY
54 Food Production and Animal Welfare
… UKIP will continue to make available to the agriculture sector funds that would normally be paid to them via Brussels. We will introduce a UK Single Farm Payment (SFP) that operates in a similar way to the present EU system.
The major difference will be that UKIP’s SFP will be more ethical. It will end EU discrimination in favour of larger, intensive farms, and support smaller enterprises. Subsidies will be capped at £120,000 per year and, to make sure payments reach farmers, not just wealthy landowners, we will pay only those who actually farm the land.
Anti-Microbial Resistance is a problem for society as a whole. …
56 Our Future Energy Security
… UKIP will repeal the 2008 Climate Change Act and support a diverse energy market based on coal, nuclear, shale gas, conventional gas, oil, solar and hydro, as well as other renewables when they can be delivered at competitive prices. We will also withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, to enhance our industrial competitiveness. …
CUTTING DOMESTIC ENERGY PRICES
…2.3 million households are living in fuel poverty, meaning they spend more than 10 per cent of their total income to heat their homes to an adequate standard of warmth.
In addition to removing VAT from domestic fuel and scrapping ‘green’ levies to reduce household bills by an average of £170, we will review the ownership and profits of British utilities and the impact on consumers of steadily rising prices. We will not hesitate to table legislation to address any excesses we uncover. …
CUTTING THE COST OF INTENSIVE ENERGY USE
… Energy policies pursued by Labour and the Tories are arguably increasing global emissions and causing Britain to lose jobs and investment. They have created a lose-lose situation…
INVESTING IN SHALE GAS
58 Real Democracy
PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION
All votes should matter, so we will introduce a voting system that genuinely reflects the will of the people as a whole. In the 2015 general election, UKIP got 12.6 per cent of the vote but only one seat, while the SNP won just 4.7 percent of the national vote but took 56 seats. The current First Past the Post (FPTP) system we use for electing MPs to our national parliament is bad for voters, bad for government, and bad for democracy. …
SCRAP POSTAL VOTING ON DEMAND
ABOLISH THE HOUSE OF LORDS
… The average cost of each peer is £115,000 per year.
A FAIR DEAL FOR ALL FOUR NATIONS
A SMALLER HOUSE OF COMMONS
THE CITIZEN’S INITIATIVE
61 Keeping it Local
… UKIP is the only party to operate a ‘no whip’ system, so our councillors can always vote in the best interests of residents in their wards, because they are not bound by party politics.
We oppose the ‘cabinet’ system of local governance, which puts too much power in the hands of too few people. We advocate a committee system, which brings more openness and transparency, and facilitates cross-party collaborative working. …
UKIP believes in keeping Council Tax as low as possible. …
62 UKIP’s Five Year Fiscal Plan

Wales Into The World: Wales Manifesto – General Election 2017 (PDF)
2-3 Preface
6-7 Democracy
… UKIP believes that existing powers exercised by the EU over agriculture; fisheries; environment; and transport should pass to the National Assembly for Wales. We also want to see control over business taxes including rates and corporation tax devolved to Wales.
UKIP also recognises the cost of government bureaucracy has grown to levels unimaginable in 1999 when the National Assembly for Wales first came into being. The “Yes” campaign stated the annual cost of devolution to Wales would be in the range of £10-20million. In reality the cost of Welsh Assembly and Welsh Government administration has swelled to nearly £500million annually. In addition, Wales has retained twenty-two local authorities, each employing a highly-paid management team headed by a Chief Executive earning, in some cases, more than the Prime Minister. …
8-9 Economy
… Wales has been totally abandoned by mainstream politics. For many life can be tough. Many of our communities offer no stable decent work and, outside Cardiff, the idea of a metropolitan utopia that offers highly-paid professional careers is an alien concept to most. … UKIP would:
1. Raise the personal allowance to £13,500 so people can earn enough money to cover their basic living costs before they have to pay income tax. This will take those on minimum wage out of tax altogether.
2. Raise the threshold for paying 40% income tax to £55,000.
3. Ensure Brexit negotiations give us complete control over VAT. This means we can, and will, remove VAT completely from hot takeaway food, sanitary products and energy bills.
4. Restore British tax sovereignty, which we lost when we signed-up to the EU. We will end the practice of businesses paying tax in whichever EU or associated country they choose. Our membership of the EU enables companies to avoid paying some UK taxes with impunity and we will close this loophole.
5. Establish a Treasury Commission to monitor the effectiveness of measures designed to reduce tax avoidance and recommend further measures necessary to prevent large multinational corporations using aggressive tax avoidance schemes.
6. Support the devolution of Business Rates and Corporation Tax to the National Assembly for Wales. UKIP want to grow the Welsh economy and create a business-friendly environment which produces high-paying jobs for this and future generations. We need to move away from a publicsector and subsidy-based economy. We need a vibrant private sector. We need our own silicon valleys in Wales.
7. Allow the National Assembly for Wales to lower taxes on business, particularly in areas such as the Welsh valleys and deindustrialised communities. The focus would be on bringing investment to Wales. Investment in new high-tech jobs and skills.
10-11 Education
12-13 Energy
2. Support innovations such as the tidal lagoon project proposed for Swansea Bay. This offers a great opportunity for Wales and the wider UK. It is truly British in nature and is an example of UK design and innovation at its best. UKIP would give this pilot project the green-light to proceed to the build-stage and work with the industry to see its potential maximised across the UK.
14-15 Farming & Fishing
1. Introduce suitable and sustainable funding for farming, financed by the £10 billion annual savings from Britain’s membership of the European Union. For every £5 UK agriculture receives from the EU, British taxpayers have already contributed £10.
2. Support hill farming, a sector of the industry dominant throughout Wales. Hill farmers should receive additional headage payments on livestock within World Trade Organisation rules.
5. Oppose any move towards greater restrictions on cattle movements, which are already some of the strictest throughout Europe. It is our view that a new approach should be established to deal with the threat of Bovine TB by adhering to the advice offered by the British Veterinary Association and farming unions.
16-17 Health
…we do not believe a public service should have a monopoly on public expenditure to the detriment of all other services. The NHS cannot be a monetary black hole and the managers appointed to run it should not be permitted to continue to blame their failure to perform on a lack of funding. …namely that a scandalous proportion of NHS resources are being swallowed up by senior doctors and managers earning, in some cases, as much as £375,000 per year in overtime alone. …
18-19 Housing
1. Incentivise local development, bringing brownfield sites and derelict homes back in to use, so that they can be released for affordable housing.
3. Encourage new and innovative ways of building affordable homes, such as modular housing units, and houses built using sustainable materials.
4. Prioritise local people when allocating council and social housing. …
6. Scrap the punitive fees charged by letting and management agents so that tenants who choose to rent a home are better able to afford to do so.
8. Ensure developers create adequately-sized homes with parking provision and room to live. …
20-21 Security
UKIP believes that security should be the number one priority of any government. Sadly though, other parties disagree. For years police forces have seen their budgets slashed in real-terms and struggling to cope under pressure from an increased threat of terrorism, extremism and anti-social behaviour.
Of course, security is not solely the responsibility of our brilliant police officers, but jointly shared with the MOD, the security & intelligence services, HMRC and the Border Force. The introduction of highlypoliticised Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) has also failed to improve policing as intended. The argument that PCCs have a democratic mandate is also challengeable, considering that all Welsh PCCs were elected on turnouts of less than 50% of the electorate. …
22-23 Trade
Wales exported more to the EU than it imported in 2015. Wales does not need EU membership to trade with it. Moreover, Wales does not need a trade agreement with the EU in order to trade with it. The USA, China, Japan, India, Brazil and Russia are amongst the top ten exporters to the EU but they are not shackled to an agreement with it. They successfully trade directly by proactively using their seat at the WTO.
UKIP fully supports the UK reactivating its seat at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), where we can negotiate as a free and independent member unshackled from the EU. This will enable us to establish free trade agreements across the globe in the best interests of Wales and the UK. It will also enable the UK to work directly with the WTO, where necessary, to prevent vexatious actions by potential trading partners.
Less than 12.5% of the UK economy is accounted for by trade with the EU. Only 5% of UK businesses trade with the EU; the other 95% trade within the UK or outside of the EU. However, 100% of Welsh businesses will be shackled to EU regulations if we remain in the EU and may still be shackled to them if it signs up to a poorly negotiated variant of EFTA or EEA membership.
Wales does not need to accept free movement of people, nor any modified variant advocated by the Labour-Plaid Coalition of Losers’ recent white paper, to trade with the EU or access EU markets. Indeed, of the four existing EFTA countries, only two – Norway and Iceland – kept a free movement of people clause. The other two EFTA countries, including Switzerland, are not currently committed to any such clause. …
…it would be in the interests of many of the EU countries who export to the UK, to negotiate a bespoke agreement to reduce the unfavourable tariffs that they may otherwise be left with.
24-25 Transport
… This is only likely to get worse as our population increases and we lack a credible national plan for road improvement. …
… Anyone who travels to Europe, North America or Asia would know how much cheaper and more reliable passenger travel is outside of the UK. …

UKIP, GreenParty

——- Green Party The Green Guarantee – The Green Party For A Confident And Caring Britain – (PDF pages / various formats)
4 / A GREEN ECONOMY THAT WORKS FOR EVERYONE
• Take steps towards the introduction of a universal basic income, including a government sponsored pilot scheme, as a means to increase security and avoid the poverty trap.
• Reduce the gap between the highest and lowest paid, and increase the minimum wage to reach a genuine living wage of £10 an hour by 2020.
• End the gender pay gap, and require a minimum 40% of all members of public company and public sector boards to be women.
• Reform taxation to include a wealth tax on the top 1% of earners, investing in more staff at HMRC so they can work more effectively, and reinstate the higher level of corporation tax for large businesses.
• A Robin Hood tax on high value transactions in the finance sector, and inheritance taxed according to the wealth of the recipient.
• A phased in abolition of the cap on employees’ national insurance so that the wealthiest pay more.
• Support and promote small businesses, co-operatives and mutuals, and the roll out of high speed broadband.
6 / PROTECTING OUR ENVIRONMENT
• A public works programme of insulation to make every home warm and investing in flood defences and natural flood management to make every community safer.
• Active ongoing cooperation with businesses and other countries to limit global temperature increases to well below 2 degrees and aiming for 1.5 degrees.
• Introduce a one-off fine on car manufacturers who cheated the emissions testing regime and create a new Clean Air Act, expanding and funding a mandatory clean air zone network.
• Strong protection for the Green Belt, National Parks, SSSIs and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
• Tough action to reduce plastic and other waste, including the introduction of Deposit Return Schemes, with a zero waste target.
8 / MEMBERSHIP OF THE EU
• A referendum on the detail of whatever deal is negotiated for Britain’s departure from the EU, with the option to reject the deal and remain in the EU.
• Protect freedom of movement, press for remaining within the single market, and safeguard vital rights for people and the environment.
• Immediately guarantee the rights of EU citizens to remain in the UK and urgently seek reciprocal arrangements for UK citizens in the EU.
10 / OUR NHS AND PUBLIC SERVICES
• Roll back privatisation of the NHS to ensure that all health and dental services are always publicly provided and funded, and free at the point of access, via the introduction of an NHS Reinstatement Act. Scrap NHS Sustainability and Transformation Plans.
• Close the NHS spending gap and provide an immediate cash injection, to ensure everyone can access a GP, hospitals can run properly, and staff are fairly paid.
• Bring energy, water, railways, buses, the Royal Mail and care work back into public ownership to give communities real control of the public services that has been lost over the past 30 years.
• Increase funding for local authorities so they can provide good quality public services and invest in our communities, creating thousands of jobs. A single budget covering health and social services, to make life easier for people who need to access several types of service.
12 / EDUCATION FOR ALL
• Bring Academies and Free Schools into the local authority system, abolish SATS and reduce class sizes.
• Scrap university tuition fees, fund full student grants and greater public investment in further and higher education.
• Restore Education Maintenance Allowance and enable apprenticeships to all qualified young people aged 16-25.
• Address the crisis of teacher workload, with measures such as abolishing Ofsted, and reforming the curriculum so that it is pupil-centred, freeing up teachers to teach.
14 / OUR PROMISE TO YOUNG PEOPLE
• Protect young people’s housing needs by reinstating housing benefit for under-21s, stop Local Authorities declaring young people “intentionally homeless”, and invest in community house-building projects to provide affordable, secure housing options for young people.
• … Guarantee the rights of young people to study, work, live and travel in the EU, including through schemes like Erasmus.
• Reject the xenophobic Prevent strategy and pursue community-led collaborative approaches to tackling all forms of extremism instead.
• …removing VAT from sanitary products and ensuring that they are provided free of charge to those in extreme financial need.
• Enable every young person to take an active role in democracy, introducing non-biased political education and promoting active citizenship, as well as lowering the voting age to 16.
16 / A PLACE TO CALL HOME
• Giving tenants a voice by supporting the development of renters’ unions.
• A major programme to build affordable, zero carbon homes, including 100,000 social rented homes each year by 2022.
• End mass council house sales and scrap Right to Buy at discounted prices.
• Abolish the cruel and unfair bedroom tax.
• Action on empty homes to bring them back into use and a trial of a Land Value Tax to encourage the use of vacant land and reduce speculation.
• Help first-time buyers by aiming for house price stability – axing buy-to-let tax breaks, and backing community-led approaches to building affordable homes.
• Significantly improve housing choice for D/deaf, disabled and older people by requiring all councils to appropriately plan for their housing needs…
18 / A SAFER WORLD
• Cancel Trident replacement, saving at least £110 billion over the next 30 years.
• Increase the overseas aid budget from 0.7% of GDP to 1.0% of GDP.
20 / A CITIZENS’ DEMOCRACY
• Introduce proportional representation (PR) for parliamentary and local elections, and votes at 16.
• Increase diversity in representative politics, with job-shares, a 50/50 Parliament, and replacing the House of Lords with an elected second chamber.
• Defend the Human Rights Act and UK membership of the European Convention on Human Rights, and reinstate funding for the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
• Action to tackle racism and discrimination on the basis of faith or disability, real equality for LGBTIQA+ people, equal rights for mixed gender couples to have a Civil Partnership.
• Give power to local communities by allowing for 40% of the local electorate to secure a referendum on local government decisions or to recall their MP.
• End the sale of personal data, such as health or tax records, for commercial or other ends.
• Protect the BBC and tighten the rules on media ownership so no individual or company owns more than 20% of a media market, protecting against anyone having too much influence or undermining democracy.
• Give Parliament a vote on any new trade deals.
• Revive the role of democratic trade unions.
• Enable every young person to take an active role in democracy, introducing non-biased political education and promoting active citizenship.
22 / A PEOPLE’S TRANSPORT SYSTEM
• Return the railways to public ownership and re-regulate buses, investing in increased bus services especially in rural and other poorly served areas.
• All public transport should be fully accessible and step-free with a phase-in of free local public transport for young people, students, people with disabilities, and older people.
• Invest in regional rail links and electrification of existing rail lines, especially in the South West and North of England, rather than wasting money on HS2 and the national major roads programme.
• Cancel all airport expansion and end subsidies on airline fuel.
Invest in low traffic neighbourhoods and safe, convenient networks of routes for walking and cycling…
• Help end the public health crisis caused by air pollution by increasing incentives to take diesel vehicles off the roads.

UK Vol.90 (Post-EUref #Brexit Vol.19: 2017 General Election – Scottish National Party Manifesto)

Here is STRONGER FOR SCOTLAND – SCOTTISH NATIONAL PARTY MANIFESTO 2017 (PDF) in June. Excerpts are on our own.

STRONGER FOR SCOTLAND p.4
Holding the UK government to account on powers
Opposing Tory austerity
Fighting to end the Rape Clause
Pension justice for women born in the 1950s
Legislation on ending violence against women
Fighting against the cruel and punitive sanction regime
Leading opposition to the bombing of Syria
Clear, consistent and unified opposition to Trident
Fighting for a fairer immigration policy
Demanding action on tax evasion
Fair compensation for veterans

BUILDING A BETTER SCOTLAND p.5
High quality health care
Prescription charges abolished, ensuring there’s no tax on ill health
Free, high quality childcare increased
Investing in a good education for all
Cheaper Council Tax bills
Free personal care for older people
The highest house building rate in the UK
Fair pay
More police officers and less crime
No Bedroom Tax

OUR KEY PLEDGES pp.6-8
An end to austerity
Fair tax … In the current financial year, we have frozen the basic rate of income tax to help low and middle earners…
Protecting the NHS We are already committed to increasing the budget of NHS Scotland by £2 billion by the end of the current Scottish Parliament. …
Improving education …the new National Improvement Framework, the Scottish Attainment Challenge and the £120 million Pupil Equity Fund…
Tackling poverty and inequality … According to the Resolution Foundation…
Fair pensions … We will vote to protect the Triple Lock, ensuring that pensions continue to rise by inflation, earnings or 2.5 per cent…
A focus on jobs, growth and productivity …to support job creation, we will propose a doubling of the Employment Allowance – the National Insurance discount that businesses receive when they increase employment. To boost productivity, we will also support extension of the Annual Investment Allowance, which encourages firms to invest in plant and machinery. …
More powers for the Scottish Parliament
Making work fair and tackling low pay
Protecting Scotland’s place in the Single Market … Leaving the Single Market could cost 80,000 jobs in Scotland. …
Scotland’s choice
Modernising UK democracy
Scrap Trident

PROTECTING OUR PUBLIC SERVICES pp.15-20
Ending austerity and investing in public services
• We will propose to achieve a current budget balance by the end of the next Parliament in 2021/22 with net borrowing being used only for investment from that year onwards.
• Under our plans, the UK’s net borrowing requirement will fall to 2.3 per cent of GDP – the thirty-year, long-term average for net borrowing prior to the financial crisis. It will reach this level in 2020/21 and remain there in 2021/22.
• These steps will see debt falling as a percentage of GDP from 2019/20, meeting the current target on public sector net debt.
Over the 10-year period from 2010-11 and 2019-20, the Tories will have cut Scottish Government day-to-day spending by £2.9 billion in real terms.
Fair and balanced personal taxation
…we support an increase in the Additional Rate from 45p to 50p across the UK as a whole from 2018/19. …
… SNP MPs will back a freeze on National Insurance contributions and Value Added Tax. We will back the continuation of VAT-exemption on essential items like children’s clothes, and will hold the UK government to a commitment to remove VAT from sanitary products. Until VAT is removed from sanitary products, SNP MPs will call for Scotland’s population share of the Tampon Tax Fund to be transferred to the Scottish Government. …
Protecting our health service
… The SNP Scottish Government is already committed to an increase in the NHS revenue budget of £500 million more than inflation by the end of the current term of the Scottish Parliament. That means the budget will increase by £2 billion in total.
Latest statistics show that overall health spending in Scotland is around 7 per cent per head higher than in England. If the UK government were to match Scotland, England’s Health investment would increase by over £11 billion above inflation by the end of this Parliament. …
… To meet the challenge of an ageing population an additional £1.7 billion will be invested in Scotland’s health and social care partnerships over this term of the Scottish Parliament. …
… We are increasing the number of health visitors, introducing the Baby Box for every new-born child, and delivering the Childsmile programme to improve oral health. We are also developing and implementing the Child and Adolescent Health and Wellbeing Strategy. …
Scotland is the first of the UK nations to approve the provision of Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) by the NHS to prevent HIV. We will support efforts to have PrEP made available on the NHS in the rest of the UK too.
Victims of contaminated blood products deserve answers. In 2008 the SNP Scottish Government established the Penrose Public Inquiry…
• We are investing record amounts in health – over £13 billion in 2017, £3.6 billion more than when we took office. And health spending per head in Scotland is higher than in England – to the tune of £152 per person.
• In 2011 the SNP abolished prescription charges. In England patients are forced to pay £8.60 per item.
• The number of nurses, doctors and dentists working in Scotland’s NHS has increased. Staffing is at record high levels, up more than 12,200 under the SNP. Per head of population, Scotland has the most GPs of any UK country and there are now almost 50 per cent more qualified nurses and midwives working in our NHS Scotland than in England.
• Scotland’s core A&E services are the best performing in the UK – and have been for 2 years.
• Most recent figures show that 90 per cent of NHS Scotland patients rated their care and treatment as good or excellent.
• Nurses in Scotland are better paid than anywhere else in the UK. A nurse in Scotland, at Band 5, is paid up to £309 more than their English counterparts. And, unlike in the NHS in England, we are supporting the lowest paid workers in our NHS by delivering the real Living Wage. As a result the starting salary of NHS support staff in Scotland is over £1,100 higher than in England.
Protecting our education sector
• … Under the SNP the availability of free early years education and childcare has increased from 12.5 hours in 2007 to 16 hours a week for all three and four year olds and it has also been extended to two year olds from low income households. By 2021 we will increase the provision to 30 hours.
• In government we are investing £50 million to ensure all staff working in private nurseries delivering our childcare pledge are paid the real Living Wage.
• We have extended free school meals to all children in Primary 1 to 3 in Scotland, ensuring they get a healthy and nutritious meal every day, improving their concentration, helping them to achieve better results, and saving families around £380 per child per year.
• Free tuition has been maintained, saving students in Scotland up to £27,000 compared to the cost of studying in England.
• We have been reforming vocational education and increasing the number of Modern Apprenticeships, hitting new records every year on the road to our target of 30,000 new starts by the end of this parliament.
• We have expanded the Education Maintenance Allowance – now scrapped for new students south of the border – to support even more school pupils and college students from low income families.
Supporting our emergency services
Public Sector Pay
Better rail services
… Since the SNP took office, we have invested £7.7 billion to maintain and upgrade tracks, stations and trains in Scotland. …
…fifty-four per cent of ScotRail delays are caused by issues connected to Network Rail. …
Connecting Scotland to HS2 must be a priority, with construction beginning in Scotland as well as England, and a high speed connection between Glasgow, Edinburgh and the north of England as part of any high-speed rail network
SNP MPs will engage the UK government in discussions on the feasibility of improving cross-border rail links, including linking Carlisle to the Borders Railway.
Championing public service broadcasting and a thriving press
…we welcome the creation of a new BBC Scotland TV channel and its associated investment. …
We welcome the proposals for the relocation of Channel 4 outwith London…

AN OPEN, MODERN ECONOMY pp.21-28
Supporting business We will support the targeted reduction in National Insurance to bring down the costs employers face when taking on new workers by the doubling of the Employment Allowance – the National Insurance discount businesses receive when they increase employment – from £3,000 per business per year to £6,000 per business per year, phased in over the Parliament.
Productivity remains a major challenge in the UK economy. We will, therefore, support the Institute of Directors’ calls for the further extension of the Annual Investment Allowance, which encourages firms to invest in plant and machinery, from the current £200,000 per year to £1 million per year.
… Most of the taxes and regulations that impact on small businesses are, however, the responsibility of Westminster. Despite setting up an Office of Tax Simplification, the UK government has ignored the vast majority of its recommendations with just 16 of its 60 ‘big picture’ recommendations and less than half of its other formal recommendations so far adopted. …
Building a better Scotland: our investment in infrastructure
… In 2017-18 alone almost £6.4 billion of infrastructure projects will be under construction in Scotland.
• We are delivering the £1.4 billion Queensferry Crossing.
• We are transforming Scotland’s road network. We are upgrading Scotland’s motorways, with improvements to the M8, M73 and M74 network. Work to dual the A9 between Perth and Inverness is well underway, and dualling of the A96 between Inverness and Aberdeen is in preparation too.
• Over £5 billion has been invested in Scotland’s health infrastructure since 2007 and nearly £500 million of new hospitals and healthcare facilities are due to open in Scotland in 2017-18.
• £742 million is being invested in improvements to the Edinburgh to Glasgow railway line, including widespread electrification of the network between the two cities and to Stirling and Dunblane. And the £170 million Aberdeen-Inverness rail upgrade, which is now under construction, will see shorter journey times between the two cities, as well as new stations at Dalcross and Kintore.
• Over the current term of the Scottish Parliament, we are investing over £3 billion to deliver at least 50,000 new affordable homes, at least 35,000 of which will be for social rent.
• In government we have made energy efficiency a national infrastructure priority, and we will support it with more than £500 million of public funding over four years.
• We have invested £400 million to deliver superfast broadband to 95 per cent of properties across Scotland by the end of 2017, and we are on track to deliver this target. We will now go further, ensuring that 100 per cent of premises across Scotland have access to super-fast broadband by 2021.
Protecting our place in the European Single Market
The European Single Market represents in excess of 500 million consumers – eight times the size of the UK’s market. …wages face a £2,000 per head cut and our economy faces a hit of up to £11 billion a year by 2030. …the rest of the UK exports over £50 billion a year to Scotland, making Scotland the top destination in Europe for exports from the rest of the UK, and England’s second biggest market after the United States of America. …
Safeguarding the success of our world-class food and drink sector
Scotland’s food and drink is a global success story, worth £14.4 billion. The EU – Scotland’s biggest overseas regional food and drink export market…
…Scotch Whisky, Arbroath smokies and Stornoway black pudding. …
… Around 8,000 EU nationals have come to live in Scotland and work in our food and drink sector. Every year up to 15,000 seasonal migrant workers also help harvest our world class soft fruit and vegetables. …
…the Food for Life catering award…
…Scotland’s GM-free status and commitment. …
Tourism and hospitality
… The Tourism Industry Council expects that there will need to be a 200 per cent increase in Border Force resources to deal with post-Brexit EU passengers. …
Connecting Scotland to the world
… In the last Parliament, SNP MPs secured a UK government consultation on a new Independent Aviation Noise Authority. …
Standing up for Scotland’s oil and gas sector
… Despite raising £330 billion in tax revenues for the UK Treasury, Westminster has repeatedly failed…
Standing up for Scotland’s oil and gas sector
… Despite raising £330 billion in tax revenues for the UK Treasury, Westminster has repeatedly failed to provide adequate support for the industry and the families which depend upon it. …
… SNP support has already led to major investment at Dales Voe in Shetland. …
Building on initiatives such as the Scottish Government’s Decommissioning Challenge Fund…
The Oil and Gas Institute at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen has estimated that leaving the EU is likely to cost the North Sea oil and gas supply chain £200 million a year in tariffs and export taxes. …
Investing in our cities and regions
SNP MPs will campaign for a UK government funding commitment for an Ayrshire Growth Deal, a Tay City Deal, a Stirling and Clackmannanshire City Deal, an Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Deal, and a Deal for the Islands of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles.
…Aberdeen and Inverness.
…the South of Scotland.
In total the SNP Government has pledged more than £1 billion but the UK has failed to match this. Their investment in the Aberdeen Region fell short by a mammoth £254 million and in the Inverness Region Deal by £82 million.
An immigration policy that works for Scotland
… The UK government recently introduced a Skills Immigration Charge – a charge for employers, including the public sector, of £1,000 per non-EEA worker per year. This fee will lead to skills shortages, harm our economy and remove funding from frontline public services. We oppose this policy…
SNP MPs will continue to press the UK government to limit immigration detention to 28 days. No other European country has indefinite detention. We continue to oppose the detention of children and vulnerable people, including pregnant women and people with mental illnesses. …
Reforming the banking sector
The SNP will support a long overdue and comprehensive investigation into LIBOR rigging. …
To ensure that taxpayers get their money back, the SNP will press for the public interest to be fully protected in any future disposal of RBS shares, including decisions on how any windfall revenues should be used.
SNP MPs will press the UK government to compel the banking industry and LINK members to sign up to the Universal Cash Deposit Transaction…

SCOTLAND’S FUTURE pp.29-31
Scotland’s choice
Scotland’s place in Europe
… Before asking people to vote in an independence referendum, we will set out the process by which our membership of the EU will be secured in the circumstances that prevail at that time – such as whether or not Scotland has already left the EU as part of the UK.
We will continue, in all circumstances, to demand the scrapping or fundamental reform of the Common Fisheries Policy and support Scottish control of Scottish fisheries, as we have done for many years.
We will also oppose any attempt by the UK government to treat the fishing industry as a bargaining chip. …
To be taken out, not just of the EU, but also of the Single Market, poses a real and present danger to Scottish jobs – to our farmers and fisherman, our universities, our food and drink businesses and to almost every sector of our economy. …
Protecting fundamental rights
… We will also seek a cast-iron guarantee from the UK government that they will seek the consent of the Scottish Parliament under the Sewel Convention to the terms of the Brexit Bill.
The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is enshrined in the Scotland Act 1998…
Strengthening the Scottish Parliament
… SNP MPs will seek additional powers. …
• powers that will be repatriated from Brussels to the UK that currently sit within the competences of the Scottish Parliament, like agriculture, fisheries and environmental protection;
• powers to be repatriated in reserved areas, such as employment law, which protect fundamental rights currently enjoyed by the people of Scotland;
• new powers, beyond those being repatriated, including, but not limited to immigration; powers to conclude international agreements in areas of the Scottish Parliament’s responsibility…

MAKING WESTMINSTER FAIRER pp.31-38
Social security powers
…decisions over 85 per cent of UK welfare spending in Scotland will continue to be made in Westminster.
Only with full powers over social security will the Scottish Parliament be able to stop obscenities like the Rape Clause, the Family Cap, cuts to people with disabilities, and the Tory assault on the poor. …
Tackling child poverty
The SNP Scottish Government has introduced a new Child Poverty Bill, following the Tory government’s decision to scrap income-based child poverty targets in the last Parliament. The new Bill introduces new Scotland-wide targets to eradicate child poverty. …
…establish a Poverty and Inequality Commission…
Protecting women and girls from gender-based violence
Dr Eilidh Whiteford…
Protecting disabled people from Tory cuts
… Under the Tories, from April this year, disabled and ill people assessed as not fit for work have lost out on £29 per week from their Employment and Support Allowance. SNP MPS will support reversal of this cut.
The current Work Capability Assessment is failing. SNP MPs will call for this to be halted, and a new system to be put in place which treats everyone with fairness and respect…
Protecting family budgets
The SNP strongly opposes the cap that restricts Child Tax Credits to the first two children and the removal of the family element of Universal Credit. …
Protecting people on low incomes
…we will support the annual uprating of all benefits by at least CPI inflation.
The SNP Scottish Government will abolish the Bedroom Tax in Scotland completely…
The roll out of Universal Credit, which has been introduced in the Highlands and East Lothian first, has caused rent arrears, household debt and left families to rely on food banks. …
The Income Tax Personal Allowance is set to increase, boosting the amount of money people can earn before they pay Income Tax. At the same time, the Tories have reduced the work allowance leading to a significant reduction in the support provided by Universal Credit. This acts as a disincentive to working more hours or taking up employment. …
As Home Secretary Theresa May scrapped the socioeconomic duty contained in the Equality Act requiring public bodies to evaluate the impact of their policies to reduce inequality. …
The Tory government has introduced new charges for parents seeking support from a former partner through the Child Maintenance Service. The SNP will demand an end to this tax on child support. …
Protecting vulnerable young people
Support for people who have lost loved ones
Making work fair
…establishing a Fair Work Commission…
…task the Low Pay Commission…
…abolishing fees for Employment Tribunals.
The SNP will press the UK government to ban exploitative zero-hours contracts, and ensure that workers have appropriate rights and protections, including holiday and sick pay. This will help casual and agency workers as well as those now part of the growing gig economy. To tackle maternity and pregnancy discrimination, we back the Women and Equalities Committee’s recommendation to strengthen the law to protect women from discriminatory redundancies and practices.
Championing equality in work
Halt Jobcentre closures
Promoting fair work through procurement
Fairness in retirement
… SNP MPs will oppose plans to increase the State Pension Age beyond 66. We will support the establishment of an Independent Savings and Pension Commission, to ensure pensions and savings policies are fit for purpose. The remit of the Commission should include consideration of the specific demographic needs of different parts of the UK in relation to State Pension Age.
The Triple Lock on the State Pension protects the income of pensioners, many of whom rely on their pension as their only source of income. Age UK has described the Triple Lock as a “vital tool in the fight against pensioner poverty.” …
…extend auto-enrolment, so that more low paid, and self-employed, workers can benefit from regular pension savings.
We believe that saving for a pension is the best route to a stable retirement. The SNP will seek to ensure that regular, simple, and affordable saving schemes are offered to provide for a secure income in retirement. …Tory gimmicks like the Lifetime ISA…
Protecting the most vulnerable in society from Tory cuts
By 2021, the total cumulative loss to people in Scotland as a result of Tory welfare cuts will be over £2 billion per year.
Since 2013, the Scottish Government has spent over £100 million a year to protect people from the worst aspects of Tory welfare cuts. …
How we are using new powers
Diverse but equal
A better deal for consumers
… Insurance Premium Tax (IPT) penalises those who pay more for their insurance. This includes groups such as young drivers and communities in flood risk areas. …
… The problem of Fixed Odds Betting Terminals is linked to the proliferation of betting shops in some communities…
SNP MPs will press the UK government to:
• put in place an energy price cap on standard variable tariffs, ensuring a fair deal for customers and energy suppliers; …
• immediately implement the Competition and Markets Authority’s recommendations on metering to reduce costs for households;
• put in place a requirement for energy companies to prioritise the roll-out of smart meters to those households at risk of fuel poverty; …
• …the Cold Weather Payment.
The loss of local post offices threatens the economic well-being of rural communities all over Scotland. …

STANDING UP FOR RURAL AND REMOTE COMMUNITIES pp.38-40
An end to the UK government’s great rural robbery
Fighting off the Tory power and money grab
Before the EU Referendum, the UK government promised to match current EU funding, which is worth half a billion pounds every year to Scotland’s rural and remote communities, “without a shadow of a doubt”. Now they refuse to provide any guarantees over funding beyond Brexit, and want a UK wide funding mechanism. With a 16 per cent share of current Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) funding, there is no doubt that Scotland would lose out. …
A better deal for our fishing industry
…the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP)…
And in the SNP Scottish Government’s paper on ‘Scotland’s Place in Europe’, our proposals would have meant we would be able to leave the CFP while all of the UK could continue to benefit from the EU Single Market.
The Tories failed our fishing industry in the 1970s, dismissing the livelihoods of our coastal communities as ‘expendable’. Under the CFP, the UK government has regularly traded away our interests and put those of fishing communities elsewhere in the UK ahead of those in Scotland. …
… We will also seek guarantees for permanent residence from the UK government for the 3,000 EU nationals working in fish processing.
Improving rural connectivity
At Westminster the SNP successfully secured a UK government commitment to a Universal Service Obligation (USO) for broadband of 10Mbps. In the next parliamentary term SNP MPs will call for the USO to cover up to 30Mbps with an appropriate update mechanism to ensure that rural areas are not left behind. …
What the SNP has achieved for rural Scotland
• We are investing in digital connectivity, with £400 million to deliver superfast broadband to 95 per cent of properties across Scotland by the end of 2017 and we will reach 100 per cent by 2021. …
• We are building new homes and refurbishing existing properties through the £25 million Rural Housing Fund, and delivering 100 affordable homes in island communities through a dedicated £5 million fund. …
• We have invested over £100 million in fishing projects, infrastructure and businesses, creating and safeguarding over 8,000 jobs.
• We have invested a record £1 billion in vessels, ports and ferry services since 2007. …
• Residents of Caithness and north-west Sutherland, Colonsay, Islay, Jura, Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles are eligible for a 50 per cent discount on air fares.
• We have awarded over £100 million grants to food and drink businesses…
Ending unfair delivery charges

MODERNISING UK DEMOCRACY p.41
Making Westminster work for the people
Making Westminster more democratic
… The SNP supports the Single Transferable Vote, a system that makes sure every vote and every part of the country counts.
… We support the recommendations of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Democratic Participation to get the ‘missing millions’ onto the electoral register. …
A fair and level playing field in our elections
…under the Representation of the People Act 1983. We will also support the Electoral Commission’s call to make higher sanctioning powers available to them, increasing the maximum penalty from £20,000 to £1,500,000.
Lobbying and charities
… We will push for those parts of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014…

DEFENCE, SECURITY AND GLOBAL PEACE-KEEPING pp.42-43
Scrapping Trident
… The Tory Chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, Crispin Blunt, has calculated the total cost of the next generation of Trident at £179 billion over its lifetime. CND estimate the cost may even be as high as £205 billion. …
Investing in conventional defence
SNP MPs will hold the UK government to its promise on building the new Type-26 Frigates in Scotland. …
Fighting international crime and terrorism
International co-operation is essential to keep Scotland and the rest of the UK safe from the threats of organised crime, cybercrime and terrorism. SNP MPs will call for continued co-operation on detecting, disrupting and detaining criminals across borders through Europol. We will seek assurances that our law enforcement agencies will continue to have the same level of access to Europol as they currently enjoy.
We will oppose any moves that would seek to use security co-operation as as a bargaining chip in Brexit or trade negotiations with our European friends and neighbours.
Supporting our veterans
…War Disablement Pension…
Getting a better deal for the taxpayer
The UK government’s own report says that the Royal Navy’s fleet is being depleted because of a “vicious cycle” of poor planning and cost overruns that is wasting taxpayer money and undermining the viability of the shipbuilding industry. …
Arms exports
Our place in the world
…UN Security Council Resolution 1325…

PROTECTING OUR ENVIRONMENT AND TACKLING CLIMATE CHANGE pp.44-45
Standing up for Scotland’s renewables industry
… SNP MPs will work to protect Scotland’s place in Europe’s energy markets and funding programmes – ensuring continued funding and cooperation with the EU for Scotland’s renewable energy sector. The European Union is set to establish a €320 million investment fund to support wave and tidal power, in which Scotland is a world leader. …
Carbon Capture and Storage
We want Scotland to be a leader in the development of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology, which has the potential to create thousands of jobs in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and beyond, while fighting climate change.
Scotland’s oil and gas sector remains uniquely well placed to develop CCS on an industrial scale – despite the UK government reneging on its commitment to a £1 billion project set to benefit Peterhead Power Station. …
Transmission charges
The UK’s punitive transmission charging regime forces renewable and conventional energy generators in Scotland to pay huge fees to connect to the electricity grid, while power stations in the south of England receive subsidies.
This unfair system contributed to the early closure of the power stations at Longannet in Fife and Cockenzie in East Lothian, with the loss of hundreds of local jobs, and must be overhauled. …
Nuclear power
…the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in the south of England, which will cost at least £18 billion to build and will result in huge costs for taxpayers and consumers. We are opposed to these plans, which have already come close to collapse. …
Working with our neighbours to fight climate change
Scotland has already exceeded a world-leading target to reduce emissions by 42 per cent by 2020. …
Animal welfare
We will oppose any relaxation of the laws on fox-hunting.
Protecting Scotland’s environment and tackling climate change
• Scotland has exceeded its target to produce 50 per cent of its electricity from renewables by 2015…
• With the support of the SNP Scottish Government, the low carbon and renewables sector in Scotland supported 58,500 jobs in 2015…
• Scotland’s household recycling rate was 44.2 per cent in 2015…

A COMPASSIONATE COUNTRY pp.46-47
International development
Ethical trade
… The SNP Scottish Government has committed to “always consider the human rights implications of its engagement with countries and business” and to ensure that “investment agreements should only be signed where appropriate due diligence, including on the human rights record of companies involved, has been undertaken.” …
Championing LGBTI rights globally
Meeting our humanitarian and moral obligations
… The decision to close the Dubs Scheme for unaccompanied children – putting them at risk of exploitation – is shameful. …
SNP MPs will urge the UK government to take action on the recommendations of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees including implementing a National Refugee Integration Strategy…

UK Vol.89 (Post-EUref #Brexit Vol.18: 2017 General Election – Liberal Democrats Manifesto)

Here is Liberal Democrats Manifesto in May 2017. Excerpts are on our own.

Europe (w Video)
Liberal Democrats are open and outward-looking. We passionately believe that Britain is better off in the EU. We will fight against the Conservatives disastrous hard Brexit – their choice to make the UK a poorer place.
We acknowledge the result of the 2016 referendum, which gave the government a mandate to start negotiations to leave – but we believe the final decision should be made by the British people, not by politicians.
Giving the people the final say
Liberal Democrats are open and outward-looking. We passionately believe that Britain’s relationship with its neighbours is stronger as part of the European Union. Whatever its imperfections, the EU remains the best framework for working effectively and co-operating in the pursuit of our shared aims. It has led directly to greater prosperity, increased trade, investment and jobs, better security, and a greener environment. Britain is better off in the EU. …
…a Hard Brexit. This means leaving the Single Market, ending freedom of movement, and abandoning the Customs Union – even though these choices will make the UK poorer and disappoint many leave voters who wanted a different outcome. …
Fighting a hard Brexit
• Protection of rights for EU citizens and UK citizens
• Membership of the Single Market and Customs Union
• Freedom of movement
• Opportunities for young people
• Defending social rights and equalities: Many important protections such as the right to 52 weeks’ maternity leave and rights to annual leave are currently based on EU law, and many of these rights have been upheld at the European Court of Justice. …
• Maintaining environmental standards
• Law enforcement and judicial co-operation: Europol, the European Arrest Warrant and shared access to police databases have helped make Britain’s streets safer. …
• British Business and Jobs: … The City of London is Europe’s financial capital and must retain its full rights in EU financial markets.
• Science and research funding: … We will campaign against any reduction in investment in UK universities and for their right to apply for EU funds on equal terms.
• Travel and tourism: … We will strive to retain traveller and tourist benefits such as the European Health Insurance Card, reduced roaming charges and pet passports, all of which are at risk by leaving the European Union.
• Respect for the interests of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland

Economy & Business (w Video)
Britain needs an economy that creates jobs and opportunities. The Conservative’s actions risk our future, relying on debt to prop up growth. We will build an economy that works for the long term: prosperous, green, and fair.
Responsible finances: Investing in Britain’s Future
… The Conservatives have failed to take advantage of historically low interest rates to borrow for the investment that would create jobs now and prepare us and our economy for the future.
Liberal Democrats will therefore commit to a responsible and realistic £100 billion package of additional infrastructure investment. …
• New direct spending on house-building to help build 300,000 homes a year by 2022. …
• Significant investment in road and rail infrastructure, including a continued commitment to HS2, Crossrail 2 and rail electrification. …
• £5 billion of initial capital for a new British Housing and Infrastructure Development Bank, using public money to attract private investment for these priorities. …
• Increasing spending on the NHS and social care, using the proceeds of a 1p rise in Income Tax. … There will be a commensurate 1p increase in dividend taxation which is a UK-wide tax. …
• End the 1% cap on pay rises in the public sector, and uprating wages in line with inflation.
Fair taxes
• …should be removed. These include reforms to Capital Gains Tax and Dividend Tax relief, and refocusing Entrepreneurs’ Relief. We would reverse a number of the Conservatives’ unfair and unjustified tax cuts, including: – The cutting of Corporation Tax from 20% to 17% – Capital Gains Tax Cuts – Capital Gains Tax Extended Relief – The Marriage Allowance – The raising of the Inheritance Tax Threshold
• Take tough action against corporate tax evasion and avoidance, including by: – Introducing a General Anti-Avoidance Rule… – Reforming Corporation Tax to develop a system that benefits the smallest companies… – Reviewing the Business Rates system, prioritising reforms that recognise the development of the digital economy, lessen the burden on smaller businesses… …Land Value Taxation. …
Supporting entrepreneurs and small business
• Expand the activities of the state-owned British Business Bank… …
• Reform the Regulatory Policy Committee…
Innovation, science and new technology
• Protect the science budget, including the recent £2 billion increase… …Horizon 2020…
• Build on the Coalition’s industrial strategy…
• Develop the skilled workforce needed to support this growth with a major expansion of high-quality apprenticeships including Advanced Apprenticeships, backed up with new sector-led National Colleges. …
• Invest to ensure that broadband connections and services to be provided before 2020…
• …retain coding on the National Curriculum in England.
• Support growth in the creative industries, including video gaming, by continuing to support the Creative Industries Council and tailored industry-specific tax support…
Helping everyone earn a decent living
• Establish an independent review to consult on how to set a genuine Living Wage across all sectors. …
• Modernise employment rights to make them fit for the age of the ‘gig’ economy, looking to build on the forthcoming Taylor Report. …
Helping everyone to share in prosperity
• Encourage employers to promote employee ownership by giving staff in listed companies with over 250 employees a right to request shares…
• Strengthen worker participation in decision-making, including staff representation on remuneration committees, and the right for employees of a listed company to be represented on the board. We will change company law to permit a German-style two-tier board structure to include employees. …
• Reduce the reporting requirement for disclosure of shareholdings to 1% in order to increase transparency over who owns stakes in the biggest companies.
It is a scandal that in Britain today there are 1.7 million people without a bank account, 8 million experiencing problem debt and 40% of the working-age population who have less than £100 in savings. …
Spreading opportunities to every part of the country
… The prospect of Brexit, including the loss of £8.9 billion of European Structural and Investment Funds, is only likely to make the problems faced by disadvantaged areas worse. …
• Give the immediate go-ahead to Swansea Bay tidal lagoon project.
• Encourage Local Authorities and Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) to work in partnership with existing business, Universities and other business hubs…

Health and Social Care (w Video)
Saving the NHS and social care
… Social care is facing a funding blackhole of £2 billion this year alone and more than a million older people are missing out on the care that they need.
… Nearly two-thirds of NHS Trusts ended the last financial year in deficit.
Yet Labour and Conservative politicians refuse to be honest with the public…
…five key steps…
1. An immediate 1p rise on the basic, higher and additional rates of Income Tax to raise £6 billion additional revenue which would be ringfenced to be spent only on NHS and social care services.
2. Direct this additional investment to the following priority areas in the health and care system: social care, primary care (and other out-of-hospital care), mental health and public health. …
3. …commission the development of a dedicated Health and Care Tax on the basis of wide consultation, possibly based on a reform of National Insurance contributions…
4. Establish a cross-party health and social care convention, bringing together stakeholders from all political parties, patients groups, the public, and professionals from within the health and social care system…
5. Introduce a statutory independent budget monitoring agency for health and care, similar to the Office for Budget Responsibility. …
Valuing the NHS and social care workforce
Equal care for mental health
Home not hospital: joining up health and social care
The number of family carers is rising, including in the ‘sandwich generation’ who find themselves trying to care for their children and their parents at the same time. … We will: …
• Finish the job of implementing a cap on the cost of social care, which the Conservatives have effectively abandoned. …
• …tariffs that encourage joined-up services and promote improved outcomes for patients and better preventive care. …
Better access to community services
Helping people stay healthy
…40% of NHS spending is on diseases that are preventable…
• Publish a National Wellbeing Strategy…
• Implement the recommendations of the O’Neill report on antimicrobial resistance…
• Make Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV prevention available on the NHS.
• Support effective public awareness campaigns like Be Clear on Cancer and learn…
• Develop a strategy to tackle childhood obesity including restricting the marketing of junk food to children…
• Encourage the traffic light labelling system for food products and publication…
• Introduce mandatory targets on sugar reduction for food and drink producers.
• Reduce smoking rates, introducing a levy on tobacco companies…
• Implement the recommendations of the Keogh review to regulate cosmetic surgery…

Education & Young People (w Video)
Education is at the heart of the Liberal Democrat agenda. …
Stop the education cuts – fair funding for every school
…the Conservatives’ flawed approach to the National Fair Funding Formula…
• Reverse all cuts to frontline school and college budgets, protecting per pupil funding in real terms.
• Introduce a fairer National Funding System with a protection for all schools, so that no school loses money per pupil in cash terms.
• Protect the Pupil Premium which targets extra help at disadvantaged children.
Over the Parliament, this means an extra £7 billion for school and college budgets.
Quality really counts in early years
• Increase our Early Years Pupil Premium to £1,000 per pupil per year.
• Raise the quality of early years provision and aim for every formal early years setting to employ at least one person who holds an Early Years Teacher qualification by 2022.
Teachers – our biggest asset in education
• End the 1% cap on teachers’ pay rises.
• Guarantee that all teachers in state-funded schools will be fully qualified or working towards Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) from January 2019.
• Introduce a clear and properly funded entitlement to genuinely high quality professional development for all teachers – 25 hours per year by 2020, rising to the OECD average of 50 hours by 2025.
• Support proper long-term planning of initial teacher training places, prioritising close partnerships with higher education and specialist routes such as Teach First in order to recruit the highest-quality teachers in shortage areas such as Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Maths.
• Tackle unnecessary teacher workload, including by:
– Establishing an independent Education Standards Authority to pilot, phase-in and resource future policy changes in consultation with professionals and experts.
– Reform Ofsted inspections so that they include a focus on longer-term outcomes and sustainable improvement as well as teacher workload, sickness and retention.
– Support the establishment of a new, independent Foundation for Leadership in Education, working under the umbrella of the Chartered College of Teaching, to promote high-quality, evidence-based leadership and help the best leaders into the most challenging schools.
• Continue to work with the Education Endowment Foundation to establish a comprehensive evidence base on what works in teaching.
Driving up school standards
• Scrap the planned expansion of grammar schools and devolve all capital monies for new school spaces to local authorities. …
Curriculum and qualifications
• … Sex and Relationship Education (SRE). …
• Prioritise primary progress measures instead of floor thresholds and work with the profession to reform tests at 11, preventing curriculum narrowing in upper Key Stage 2. …
• Improve links between employers and schools, encouraging all schools to participate in employment and enterprise schemes that promote regular experiences in business. …
Getting children and families ready to learn
• Establish a new online Family University, supported by leading organisations such as the BBC and Open University…
A world class university sector, open to all
… In government, Liberal Democrats established a fairer system such that that no undergraduate student in England had to pay a penny of their tuition fees up front or pay anything afterwards until they earn over £21,000 per year. …
• Fight to retain access to Horizon 2020 and Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions funding. …
Lifelong opportunities to learn
• Work with the Apprenticeship Advisory Group to increase the number of apprentices from BAME backgrounds…
• Identify and seek to solve skills gaps such as the lack of advanced technicians by expanding higher vocational training like foundation degrees, Higher National Diplomas, Higher National Certificates and Higher Apprenticeships. …

Families and Communities (w Video)
Help with childcare costs
… In government, we were proud to introduce Shared Parental Leave and increases in free childcare but there are still gaps in the system. …
• Provide 15 hours a week of free childcare to the parents of all two-year olds in England. We will then prioritise 15 hours’ free childcare for all working parents in England with children aged between nine months and two years.
• Commit to an ambitious long-term goal of 30 hours’ free childcare a week for all parents in England with children aged from two to four years, and all working parents from the end of paid parental leave to two years. …
Helping people find work
• Encourage people into work by reversing the cuts to Work Allowances in Universal Credit…
• Improve links between Jobcentres and Work Programme providers and the local NHS…
Treating people fairly
… We will reinstate the legally binding poverty targets of the Child Poverty Act. We will: …
• Help young people in need by reversing cuts to housing benefit for 18-21-year-olds and increase the rates of Job Seeker’s Allowance and Universal Credit for those aged 18-24 at the same rate as minimum wages.
• Reverse cuts to Employment Support Allowance to those in the Work-related Activity Group.
• Increase Local Housing Allowance in line with average rents in an area, ensuring that LHA is enough for a family to pay their housing costs no matter where they live.
• Scrap the ‘bedroom tax’, while seeking to achieve the aim of making best use of the housing supply through incentivising local authorities to help tenants ‘downsize’.
• Scrap the discredited Work Capability Assessment and replace it with a new system, run by local authorities according to national rules, including a ‘real world’ test that is based on the local labour market.
• Withdraw eligibility for the Winter Fuel Payment from pensioners who pay tax at the higher rate (40%). We will retain the free bus pass for all pensioners. …
Saving for and enjoying your retirement
• Maintain the ‘triple lock’ of increasing the State Pension each year by the highest of earnings growth, prices growth or 2.5% for the next Parliament. …
Building more and better homes
• Directly build homes to fill the gap left by the market, to reach our house-building target of 300,000 homes a year, through a government commissioning programme to build homes for sale and rent. …
• Create at least ten new Garden Cities in England…
• Set up a new government-backed British Housing and Infrastructure Development Bank with a remit including providing long-term capital for major new settlements…
• End the Voluntary Right to Buy pilots that sell off Housing Association homes and the associated high value asset levy.
• Lift the borrowing cap on local authorities and increase the borrowing capacity of Housing Associations…
• Enable local authorities to: – Levy up to 200% Council Tax on second homes and ‘buy to leave empty’ investments from overseas. … – End the Right to Buy if they choose.
Buying and renting
• …a new Rent to Own model where rent payments give tenants an increasing stake in the property, owning it outright after 30 years. …
• …a new Help to Rent scheme to provide government-backed tenancy deposit loans for all first-time renters under 30. …
• …the Database of Rogue Landlords and Letting Agents. …
Investing in the transport we need
• … We will continue the Access for All programme, improving disabled access to public transport as a key priority.
• …establish government-run companies to take over the running of Southern Rail and Govia Thameslink…
• …HS2, HS3, and Crossrail 2…
• … We will:
– Shift more freight from road to rail …
– Deliver the Transport for the North strategy to promote growth, innovation and prosperity across northern England
– Develop more modern, resilient links to and within the South West peninsula to help develop and diversify the regional economy
– Complete East West Rail, connecting up Oxford and Cambridge and catalysing major new housing development.
– Ensure London’s transport infrastructure is improved to withstand the pressure of population and economic growth.
– Support the takeover of metro services in London by London Overground.
– Encourage the swift take-up of electric and driverless vehicles.
• … We remain opposed to any expansion of Heathrow, Stansted or Gatwick and any new airport in the Thames Estuary and will focus instead on improving existing regional airports such as Birmingham and Manchester. …
Local communities working together
• Drastically reduce the powers of central government ministers to interfere in democratically elected local government.
• Remove the requirement to hold local referenda for Council Tax changes, ensuring that councillors are properly accountable for their decisions by introducing fair votes.
• Aim to increase the number of Neighbourhood, Community and Parish Councils and promote tenant management in social housing. …
Sustainable rural communities
• Ensure that every property in the UK is provided, by 2022, with a superfast broadband connection with a download speed of 30Mbps, an upload speed of 6Mbps, and an unlimited usage cap. …
• Set up a £2 billion Rural Services Fund of capital investment to enable communities to establish a local base from which to co-locate services such as council offices, post offices, children’s centres, libraries, and visiting healthcare professionals. …
• Commit to preventing Post Office closures and protect Royal Mail’s Universal Service Obligation to deliver across the UK for the same price. …
Access to culture and sport

Environment (w Video)
Clean air and green transport
Air pollution in the UK is a killer. It contributes to 40,000 premature deaths a year and costs the NHS £15 billion. …
…will pass a Green Transport Act, introduce an Air Quality Plan…
Low-carbon energy and green jobs
In government, we championed green energy, and oversaw the trebling of renewable electricity generation. But the Conservatives have repeatedly cut support for green energy producers… We will:
• Pass a Zero Carbon Britain Act to set new legally binding targets to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2040 and to zero by 2050.
• Set up a British Housing and Infrastructure Development Bank…
• Expand renewable energy, aiming to generate 60% of electricity from renewables by 2030…
Greener homes, lower energy bills
At over £1,200 a year, the cost of heating and lighting an average home in the UK is too high… We will:
• Pass a new Green Buildings Act to set new energy efficiency targets, including a long-term ambition for every home in England to reach at least an energy rating of Band C by 2035.
• Ensure that at least four million homes are made highly energy efficient (Band C) by 2022, with priority given to fuel-poor households.
• Restore the Zero Carbon Standard for new homes which was set by Liberal Democrats in government…
• Continue to back new entrants to the energy market, aiming for at least 30% of the household market to be supplied by competitors to the ‘Big 6’ by 2022.
Protecting nature
• Establish a £2bn flood prevention fund…
• Pass a Nature Act to put the Natural Capital Committee (NCC) on a statutory footing…
Farming, food, and agriculture
… For agricultural products outside the EU, tariffs average 22.3% – putting Britain’s £18 billion of food exports in danger. …
• Introduce a National Food Strategy…
• Increase the powers of the Groceries Code Adjudicator…
Despite reform, the Common Fisheries Policy has failed to deliver the economic or environmental objectives necessary…
Cutting waste, using resources wisely
…the so-called ‘circular economy’…
• Pass a Zero Waste Act, including legally-binding targets for reducing net consumption of key natural resources…
• Establish a statutory waste recycling target of 70% in England and extend separate food waste collections to at least 90% of homes by 2022. …
• Establish a coherent tax and regulatory framework for landfill, incineration and waste collection, including reinstating the Landfill Tax escalator and extending it to the lower rate and consulting on the introduction of an Incineration Tax. …
…we will establish a Cabinet Committee on Sustainability, chaired by a cabinet minister, establish an Office for Environmental Responsibility to scrutinise the government’s efforts to meets its environmental targets…

Rights (w Video)
… We will continue international security co-operation – combatting organised crime, terrorism and child sexual exploitation.
Rights and Equalities
… Our society is only strong once it includes everybody – regardless of their background. …
• …an ambitious goal of a million more women in work by 2025.
• …pushing for at least 40% of board members being women in FTSE 350 companies and implementing the recommendations of the Parker review to increase ethnic minority representation.
• Extend the Equality Act to all large companies with over 250 employees, requiring them to monitor and publish data on gender, BAME, and LGBT+ employment levels and pay gaps. …
…Show Racism the Red Card, the Anne Frank Trust UK, and Kick It Out. …
• Decriminalise the sale and purchase of sex, and the management of sex work – reducing harm, defending sex workers’ human rights, and focusing police time and resources on those groomed, forced, or trafficked into the sex industry. …
• …streamline and simplify the Gender Recognition Act 2004…
• Increase accessibility to public places and transport by making more stations wheelchair accessible, improving the legislative framework governing Blue Badges, setting up a benchmarking standard for accessible cities, and bringing into effect the provisions of the 2010 Equality Act on discrimination by private hire vehicles and taxis. …
Liberty
Liberal Democrats believe that we should all be free from an overreaching state and that the individual freedoms guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act are central to a free and democratic society. …
• Introduce a Digital Bill of Rights…
• In light of the press’s failure to engage in effective self-regulation, seek to ensure delivery of independent self-regulation, and commence Part 2 of the Leveson Inquiry as soon as practicable.
• End the Ministerial veto on release of information under the Freedom of Information Act, and take steps to reduce the proportion of FOI requests where information is withheld by government departments.
• Order Ofcom to launch an immediate full assessment of media plurality in the UK, including a review of the ‘fit and proper persons test’ and whether the communications regulator, and the Competition and Markets Authority, have appropriate powers to deal with concentrations of power in the digital economy.
Crime and policing
• Increase community policing in England and Wales by giving an additional £300m a year…
• Maintain, as part of our fight against Hard Brexit, cross-border co-operation in combating serious organised crime…
• Require all frontline officers to wear body cameras on duty, protecting the public from abuse of power and police officers from malicious accusations. …
• Replace Police and Crime Commissioners, elected at great expense in elections with very low turnout, with accountable Police Boards made up of local councillors.
• Build on the success of crime maps to use data more effectively to reduce crime and improve policing, including exploring the feasibility of mandatory reporting of fraud losses by individual credit and debit card providers.
Criminal Justice …
• Introduce a presumption against short prison sentences and increase the use of tough, non-custodial punishments including weekend and evening custody, curfew, community service, and GPS tagging. …
Civil and Family Justice
Terrorism and Violent Extremism
• Permit intercepts where justified and permit surveillance of those suspected of serious crime and terrorism with proper judicial oversight.
• Scrap the flawed Prevent strategy and replace it with a scheme that prioritises community engagement and supports communities in developing their own approach to tackling the dangers of violent extremism. …
• Oppose Conservative attempts to undermine encryption. …
Combatting the harm done by drugs
• Break the grip of the criminal gangs and protect young people by introducing a legal, regulated market for cannabis. We would introduce limits on potency and permit cannabis to be sold through licensed outlets to adults over the age of 18. …
Immigration and Asylum
• Continue to allow high-skilled immigration to support key sectors of our economy…
• Ensure the UK is an attractive destination for overseas students. …
• Work with universities to ensure a fair and transparent student visa process…
• Establish a centrally-funded Migrant Impact Fund…
• End indefinite immigration detention by introducing a 28-day limit. …

International Affairs (w Video)
Liberal Democrats are internationalists – working with our European and global partners to champion human rights…
We are patriotic, optimistic and progressive. …
Working for peace and security across the world
• Improve control of arms exports by:
– Implementing a policy of ‘presumption of denial’ for arms exports to countries listed as Human Rights Priority Countries in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s annual human rights report.
– Enforcing end-user certification on all future arms export licenses with an annual report to Parliament on this certification.
– Creating a public register of arms brokers. …
• Suspend UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia in response to their consistent targeting of civilians, in breach of International Humanitarian Law, in Yemen. We will work with international partners to re-commence the peace process in Yemen.
• Promote democracy and stability in Ukraine and neighbouring countries against an increasingly aggressive Russia. We will work closely with European and other international partners to exert maximum economic and political pressure on Russia to stop interfering in the affairs of sovereign Eastern European nations, and will stand by our obligations under the NATO treaty in the event of threats to NATO member states.
Our armed forces and security services
• Commit to spending 2% of GDP on defence. …
• Build on the framework for defence co-operation that is already well-established with France, the Netherlands, Germany and other European partners, and promote European defence integration where appropriate by enhancing European defence industry co-operation. …
International development
• Maintain our commitment to spend 0.7% of UK Gross National Income…
• Invest to eliminate within a generation preventable diseases like TB, HIV and malaria…
• Provide greater resources for international environmental cooperation, particularly on climate change and on actions to tackle illegal and unsustainable trade in timber, wildlife, ivory, and fish.
• In light of the US government’s dangerous and anti-science attacks on international programmes of vaccination and family planning, which impact disproportionately on the health of women and children, seek to protect global spending on these essential provisions.
Standing up for Liberal values
• Support free media and a free and open Internet around the world, championing the free flow of information. …
• Campaign strongly for the abolition of the death penalty around the world.
• … We will implement outstanding commitments made by the British Government at the 2016 Global Anti-Corruption Summit.
• Maintain funding for the BBC World Service, BBC Monitoring and the British Council. …
• Appoint an Ambassador-level Champion for Freedom of Belief to drive British diplomatic efforts in this field, and campaign for the abolition of blasphemy, sedition, apostasy and criminal libel laws worldwide…

Constitutional and Political Reform (w Video)
People should have power over their own lives and how their country is run. We would revitalise our political system – so it works for everyone – with fairer votes and more devolution.
Better politics
• Introduce the Single Transferable Vote for local government elections in England and for electing MPs across the UK. …
• Reform the House of Lords with a proper democratic mandate. …
• Strengthen Trade Union members’ political freedoms by letting them choose which political party they wish to support through the political levy. …
• Mandate the provision of televised Leaders’ Debates in General Elections based on rules produced by Ofcom…
A decentralised United Kingdom
… We will deliver Home Rule to each of the nations of a strong, federal, and United Kingdom.
…we will therefore establish a UK Constitutional Convention, made up from representatives of the political parties, academia, civic society and members of the public…to report within two years. …
Scotland
…the Smith Commission to bring Scotland’s five biggest parties together to agree what further powers should be assigned to the Scottish Parliament. …
The Scottish Parliament will raise in tax half of what it spends in its budget. A Scottish welfare system will allow the Scottish Parliament to change the benefits regime where there is specific Scottish need or priority, with a starting budget of around £3 billion. …
Wales
We welcome the new Wales Act, which is intended to implement the St. David’s Day agreement secured by Liberal Democrats in government – but it does not go far enough.
Liberal Democrats will deliver proper Home Rule for Wales and a Welsh Parliament by implementing the remaining Silk Part 1 proposals on financial powers and the Silk Part 2 proposals to devolve powers over transport, youth justice, policing and, other justice powers. …
…Network Rail…
Northern Ireland
… We will work constructively with the political parties in Northern Ireland and with the Irish Government to secure the political stability of the Northern Ireland Assembly and other institutions of the Belfast Agreement and the implementation of all the recommendations of the Report on Disbanding Paramilitary Groups.
• Maintain the Common Travel Area and freedom of movement. …
England
Devolution of power to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has implications for the UK Parliament and its dual role in legislating for England as well as the federal UK. …
… We will therefore introduce Devolution on Demand, enabling even greater devolution of powers from Westminster to Councils or groups of Councils working together – for example to a Cornish Assembly or a Yorkshire Parliament.
Funding
… The Barnett Formula is the mechanism used to adjust spending allocations across the UK.
We recognise the findings of the Holtham Commission that the current formula underfunds Wales…

CHANGE BRITAIN’S FUTURE – LIBERAL DEMOCRAT MANIFESTO 2017 (PDF)
Contents
3 Your chance to change Britain’s future by changing the opposition
7 Protect Britain’s Place in Europe
13 Save our NHS and Social Care Services
23 Put Children First
33 Build an Economy that Works for You
45 Keep our Country Green
55 Support Families and Communities
67 Defend Rights, Promote Justice and Equalities
79 Make a Better World
87 Fix a Broken System

UK Vol.87 (Post-EUref #Brexit Vol.16: 2017 General Election – Conservative Party Manifesto)

Here is FORWARD TOGETHER: THE CONSERVATIVE MANIFESTO (issuu or PDF) in May 2017. Excerpts are on our own.

FOREWORD pp.4-5
…build a Great Meritocracy…

FIVE GIANT CHALLENGES pp.6-10
Strong and stable leadership
… Despite predictions of immediate financial and economic danger, we have seen confidence remain high, record numbers of jobs and economic growth that has exceeded all expectations. …
Five giant challenges
1. The need for a strong economy.
2. Brexit and a changing world.
3. Enduring social divisions.
4. An ageing society.
5. Fast-changing technology.
Governing from the mainstream
… Rather than pursue an agenda based on a supposed centre ground defined and established by elites in Westminster, we will govern in the interests of the mainstream of the British public. We will get on with the job and take Britain out of the European Union. …
…there will be no ideological crusades. …
We will govern in the interests of ordinary, working families
We believe in the good that government can do
… If we want to overcome Britain’s enduring social divisions, we will need to give people real opportunity and make Britain the world’s Great Meritocracy. That will require government to take on long-ignored problems like Britain’s lack of training and technical education, as well as long-lasting injustices…
Our principles
… Because Conservatism is not and never has been the philosophy described by caricaturists. We do not believe in untrammelled free markets. We reject the cult of selfish individualism. We abhor social division, injustice, unfairness and inequality. We see rigid dogma and ideology not just as needless but dangerous.
True Conservatism means a commitment to country and community; a belief not just in society but in the good that government can do; a respect for the local and national institutions that bind us together…
A vision of a stronger Britain and a prosperous future

1. A STRONG ECONOMY THAT WORKS FOR EVERYONE pp.11-27
p.12 Summary
p.13 A strong economy is the basis for everything we want to achieve as a nation.
pp.13-16 THE FOUNDATIONS OF A STRONG ECONOMY
Sound money and responsible public finances are the essential foundations of national economic success.
Keeping taxes as low as possible
Paying your fair share of tax is the price of living in a civilised democracy but politicians should never forget that taxes are levied on businesses that employ people, and individuals who work hard and face tough decisions about how they spend their money. …
By 2020, we will, as promised, increase the personal allowance to £12,500 and the higher rate to £50,000. We will continue to ensure that local residents can veto high increases in Council Tax via a referendum. And we will not increase the level of Value Added Tax.
Corporation Tax is due to fall to seventeen per cent by 2020 – the lowest rate of any developed economy – and we will stick to that plan, because it will help to bring huge investment and many thousands of jobs to the UK. …
Increasing trade
…we want to negotiate a new deep and special partnership with the EU, which will allow free trade between the UK and the EU’s member states. As part of the agreement we strike, we want to make sure that there are as few barriers to trade and investment as possible. Leaving the European Union also means we will be free to strike our own trade agreements with countries outside the EU.
We will ensure immediate stability by lodging new UK schedules with the World Trade Organization, in alignment with EU schedules to which we are bound whilst still a member of the European Union. …
We will create a network of Her Majesty’s Trade Commissioners to head nine new regional overseas posts. These commissioners will lead export promotion, investment and trade policy overseas. We will reconvene the Board of Trade with a membership specifically charged with ensuring that we increase exports from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as England, and that trade policy is directly influenced by every part of our United Kingdom. …
Effective regulation
…we will continue to regulate more efficiently, saving £9 billion through the Red Tape Challenge and the One-In-Two-Out Rule.
… We will therefore examine ways in which the regulation of utilities and transport infrastructure can be improved to deliver a better deal for customers and sharper incentives for investment efficiency.

pp.16-18 NEW RULES FOR A CHANGING ECONOMY
Conservatives believe that if you value something, you must be prepared to reform it in order to conserve it.
Guaranteeing a decent wage
…now receive a minimum of £7.50 an hour. A new Conservative government will continue to increase the National Living Wage to 60 per cent of median earnings by 2020 and then by the rate of median earnings…
Rights and protections in the ‘gig’ economy
…the government commissioned Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts, to review the changing labour market. We await his final report but a new Conservative government will act to ensure that the interests of employees on traditional contracts, the self-employed and those people working in the ‘gig’ economy are all properly protected.
Stopping tax evasion
… We will improve HMRC’s capabilities to stamp down on smuggling, including by improving our policing of the border as we leave the European Union. We will also take further measures to reduce online fraud in Value Added Tax.
Protecting private pensions
… A Conservative government will act to tighten the rules against such abuse, and increase the punishment for those caught mismanaging pension schemes. We will build on existing powers to give pension schemes and the Pensions Regulator the right to scrutinise, clear with conditions or in extreme cases stop mergers, takeovers or large financial commitments that threaten the solvency of the scheme. …
Reforming rules on takeovers and mergers
… We shall also take action to protect our critical national infrastructure. We will ensure that foreign ownership of companies controlling important infrastructure does not undermine British security or essential services. We have already strengthened ministerial scrutiny and control in respect of civil nuclear power and will take a similarly robust approach across a limited range of other sectors, such as telecoms, defence and energy.
Fair corporate pay
… Senior corporate pay has risen far faster than corporate performance, and the gap between those paid most and those paid least has grown from 47:1 in 1998 to 128:1 in 2015.
The next Conservative government will legislate to make executive pay packages subject to strict annual votes by shareholders and listed companies will have to publish the ratio of executive pay to broader UK workforce pay. …
Better corporate governance
… To ensure employees’ interests are represented at board level, we will change the law to ensure that listed companies will be required either to nominate a director from the workforce, create a formal employee advisory council or assign specific responsibility for employee representation to a designated non-executive director. …

pp.18-24 A MODERN INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
Our modern industrial strategy is designed to deliver a stronger economy that works for everyone – where wealth and opportunity are spread across every community in the United Kingdom, not just the most prosperous places in London and the south east.
… We will spend more on research and development, to turn brilliant discoveries into practical products and transform the world’s industries – such as the batteries that will power a new generation of clean, efficient, electric vehicles. … We will build on the success of world-beating sectors such as car and aero manufacturing, financial services, life sciences, digital technology and our creative industries… We will deliver the infrastructure – the road, rail, airports and broadband – that businesses need.
Increasing innovation
University investment funds
National Productivity Investment Fund
…a new £23 billion… This will include £740 million of digital infrastructure investment, the largest investment in railways since Victorian times, £1.1 billion to improve local transport and £250 million in skills by the end of 2020. …will take total spending on housing, economic infrastructure and R&D to £170 billion during the next parliament.
Future Britain funds
…backing British infrastructure and the British economy. We anticipate early funds being created out of revenues from shale gas extraction, dormant assets, and the receipts of sale of some public assets. …
The skills we need
… We will therefore ask the independent Migration Advisory Committee to make recommendations to the government about how the visa system can become better aligned with our modern industrial strategy. …
…we will double the Immigration Skills Charge levied on companies employing migrant workers, to £2,000 a year by the end of the parliament, using the revenue generated to invest in higher level skills training for workers in the UK.
Backing small businesses
The Conservative Party is the party of enterprise and of the entrepreneur. …
…we will ensure that 33 per cent of central government purchasing will come from SMEs by the end of the parliament. …
…we will use our buying power to ensure that big contractors comply with the Prompt Payment Code both on government contracts and in their work with others. …
Supporting industries to succeed
Our modern industrial strategy is not about ‘planning’ the economy. …
…advanced manufacturing, such as aero and automotive engineering…
Other industries, like the oil and gas sector, are transforming. The North Sea has provided more than £300 billion in tax revenue to the UK economy and supports thousands of highly-skilled jobs across Britain. …
… Life sciences, for example, employs 175,000 people and many of the world’s top medicines have been developed in the UK. We will continue to support research into the diagnosis and treatment of rare cancers and other diseases, including Genomics England’s work in decoding 100,000 genomes. …
Competitive and affordable energy costs
… Our ambition is that the UK should have the lowest energy costs in Europe, both for households and businesses. So as we upgrade our energy infrastructure…
A diverse energy mix
…while we do not believe that more large-scale onshore wind power is right for England, we will maintain our position as a global leader in offshore wind and support the development of wind projects in the remote islands of Scotland, where they will directly benefit local communities.
Natural gas from shale
We will set up a new Shale Environmental Regulator, which will assume the relevant functions of the Health and Safety Executive, the Environment Agency and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. This will provide clear governance and accountability, become a source of expertise, and allow decisions to be made fairly but swiftly.
Finally, we will change the proposed Shale Wealth Fund so a greater percentage of the tax revenues from shale gas directly benefit the communities that host the extraction sites. …
Investing in transport
We are working through one of the largest-ever investment programmes in our roads and railways, putting some £40 billion into transport improvements…
…our programme of strategic national investments, including High Speed 2, Northern Powerhouse Rail and the expansion of Heathrow Airport…
… We want almost every car and van to be zero-emission by 2050 – and will invest £600 million by 2020 to help achieve it. …

pp.24-27 STRONGER COMMUNITIES FROM A STRONGER ECONOMY
Prosperous towns and cities across Britain
… We will hold a Great Exhibition of the North in 2018, to celebrate amazing achievements in innovation, the arts and engineering. We will support a UK city in making a bid to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games. And in this 70th Anniversary Year of the Edinburgh Festival we will support the development of the new Edinburgh Concert Hall, reaffirming Edinburgh as the UK’s leading festival city and a cultural beacon around the globe.
Our countryside communities
… We will help Natural England to expand their provision of technical expertise to farmers to deliver environmental improvements on a landscape scale, from enriching soil fertility to planting hedgerows and building dry stone walls. …
We will continue to take action to improve animal welfare. We will implement our proposed reforms on pet sales and licensing and will make CCTV recording in slaughterhouses mandatory. …
…decide the future of the Hunting Act.
…a comprehensive 25 Year Environment Plan…
Our coastal communities
… To provide complete legal certainty to our neighbours and clarity during our negotiations with the European Union, we will withdraw from the London Fisheries Convention…

2. A STRONG AND UNITED NATION IN A CHANGING WORLD pp.29-45
p.30 Summary
p.31 The United Kingdom is embarking upon another era in our centuries-old story.
pp.31-35 OUR PRECIOUS UNION
We are a United Kingdom, one nation made of four – the most successful political union in modern history.
England
Scotland
…the 2012 and 2016 Scotland Acts…
… The United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union but some would disrupt our attempts to get the best deal for Scotland and the United Kingdom with calls for a divisive referendum that the people of Scotland do not want. We have been very clear that now is not the time for another referendum on independence. In order for a referendum to be fair, legal and decisive, it cannot take place until the Brexit process has played out and it should not take place unless there is public consent for it to happen. This is a time to pull together, not apart. …
… Building on the City and Growth deals we have signed across Scotland, we will bring forward a Borderlands Growth Deal, including all councils on both sides of the border, to help secure prosperity in southern Scotland. We will protect the interests of Scottish farmers and fishermen…
Wales
…The 2017 Wales Act…
… We will build on the Cardiff Capital region and Swansea Bay City region deals, and bring forward a North Wales Growth Deal… …such as linking economic development between Cardiff, Newport and Bristol. …
…S4C…the Welsh language…
Northern Ireland
…the 1998 Belfast Agreement…
A Conservative government will continue to work for the full implementation of the 2014 Stormont House and 2015 Fresh Start Agreements. This includes new bodies for addressing the legacy of the past in fair, balanced and proportionate ways which do not unfairly focus on former members of the Armed Forces and the Royal Ulster Constabulary. …
Shared institutions of Union
United Kingdom Shared Prosperity Fund

pp.35-37 LEAVING THE EUROPEAN UNION
… In her Lancaster House Speech, the prime minister laid out the twelve principles she intends to follow in seeking a new deep and special partnership with the European Union. We have explained our approach in the White Paper on the United Kingdom’s Exit from, and a new relationship with, the European Union, during the passage of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act, in the prime minister’s letter to the president of the European Council invoking Article 50, and in the Great Repeal Bill White Paper.
Repatriating EU law to the United Kingdom
…the rights of workers and protections given to consumers and the environment by EU law will continue to be available in UK law at the point at which we leave the EU. … Once EU law has been converted into domestic law, parliament will be able to pass legislation to amend, repeal or improve any piece of EU law it chooses, as will the devolved legislatures, where they have the power to do so.
… We will not bring the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights into UK law. We will not repeal or replace the Human Rights Act while the process of Brexit is underway but we will consider our human rights legal framework when the process of leaving the EU concludes. We will remain signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights for the duration of the next parliament.

pp.37-41 GLOBAL BRITAIN
… We will continue to champion British values around the globe: freedom, democracy, tolerance and the rule of law. …
British leadership in international institutions
Global partnerships and alliances
…our proposed deep and special partnership with the European Union… …our existing special relationship with the United States… …our close links with our Commonwealth allies…
A global champion of free trade
Promoting British culture around the world
Leading the world in development
…we will maintain the commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of our gross national income on assistance to developing nations and international emergencies.
Reforming asylum
… Wherever possible, the government will offer asylum and refuge to people in parts of the world affected by conflict and oppression, rather than to those who have made it to Britain. We will work to reduce asylum claims made in Britain and, as we do so, increase the number of people we help in the most troubled regions. We will continue to work with other countries in Europe, and the United Nations, to review the international legal definitions of asylum and refugee status. …
Protecting the global environment
…the Paris Agreement. We were the first country to introduce a Climate Change Act, which Conservatives helped to frame, and we are halfway towards meeting our 2050 goal of reducing emissions by eighty per cent from 1990 levels.
… We will work with our Overseas Territory governments to create a Blue Belt of marine protection in their precious waters, establishing the largest marine sanctuaries anywhere in the world.
Modern slavery
… As home secretary, Theresa May brought forward the Modern Slavery Act, the first of its kind in Europe, appointed the world’s first anti-slavery commissioner and set up the Modern Slavery Taskforce to bring together the heads of MI5, MI6 and the National Crime Agency to coordinate our response to criminal gangs operating across the world. …

pp.41-42 STRONG DEFENCE IN AN UNCERTAIN WORLD
… We will retain the Trident continuous-at-sea nuclear deterrent to provide the ultimate guarantee of our security.
We have the biggest defence budget in Europe and the second largest in NATO. We will continue to meet the NATO commitment to spend at least 2 per cent of GDP on defence and we will increase the defence budget by at least 0.5 per cent above inflation in every year of the new parliament.
The finest servicemen and women
… Under a Conservative government, British troops will in future be subject to the Law of Armed Conflict, which includes the Geneva Convention and UK Service Law, not the European Court of Human Rights. We will strengthen legal services regulation and restrict legal aid for unscrupulous law firms that issue vexatious legal claims against the armed forces. …
The best equipment for our armed forces
We plan to invest £178 billion in new military equipment over the next decade, creating high-skilled jobs across the whole country. For the first time in a generation the Royal Navy is growing. …
…HMS Queen Elizabeth…HMS Prince of Wales… Alongside our new Type 45 destroyers, we will build eight Type 26 anti-submarine frigates… We shall also deliver five Offshore Patrol Vessels.
For the Army we will deliver AJAX armoured vehicles, Apache attack helicopters, new drones, new missile and bomb systems, and better equipment for the Special Forces. The Royal Air Force will receive, with the Fleet Air Arm, the Lightning II strike fighter, as well as new Maritime Patrol Aircraft. …
Supporting our veterans
…the Armed Forces Covenant. …a one year holiday on Employer National Insurance Contributions… …a Veterans Board in the Cabinet Office.

pp.42-45 THE HOME OF DEMOCRACY AND THE RULE OF LAW
…collective faith in our democratic institutions and our justice system has declined in the past two decades. …
A flourishing and secure democracy
… We will continue with the current boundary review, enshrining the principle of equal seats, while reducing the number of MPs to 600, similar to other Western democratic chambers. We will retain the first past the post system of voting for parliamentary elections and extend this system to police and crime commissioner and mayoral elections. We will retain the current franchise to vote in parliamentary elections at eighteen. We will repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. …
Celebrating public service
… We will continue to fund schemes to get graduates from Britain’s leading universities to serve in schools, police forces, prisons, and social care and mental health organisations. These programmes are now some of the UK’s largest graduate employers, taking the brightest and best from our universities and using their talents to tackle entrenched social problems. …
Reforming the justice system
Standing up for victims
…the Unduly Lenient Sentence Scheme…
Strengthening the police and security services
… We will create a national infrastructure police force, bringing together the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, the Ministry of Defence Police and the British Transport Police to improve the protection of critical infrastructure such as nuclear sites, railways and the strategic road network. We will strengthen Britain’s response to white collar crime by incorporating the Serious Fraud Office into the National Crime Agency… …the National Cyber Security Centre…
Punishment and reform
… The £15 billion annual cost to society of reoffending shows we have so much more to do to make the penal system work better. …
We will invest over £1 billion to modernise the prison estate, replacing the most dilapidated prisons and creating 10,000 modern prison places. …

3. THE WORLD’S GREAT MERITOCRACY pp.47-60
p.48 Summary
pp.49-54 A COUNTRY FOUNDED ON MERIT
The greatest injustice in Britain today is that your life is still largely determined not by your efforts and talents but by where you come from, who your parents are and what schools you attend. This is wrong. …
More good school places
… There are still 1 million children in primary and secondary schools rated by Ofsted as ’requires improvement’ or ’inadequate’. If schools across the Midlands and north of England had the same average standards as those in the south, nearly 200,000 more children would be attending good schools. …
… We will replace the unfair and ineffective inclusivity rules that prevent the establishment of new Roman Catholic schools, instead requiring new faith schools to prove that parents of other faiths and none would be prepared to send their children to that school. We will work with the Independent Schools Council to ensure that at least 100 leading independent schools become involved in academy sponsorship or the founding of free schools in the state system…
A knowledge-rich curriculum
… To maintain progress as children go through secondary school, we will improve schools’ accountability at key stage 3. We will expect 75 per cent of pupils to have been entered for the EBacc combination of GCSEs by the end of the next parliament, with 90 per cent of pupils studying this combination of academic GCSEs by 2025. …
Supporting teachers
… We will increase the overall schools budget by £4 billion by 2022, representing more than a real terms increase for every year of the parliament. We will continue to protect the Pupil Premium to support those who need it. …
World-class technical education
… We have already introduced high quality apprenticeships that can reach to degree level and beyond for the 200,000 young people who choose to enter full-time vocational study after their GCSEs each year. …
We will start by replacing 13,000 existing technical qualifications with new qualifications, known as T-levels, across fifteen routes in subjects including construction, creative and design, digital, engineering and manufacturing, and health and science. We will increase the number of teaching hours by fifty per cent to an average of 900 hours per year and make sure that each student does a three-month work placement as part of their course. …
… We will deliver our commitment to create 3 million apprenticeships for young people by 2020 and in doing so we will drive up the quality of apprenticeships to ensure they deliver the skills employers need. …
Career learning
More people in work
…we will offer a holiday on their employers’ National Insurance Contributions for a full year. …

pp.54-55 A COUNTRY THAT COMES TOGETHER
Controlling immigration
…with annual net migration standing at 273,000, immigration to Britain is still too high. …
Integrating divided communities
…help women in particular into the workplace, and teach more people to speak English. …
Defeating extremism
…a Commission for Countering Extremism…

pp.55-58 CONFRONTING BURNING INJUSTICES
To make Britain the world’s Great Meritocracy…we must look beyond divisions in educational opportunity.
The gender pay gap
… We will require companies with more than 250 employees to publish more data on the pay gap between men and women. …
The race gap
The mental health gap
…since 2010 we have increased spending on mental health each year to a record £11.4 billion in 2016/17, with a further investment of £1 billion by 20/21…
The disability gap
…the landmark Disability Discrimination Act of 1995. …
Preventing domestic violence
Reducing homelessness
…full implementation of the Homelessness Reduction Act. Our aim will be to halve rough sleeping over the course of the parliament and eliminate it altogether by 2027. …

pp.59-60 CUTTING THE COST OF LIVING
Fair markets for consumers
… As Conservatives, we believe in markets as the best means to bring about prosperity and innovation, but we should act firmly and fast when a market works against the interests of consumers. Since 2010, we have capped the cost of credit for expensive payday lenders and will shortly ban letting agent fees. …
… We will strengthen the powers of consumer enforcement bodies to order fines against companies breaking consumer law and deliver redress for wronged parties. … We will strengthen the hand of online consumers. …
… A Conservative government will reform and modernise the home-buying process so it is more efficient and less costly. We will crack down on unfair practices in leasehold, such as escalating ground rents. We will also improve protections for those who rent… We will make billing for telecoms customers fairer and easier to understand… We will reduce insurance costs for ordinary motorists by cracking down on exaggerated and fraudulent whiplash claims. …
Fair energy markets
… First, we will ensure that smart meters will be offered to every household and business by the end of 2020…
… We will introduce a safeguard tariff cap that will extend the price protection…
… We will improve the energy efficiency of existing homes, especially for the least well off, by committing to upgrading all fuel poor homes to EPC Band C by 2030. …
Fair debt
…a “Breathing Space” scheme…

4. A RESTORED CONTRACT BETWEEN THE GENERATIONS pp.61-73
p.62 Summary
pp.63-64 DEALING WITH THE DEFICIT
… Conservatives believe in balancing the books and paying down debts – because it is wrong to pass to future generations a bill you cannot or will not pay yourself. …

pp.64-66 AN AGEING SOCIETY
Guaranteed annual increases in the state pension
A decade ago, pensions were in crisis and poverty blighted the retirement of many older people. It was wrong and it has been a Conservative government that has helped to put it right. By introducing the Pensions Triple Lock and the new State Pension, we have lifted the incomes of millions of older people, reducing pensioner poverty to historically low levels. …2020, and when it expires we will introduce a new Double Lock, meaning that pensions will rise in line with the earnings that pay for them, or in line with inflation – whichever is highest. …
… We will promote long-term savings and pensions products, including the Lifetime ISA, to encourage and incentivise more people to make provision for long-term needs, including a house purchase and retirement.
A long-term plan for elderly care
… We have already taken immediate action, putting £2 billion into the social care system and allowing councils to raise more money for care themselves from Council Tax. …
Under the current system, care costs deplete an individual’s assets, including in some cases the family home, down to £23,250 or even less. …
First, we will align the future basis for means-testing for domiciliary care with that for residential care, so that people are looked after in the place that is best for them. This will mean that the value of the family home will be taken into account along with other assets and income, whether care is provided at home, or in a residential or nursing care home.
Second, to ensure this is fair, we will introduce a single capital floor, set at £100,000, more than four times the current means test threshold. This will ensure that, no matter how large the cost of care turns out to be, people will always retain at least £100,000 of their savings and assets, including value in the family home.
Third, we will extend the current freedom to defer payments for residential care to those receiving care at home, so no-one will have to sell their home in their lifetime to pay for care.
…the Dilnot Report…
…our forthcoming green paper will also address system-wide issues to improve the quality of care and reduce variation in practice. This will ensure the care system works better with the NHS to reduce unnecessary and unhealthy hospital stays and delayed transfers of care, and provide better quality assurance within the care sector. …
…we will meanstest Winter Fuel Payments, focusing assistance on the least well-off pensioners, who are most at risk of fuel poverty. …

pp.66-70 OUR NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE
The money and people the NHS needs
First, we will increase NHS spending by a minimum of £8 billion in real terms over the next five years…
Second… Last year we announced an increase in the number of students in medical training of 1,500 a year…
Third, we will ensure that the NHS has the buildings and technology it needs to deliver care properly and efficiently. …
Fourth…we will recover the cost of medical treatment from people not resident in the UK. … And we will increase the Immigration Health Surcharge, to £600 for migrant workers and £450 for international students…
Fifth, we will implement the recommendations of the Accelerated Access Review to make sure that patients get new drugs and treatments faster…
Holding NHS leaders to account
…NHS England… …the Five Year Forward View. … We will also back the implementation of the plan at a local level, through the Sustainability and Transformation Plans…
…in time for the start of the 2018 financial year, we will make non-legislative changes to remove barriers to the integration of care.
We will introduce a new GP contract to help develop wider primary care services. …
We will also help the million and more NHS clinicians and support staff develop the skills they need…
Exceptional standards of care, wherever, whenever
…we will make clinical outcomes more transparent so that clinicians and frontline staff can learn more easily from the best units and practices, and where there is clear evidence of poor patient outcomes, we will take rapid corrective action. …
…we will give patients, via digital means or over the phone, the ability to book appointments, contact the 111 service, order repeat prescriptions, and access and update aspects of their care records, as well as control how their personal data is used. …
…waiting times data for A&Es… …our National Diabetes Prevention Programme…
… Already 17 million people can get routine weekend or evening appointments at either their own GP surgery or one nearby, and this will expand to the whole population by 2019. …
We will retain the 95 per cent A&E target and the 18-week elective care standard…
… We will extend the scope of the CQC to cover the health-related services commissioned by local authorities. …
In cancer services, we will deliver the new promise to give patients a definitive diagnosis within 28 days by 2020…

pp.70-72 HOMES FOR ALL
… We will meet our 2015 commitment to deliver a million homes by the end of 2020 and we will deliver half a million more by the end of 2022. We will deliver the reforms proposed in our Housing White Paper to free up more land for new homes in the right places…
…maintaining the existing strong protections on designated land like the Green Belt, National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. …government building 160,000 houses on its own land. …
We will enter into new Council Housing Deals with ambitious, pro-development, local authorities to help them build more social housing. …
…sold privately after ten to fifteen years with an automatic Right to Buy for tenants… We will enter into new Council Housing Deals with ambitious, pro-development, local authorities to help them build more social housing. …
…we will continue our £2.5 billion flood defence programme that will put in place protection for 300,000 existing homes by 2021.

pp.72-73 CHILDREN AND FAMILIES
High-quality childcare
…a Conservative government will introduce, this year, thirty hours of free childcare for three and four-year-olds for working parents who find it difficult to manage the costs of childcare… …we will immediately institute a capital fund to help primary schools develop nurseries where they currently do not have the facilities to provide one…
Children’s and young people’s health
… We are seeing progress: smoking rates are now lower than France or Germany, drinking rates have fallen below the European average and teenage pregnancies are at record lows. …
… Half of all mental health conditions become established in people before the age of fourteen. … A Conservative
government will publish a green paper on young people’s mental health before the end of this year. …
Protecting vulnerable children and families
… Placing a child under the oversight of social services and taking a child into care are amongst the most serious duties the state may discharge. We will demand all local authorities be commissioners of the highest-quality family support and child protection services, removing these responsibilities from the weakest councils and placing them in trust. We will ensure that councils provide consistency of care and cannot relocate vulnerable children far from their home when it is not in their best interests to do so. We will review support for Children in Need to understand why their outcomes are so poor and what more support they might require, in and out of school.
Finally, we shall explore ways to improve the family justice system. The family courts need to do more to support families, valuing the roles of mothers and fathers, while ensuring parents face up to their responsibilities.

5. PROSPERITY AND SECURITY IN A DIGITAL AGE pp.75-83
p.76 Summary
p.77 … These new technologies provide us with new and faster ways to communicate, learn, travel, have fun and do business. They accelerate the pace of change – ushering in new norms in the space of years rather than decades; challenging our laws and regulations to keep pace.
pp.77-80 A DIGITAL CHARTER
The best place for digital business
…our world-leading Enterprise Investment Scheme and Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme… …open new offices of the British Business Bank in Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Manchester and Newport… When we leave the European Union, we will fund the British Business Bank with the repatriated funds from the European Investment Fund.
… By the end of this year, 19 out of 20 premises will have access to superfast broadband and our Universal Service Obligation will ensure that by 2020 every home and every business in Britain has access to high speed broadband. … We will introduce a full fibre connection voucher for companies across the country by 2018 and by 2022 we will have major fibre spines in over a hundred towns and cities, with ten million premises connected to full fibre…
… By 2022 we will extend mobile coverage further to 95 per cent geographic coverage of the UK. By the same date, all major roads and main line trains will enjoy full and uninterrupted mobile phone signal, alongside guaranteed WiFi internet service on all such trains. …
The safest place to be online
… We will put a responsibility on industry not to direct users – even unintentionally – to hate speech, pornography, or other sources of harm. …
… To create a sound ethical framework for how data is used, we will institute an expert Data Use and Ethics Commission…
…we will bring forward a new data protection law…to ensure the very best standards for the safe, flexible and dynamic use of data and enshrining our global leadership…the National Data Guardian for Health and Social Care on a statutory footing…
We will continue with our £1.9 billion investment in cyber security and build on the successful establishment of the National Cyber Security Centre…
A free media
…the Leveson Inquiry… We will repeal Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2014…

pp.80-82 DIGITAL GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC SERVICES
… We will therefore create a new presumption of digital government services by default and an expectation that all government services are fully accessible online, with assisted digital support available for all public sector websites. …local issues and public transport…roadworks, planning applications and bus routes… …’schools maps’…
…central and local government will be required to release information regularly and in an open format, and data will be aggregated and anonymised where it is important to do so. We will incubate more digital services within government and introduce digital transformation fellowships…
…we shall roll out Verify, so that people can identify themselves on all government online services by 2020, using their own secure data that is not held by government. … …the ’Once-Only’ principle in central government services by 2022 and wider public services by 2025. …
Digital infrastructure
… We are leading the world in preparing for autonomous vehicles and will press ahead with our plans to use digital technology to improve our railways… Smart grids will make the most efficient use of our electricity infrastructure and electric vehicles, and we will use technology to manage our airspace better to reduce noise pollution and improve capacity. …
Digital land
…the property development industry… …we will combine the relevant parts of HM Land Registry, Ordnance Survey, the Valuation Office Agency, the Hydrographic Office and Geological Survey to create a comprehensive geospatial data body within government…

pp.82-83 A FRAMEWORK FOR DATA AND THE DIGITAL ECONOMY
Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to technology and the internet. We disagree. …
An international settlement
…a framework for data ethics…

CONCLUSION p.84

UK Vol.86 (Post-EUref #Brexit Vol.15: 2017 General Election – Labour Party Manifesto)

Here is THE LABOUR PARTY MANIFESTO 2017 in May 2017. Excerpts are on our own.

FOREWORD
… Every election is a choice. What makes this election different is that the choice is starker than ever before. …
Britain is the fifth richest country in the world. But that means little when many people don’t share in that wealth. Many feel the system is rigged against them. …
Britain needs to negotiate a Brexit deal that puts our economy and living standards first. That won’t be achieved by empty slogans and posturing. We cannot put at risk our links with our largest trading partner. Instead we need a jobs-first Brexit that allows us to upgrade our economy for the 21st century.
Labour will invest in the cutting-edge jobs and industries of the future that can improve everybody’s lives. Which is why this manifesto outlines a fully costed programme to upgrade our economy. …
…this election is about what sort of country we want to be after Brexit. …
So let’s build a fairer Britain where no one is held back. A country where everybody is able to get on in life, to have security at work and at home, to be decently paid for the work they do, and to live their lives with the dignity they deserve. …

CREATING AN ECONOMY THAT WORKS FOR ALL
CREATING AN ECONOMY THAT WORKS FOR ALL
… Labour understands that the creation of wealth is a collective endeavour between workers, entrepreneurs, investors and government. Each contributes and each must share fairly in the rewards.
… Britain is the only major developed economy where earnings have fallen even as growth has returned after the financial crisis. Most working people in Britain today are earning less, after inflation, than they did ten years ago. …
… Our National Transformation Fund will deliver the investment that every part of Britain needs to meet its potential, overcoming years of neglect. …
…our Fiscal Credibility Rule…
A FAIR TAXATION SYSTEM
…our Tax Transparency and Enforcement Programme…
But we will not ask ordinary households to pay more. A Labour government will guarantee no rises in income tax for those earning below £80,000 a year, and no increases in personal National Insurance Contributions or the rate of VAT. …
BALANCING THE BOOKS
… Our Fiscal Credibility Rule is based on the simple principle that government should not be borrowing for day-to-day spending, but that future growth depends on investment. …
…a strengthened and truly independent Office for Budget Responsibility… the Kerslake Review of the Treasury.
INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT
… We will take advantage of near- record low interest rates to create a National Transformation Fund that will invest £250 billion over ten years in upgrading our economy. …
A Labour government will complete the HS2 high-speed rail line from London through Birmingham to Leeds and Manchester, and then into Scotland, consulting with (and, where necessary, compensating) communities. We will link HS2 with other rail investments, such as Crossrail of the North (tying together our great northern cities) and on to the Durham Freight Centre. We will build a new Brighton Main Line for the South East.
In London, to ensure our capital continues to prosper, we will build Crossrail 2.
To harness the economic potential of new technologies and science, we will complete the Science Vale transport arc, from Oxford to Cambridge through Milton Keynes.
… We will improve 4G coverage and invest to ensure all urban areas, as well as major roads and railways, have uninterrupted 5G coverage. On day one we will instruct the National Infrastructure Commission to report on how to roll out ‘ultrafast’ (300Mbps) across the UK within the next decade.
UPGRADING OUR ECONOMY: LABOUR’S INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
… The first missions set by a Labour government will be to:
1. ensure that 60 per cent of the UK’s energy comes from zero-carbon or renewable sources by 2030
2. create an innovation nation with the highest proportion of high- skilled jobs in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development by 2030. We will meet the OECD target of 3 per cent of GDP spent on research and development by 2030.
In order to create a fertile ground for businesses to achieve these missions Labour will take action across the areas we know are necessary for business and industry to grow:
• Skills – by creating a National Education Service for England.
• Infrastructure – by investing £250 billion over the next ten years.
• UK supply chains – by targeting government support where there are gaps.
• Trade – by negotiating a new deal with Europe that puts jobs and the economy first.
• Procurement – by requiring the best standards on government contracts.
• Research and development – by committing extra research investment.
• Energy costs and security – by capping costs and investing in new publicly owned energy provision.
…the highly successful Automotive Council… …a Digital Ambassador…
TRANSFORMING OUR FINANCIAL SYSTEM
… Following the successful example of Germany and the Nordic countries, we will establish a National Investment Bank that will bring in private capital finance to deliver £250 billion of lending power.
… We will take a new approach to the publicly-owned RBS, and launch a consultation on breaking up the bank to create new local public banks that are better matched to their customers’ needs. And we will extend existing Stamp Duty Reserve Tax to cover a wider range of assets, ensuring that the public gets a fairer share of financial system profits. …
A NEW DEAL FOR BUSINESS
… Labour will amend the takeover regime to ensure that businesses identified as being ‘systemically important’ have a clear plan in place to protect workers and pensioners when a company is taken over. Labour will also legislate to reduce pay inequality by introducing an Excessive Pay Levy on companies with staff on very high pay.
… In order to provide the support many small businesses need, a Labour government will:
• Mandate the new National Investment Bank, and regional development banks in every region, to identify where other lenders fail to meet the needs of SMEs and prioritise lending to improve the funding gap.
• Introduce a package of reforms to business rates – including switching from RPI to CPI indexation, exempting new investment in plant and machinery from valuations…
• Scrap quarterly reporting for businesses with a turnover of under £85,000.
• Developing a version of the Australian system of binding arbitration and fines for persistent late-payers for the private and public sectors.
WIDENING OWNERSHIP OF OUR ECONOMY
…water bills have increased 40 per cent since privatisation, and our private energy providers overcharged customers by £2 billion in 2015. …Royal Mail has increased stamp and parcel charges, and failed to meet its customer service obligations, while its owners trade shares at significant profit.
SUSTAINABLE ENERGY
… One in ten households are in fuel poverty, yet the Competition Markets Authority found customers are overcharged an enormous £2 billion every year.
… Homeowners will be offered interest- free loans to improve their property. For renters, Labour will improve on existing Landlord Energy Efficiency regulations and re-establish the Landlord Energy Saving Allowance to encourage the uptake of efficiency measures.
… We will support further nuclear projects and protect nuclear workers’ jobs and pensions. There are considerable opportunities for nuclear power and decommissioning both internationally and domestically.

NEGOTIATING BREXIT
NEGOTIATING BREXIT
We will end Theresa May’s reckless approach to Brexit, and seek to unite the country around a Brexit deal that works for every community in Britain.
We will scrap the Conservatives’ Brexit White Paper and replace it with fresh negotiating priorities that have a strong emphasis on retaining the benefits of the Single Market and the Customs Union – which are essential for maintaining industries, jobs and businesses in Britain. Labour will always put jobs and the economy first.
A Labour government will immediately guarantee existing rights for all EU nationals living in Britain and secure reciprocal rights for UK citizens who have chosen to make their lives in EU countries. …
It is shameful that the Prime Minister rejected repeated attempts by Labour to resolve this issue before Article 50 was triggered. …
Labour recognises that leaving the EU with ‘no deal’ is the worst possible deal for Britain and that it would do damage to our economy and trade. …
…Horizon 2020… …Euratom and the European Medicines Agency… …the Erasmus scheme…
The EU has had a huge impact in securing workplace protections and environmental safeguards. But we all know that for many Brexiteers in the Tory Party, this was why they wanted to Leave – to tear up regulations and weaken hard-fought rights and protections.
… Eurojust and Europol… …European Arrest Warrants…
… In particular Labour will ensure there is no return to a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and that there is no change in the status or sovereignty of Gibraltar. …
IMMIGRATION
…the Forced Marriage Unit…
… Our National Education Service…
For areas where immigration has placed a strain on public services we will reinstate the Migrant Impact Fund and boost it with a contributory element from the investments required for High Net Worth Individual Visas. …
INTERNATIONAL TRADE
… Labour will set out our priorities in an International Trade White Paper to lead a national debate on the future of Britain’s trade policy. …
The EU accounts for 44 per cent of our current exports and will continue to be a priority trading partner.
… We will develop an export incentive scheme for SMEs based on international best practice, and we will ring-fence Tradeshow Access Programme grants to help SMEs reach new customers around the world.
…we will actively support international negotiations towards an Environmental Goods Agreement at the WTO. …

TOWARDS A NATIONAL EDUCATION SERVICE
TOWARDS A NATIONAL EDUCATION SERVICE
…Labour will create a unified National Education Service (NES)…
SKILLS
…English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) courses. …
HIGHER EDUCATION

A FAIR DEAL AT WORK
A FAIR DEAL AT WORK
RIGHTS AT WORK
SELF-EMPLOYED WORKERS

SOCIAL SECURITY
SOCIAL SECURITY DIGNITY FOR PENSIONERS
… As the Conservatives abandon their commitments to older people, Labour will guarantee the state pension ‘triple lock’ throughout the next Parliament. It will rise by at least 2.5 per cent a year or be increased to keep pace with inflation or earnings, whichever is higher.
… The pension age is due to rise to 66 by the end of 2020. Labour rejects the Conservatives’ proposal to increase the state pension age even further. …
DIGNITY FOR THOSE WHO CANNOT WORK

SECURE HOMES FOR ALL
SECURE HOMES FOR ALL
… Labour will establish a new Department for Housing to focus on tackling the crisis… We will overhaul the Homes and Communities Agency to be Labour’s housing delivery body, and give councils new powers to build the homes local communities need.
…our National Transformation Fund…
HOME OWNERSHIP
… We will guarantee Help to Buy funding until 2027 to give long-term certainty to both first-time buyers and the housebuilding industry. …
PRIVATE RENTERS
… We will also empower tenants to call time on bad landlords by giving renters new consumer rights. Renters are spending £9.6 billion a year on homes that the government classes as ‘non-decent’. Around a quarter of this is paid by housing benefit. A Labour government would introduce new legal minimum standards to ensure properties are ‘fit for human habitation’ and empower tenants to take action if their rented homes are sub-standard. …
COUNCIL AND SOCIAL TENANTS
HOMELESSNESS
…starting by making available 4,000 additional homes reserved for people with a history of rough sleeping. …

HEALTHCARE FOR ALL
NHS
… We will guarantee that patients can be seen in A&E within four hours. By properly resourcing the NHS, Labour will stop the routine breach of safe levels of bed occupancy, and we will end mixed-sex wards. We will deliver the Cancer Strategy for England in full by 2020, helping 2.5 million people living with cancer. And, by properly resourcing ambulance services, we will end the scandal of slowing ambulance-response times. …
… We will increase funding to GP services to ensure patients can access the care they need. And we will halt pharmacy cuts and review provision to ensure all patients have access to pharmacy services, particularly in deprived or remote communities.
…PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis)…
Public health
… Labour will implement the Soft Drinks Industry Levy, commonly known as the ‘sugar tax’.
…a Tobacco Control Plan…
NHS Staff
NHS Funding
…we will introduce a new Office for Budget Responsibility for Health to oversee health spending and scrutinise how it is spent.
Labour will halt and review the NHS ‘Sustainability and Transformation Plans’, which are looking at closing health services across England, and ask local people to participate in the redrawing of plans with a focus on patient need rather than available finances. We will create a new quality, safety and excellence regulator – to be called ‘NHS Excellence’. …
TOWARDS A NATIONAL CARE SERVICE
…one in ten people reaching the age of 65 have faced lifetime care costs of over £100,000…
… Around 1.2 million older people have care needs that are going unmet. …
…Labour will lay the foundations of a National Care Service for England.
… We will increase the social care budgets by a further £8 billion over the lifetime of the next Parliament, including an additional £1 billion for the first year. This will be enough for providers to pay a real living wage without cutting the quality of care they provide. It will allow implementation of the principles of the Ethical Care Charter, already adopted in 28 council areas, ending 15-minute care visits…
MENTAL HEALTH
…the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)…

SAFER COMMUNITIES
POLICE AND CRIME
… We will establish a National Refuge Fund and…
Security and counter-terrorism
BORDER SECURITY
FIRE AND RESCUE SERVICES
JUSTICE
PRISONS AND PROBATION SERVICE

LEADING RICHER LIVES
LOCAL COMMUNITIES
… Labour will end the closure of Crown Post Office branches, which play a major role in serving their communities. We will also set up a commission to establish a Post Bank, owned by the Post Office and providing a full range of banking services in every community. …
Labour will support tourism at the heart of government. The tourism industry represents 9.6 per cent of UK employment, 4.9 per cent of export and 9 per cent of GDP, but its importance is too often forgotten. …
The Conservatives have failed to provide a clear, ambitious or sustainable vision for the future of the farming, food and fishing industries.
We will expand the role of the Groceries Code Adjudicator to ensure suppliers and consumers get a fair deal. …
TRANSPORT
… We will introduce a Public Ownership of the Railways Bill to repeal the Railways Act 1993 under which the Conservatives privatised our railways. …
A Labour government will complete the HS2 high-speed rail line from London through Birmingham to Leeds and Manchester… (see the above INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT of CREATING AN ECONOMY THAT WORKS FOR ALL)
We will continue to upgrade our highways and improve roadworks at known bottlenecks. The A1 North, the Severn Bridge and the A30 provide essential connections and require our urgent consideration. We will work with the Welsh Government to scrap the tolls on the Severn Bridge. …
ENVIRONMENT
ANIMAL WELFARE
CULTURE FOR ALL
We will introduce a £1 billion Cultural Capital Fund to upgrade our existing cultural and creative infrastructure to be ready for the digital age and invest in creative clusters across the country, based on a similar model to enterprise zones. Administered by the Arts Council, the fund will be available over a five-year period. It will be among the biggest arts infrastructure funds ever, transforming the country’s cultural landscape. …
We recognise the serious concern about the ‘value gap’ between producers of creative content and the digital services that profit from its use, and we will work with all sides to review the way that innovators and artists are rewarded for their work in the digital age.
MEDIA
… Labour will hold a national review local media and into the ownership of national media to ensure plurality.
To protect democracy and media freedom, we will take steps to ensure that Ofcom is better able to safeguard a healthy plurality of media ownership…
SPORT
… Labour will ensure the Premier League delivers on its promise to invest 5 per cent of its television rights income into the grassroots game to help the next generation of players and coaches…

EXTENDING DEMOCRACY
EXTENDING DEMOCRACY
… We will reduce the voting age to 16. At 16, you are eligible to pay tax, get married or even join the army. You deserve a vote. …
ENGLAND
… Labour will create a role for a Minister for England, who will sit under the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government…
SCOTLAND
… We will establish a Scottish Investment Bank, with £20 billion of funds available to local projects and…
WALES
… We will build on the Development Bank of Wales using more than £10 billion from Labour’s new National Investment Bank. …
NORTHERN IRELAND
…the Good Friday Agreement…

A MORE EQUAL SOCIETY
WOMEN
… Unlawful maternity and pregnancy discrimination is now more common in Britain’s workplaces than ever before, with 54,000 pregnant women and new mothers forced out of their jobs in 2015. …
LGBT EQUALITY
A Labour government will reform the Gender Recognition Act and the Equality Act 2010…
DIVERSE COMMUNITIES
… Black and Asian workers still suffer a massive pay gap. By introducing equal pay audit requirements on large employers, Labour will close this pay gap. …
…the Parker Review recommendations…
PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
… Currently 4.2 million People with disabilities live in poverty in Britain, and the disability employment gap remains stubbornly high. …

A GLOBAL BRITAIN
A GLOBAL BRITAIN
Unlike the Conservatives, Labour believes Britain’s foreign policy should be guided by the values of peace, universal rights and international law. Today, these values are being tested. As we leave the European Union, keeping Britain global is one of our country’s most urgent tasks. …
DIPLOMACY
… Labour is strongly committed to reducing human suffering caused by war. We will publish a strategy for protecting civilians in conflict, setting out detailed plans for work on conflict prevention and resolution, post- conflict peacebuilding, and justice for the victims of war crimes. Labour has created a Minister for Peace and Disarmament to lead this work.
…we also acknowledge its shortcomings, particularly in light of repeated abuses of the veto power by some permanent members of the UN Security Council. We will work with our international partners to build support for UN reform and make its institutions more effective and responsive. …
DEFENCE
… Cyber security will form an integral part of our defence and security strategy and we will introduce a cyber-security charter for companies working with the Ministry of Defence.
… The scrapping of Nimrod, HMS Ark Royal and the Harrier jump-jets have weakened our defences and cost British taxpayers millions.
Labour’s commitment to spending at least 2 per cent of GDP on defence will guarantee that our Armed Forces have the necessary capabilities…
… Labour will publish a Defence Industrial Strategy White Paper, including a National Shipbuilding Strategy to secure a long-term future for the industry, workers and UK defence.
…the Forces Help to Buy scheme…
…the Armed Forces Covenant…
…a Homes Fit for Heroes programme…
DEVELOPMENT
…the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)…
… Africa’s economies alone lose more than £46 billion annually through corruption and tax evasion – more than 10 times what they receive in aid. …
… We would reinstate the Civil Society Challenge Fund to support trade unions, women’s associations and other civil society organisations which are the most effective forces in winning human rights and workers’ rights.
… We will establish a Centre for Universal Health Coverage, providing global partnerships, support and encouragement to countries that want UHC…

Additional Resources
• LABOUR’S FISCAL CREDIBILITY RULE (PDF)
• ALTERNATIVE MODELS OF OWNERSHIP (PDF)

France Vol.3 (2017 French Presidential Elections)

Here are a part of articles on the 2017 French presidential elections.

Speech by M. Emmanuel Macron, President-elect: “Let’s love France” (w Video; 7/5/2017) | @FranceintheUK

How is the President of the French Republic elected? | @FranceAustralia
France local FrPrEl9

Emmanuel Macron is elected as the next president of France (7/5/2017) | @TheEconomist
FrPrEl7

Macron Decisively Defeats Le Pen in French Presidential Race (w Video; 7/5/2017) | ALISSA J. RUBIN @nytimes
How France Voted (5/7/2017) | GREGOR AISCH, MATTHEW BLOCH, K.K. REBECCA LAI & BENOÎT MORENNE @nytimes
FrPrEl14

Emmanuel Macron wins presidency as France rejects far-right (w Video; 7/5/2017) | James Masters & Kara Fox @CNN

Macron victory in France sends euro to 6-month high (5/8/2017) | Mark Thompson @CNNMoney

Macron Vows to Heal France’s Divisions After Victory Over Le Pen (8/5/2017) | @HeleneFouquet @JohnFollain @gviscusi @MarkJDeen @business
FiveMaps That Show Why Macron Beat Le Pen (8/5/2017) | @andretartar, @cedricsam & Samuel Dodge @business
FrPrEl5 FrPrEl6

How the Election Split France (4/23/2017) | @nytimes
FrPrEl10 FrPrEl11 FrPrEl12 FrPrEl13

RESULTS: Full breakdown of how France voted in the first round (23/4/2017) | @TheLocalFrance
FrPrEl8

Foreign Policy Challenges for the Next French President (w PDF; 4/2017) | Thomas GOMART, (ed.) , Marc HECKER, (ed.) , Alain ANTIL, Marie-Claire AOUN, Christophe BERTOSSI, Corentin BRUSTLEIN, Alice EKMAN, Sébastien JEAN, Tatiana KASTOUEVA-JEAN, Barbara KUNZ, Frédéric MONLOUIS-FÉLICITÉ, Laurence NARDON, Françoise NICOLAS, Julien NOCETTI, Céline PAJON, Michel PÉBEREAU, Vivien PERTUSOT, Dorothée SCHMID, John SEAMAN, Hans STARK, Matthieu TARDIS @IFRI_
FrPrEl16
FrPrEl17
FrPrEl18
FrPrEl19
FrPrEl20
FrPrEl21
FrPrEl22
FrPrEl23
FrPrEl24
FrPrEl25
FrPrEl26
FrPrEl27
FrPrEl28
FrPrEl29
FrPrEl30

All in play as France prepares to tear up political playbook (4/20/2017) | PEPE ESCOBAR @asiatimesonline
FrPrEl15

cf.

paperliFrancePresElec

Free papers, reports, et al. Vol.5

Here are @_WorldSolutions’ RTs which include free papers, reports, podcasts, video, et al.

As what was once considered fringe science becomes mainstream, is alternative energy even alternative anymore? https://t.co/DfRHBGVV0B

— Morgan Stanley (@MorganStanley) April 6, 2017

Bulls vs. Bears: Why our CIO team thinks “a pause” is more likely than a #marketcorrection: https://t.co/BzhzTMsVIc pic.twitter.com/xhIQn2jOsK

— Merrill Lynch (@MerrillLynch) April 12, 2017

[2017 #FrenchElection] The candidates' programs on #Defense.
Read our new report >> https://t.co/2tyhcZvWHC #Nuclear #Army #NATO #Budget #EU pic.twitter.com/O7fulSavsJ

— Ifri Paris-Bruxelles (@IFRI_) April 14, 2017

New @FreedomHouseDC report about the threat of populism to democratic progress & stability in Europe & Eurasia: https://t.co/OgZKdm9lfq

— Security Conference (@MunSecConf) April 10, 2017

Naturalization and citizenship: Who benefits? by Christina Gathmann @UniHeidelberg https://t.co/9IcGHT5moF pic.twitter.com/VAq6YICjqt

— IZA World of Labor (@IZAWorldofLabor) September 5, 2016

BAM World Spring 2017 magazine is out now. Click here to find out more https://t.co/LN8x74ohNv pic.twitter.com/RpddC6iMA4

— BAM Construct UK (@BAMConstructUK) April 5, 2017

NEW REPORT: Leaving the EU: Implications and Opportunities for Science and Research https://t.co/T7IOPAnHGz

— Sci & Tech Committee (@CommonsSTC) November 18, 2016

Enduring insights: The Perils of Bad #Strategy by @uclaanderson's Richard Rumelt https://t.co/BoNxStEHwj pic.twitter.com/zfqOnCvwua

— McKinsey On Strategy (@McKStrategy) June 29, 2016

Read a copy of our latest publication on #immigration authored by Anthony Heath and Lindsay Richards (@csinuffield) https://t.co/5YPuVvkDBi pic.twitter.com/iorAe1zslq

— ESS ERIC (@ESS_Survey) November 21, 2016

Randall Kroszner of @UChicago discusses Stein, Greenwood, Hanson paper. #JacksonHole https://t.co/IyxgCsNCWu

— KansasCityFed (@KansasCityFed) August 27, 2016

Renters' incomes haven't kept pace with #housing costs, with the gap only widening in 2015: https://t.co/yAcqxdBI7o pic.twitter.com/J265RxhVm4

— Center on Budget (@CenterOnBudget) November 3, 2016

Measuring the Chilling Effect by Michael C. Dorf, Brandice Canes-Wrone :: SSRN https://t.co/zh3AMV1ZoP #protectedspeech #1stamendment

— Con Law Center (@ConLawCenter) January 18, 2016

Does the U.S. economic future spell boom or doom? Listen to a #podcast with economists Joel Mokyr and Robert Gordon. https://t.co/IGN2SV6TxN

— Northwestern (@NorthwesternU) November 15, 2016

2016/01/28 #Cambridge_Uni [Podcast] #SlaughterAM 13:55-41:10 https://t.co/AkXzaK8yGT "Unfinished Business""A New World Order" #BullyPulpit..

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) August 17, 2016

"Could #WorldWarI Happen Again? @JFKJrForum @HarvardIOP http://t.co/P8iI9w27KR"#GrahamAllison #RichardRosecrance #NicholasBurns EtelSolingen

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) April 20, 2015

Free papers, reports, et al. Vol.3

Here are @_WorldSolutions’ RTs from late January 2017 to late December 2016 which include free papers, reports, podcast, et al.

Global oil demand growth of 1.5 mb/d expected in 2016, slowing to 1.3 mb/d in 2017, our Jan #oil market report shows https://t.co/Ku1E3dkWb0

— IEA (@IEA) January 24, 2017

Post oil era: By 2030 UAE will likely place more emphasis on diversification #GrowthDrivers http://t.co/TFHwbjbtXb pic.twitter.com/DoRz7c1C4w

— EY MENA (@ey_mena) June 29, 2015

Fram Forum Conference Edition 2017 #Tromsø @Framcentre @arcticfrontiers https://t.co/9EJlgRuQEm … pic.twitter.com/Rp69zAmD6S

— Framsenteret (@Framcentre) January 10, 2017

Interesting @LSEforBusiness blog and research paper – National minimum wages improve productivity https://t.co/kohB0f5ol4

— ResolutionFoundation (@resfoundation) January 19, 2017

US economy is picking up steam… Europeans are… well. @EurasiaReview http://t.co/rhhuUmZdLI http://t.co/P3qS9hZZZB pic.twitter.com/edzrAfTZrn

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) March 10, 2015

NEW: Six Progressive Principles for Brexit negotiations. Our new report with @Open_Britain https://t.co/NlW3gm5GC6 #Fab17 pic.twitter.com/vMYVLtcgyQ

— The Fabian Society (@thefabians) January 14, 2017

https://t.co/nL3ehnxMbr p8-15; UK break…reduce US.., weaken EU’s…free trade…https://t.co/bbjzaI55fS p2,5;..assets & different persp..

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) November 3, 2015

Making sense of economic models–as analogies that can inform predictions. https://t.co/mesVrG0U27

— Becker Friedman (@BeckerFriedman) December 23, 2016

Prof Heath's evidence on importance of economic integration in todays @IntegrationAPPG report into #Immigration. See https://t.co/jfDKqI4o4t

— csinuffield (@csinuffield) January 5, 2017

New @NYURudin report looks at near-future mobility needs of NYC senior citizens & growing Access-a-Ride demand: https://t.co/f6jEpco5KL pic.twitter.com/Fpl4rlR2eQ

— NYU Wagner (@NYUWagner) December 20, 2016

Check out the Top 10 @CityJournal articles of 2016: https://t.co/7XwmkKYfum pic.twitter.com/aYh7ZR5k8z

— Manhattan Institute (@ManhattanInst) January 4, 2017

The art of good governance – free to read from IRAS @pa_knowledge for a limited time! https://t.co/HYH3YUDpYG

— SAGE Politics (@SAGECQPolitics) December 24, 2016

THE SOFT POWER 30 |@PortlandComms https://t.co/Kg7b8yvxMt ability to achieve objectives thru attraction & persuasion pic.twitter.com/cMiCoiQp8L

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) July 22, 2016

"#WorldWaterDevelopmentReport PDF #WWDR2015 #UN_Water #UNWWAPUNESCO http://t.co/ypPvn89Ap7" #UNHABITAT #FAO #WHO #WMO pic.twitter.com/lmZsvnwKNd

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) March 22, 2015

"[Podcast] Ireland & Brexit @voxeu #tcddublin Prof Patrick Honohan (Gov of #centralbank_ie 2009-15) https://t.co/EeZhRWqshm" EU landborder..

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) August 19, 2016

Free papers, reports, et al. Vol.2

Here are @_WorldSolutions’ RTs from February to late January 2017 which include free papers, reports, podcast, et al.

#Ecuador's economy is growing. Why are media reports saying it's still in recession? https://t.co/dVqBB8tlyp @MarkWeisbrot #EcuadorDecide pic.twitter.com/FREDnXZPQB

— CEPR (@ceprdc) February 18, 2017

New #COHA article #Democracy in the #21st #century #Democracy #liquiddemocracy #Argentina #votedelegation https://t.co/lYEafU5kl0 pic.twitter.com/Tca2NSrGTw

— COHA (@COHAofficial) December 15, 2016

NEW PUBLICATION | #Brexit and Europe: a new entente
Discussion Paper by @AndrewDuffEU https://t.co/QRWFpsEaRW

— EuropeanPolicyCentre (@epc_eu) February 23, 2017

#France : Clothing, Agrofood are more loss-making than a year ago https://t.co/WjkmjcCdQb pic.twitter.com/dGm48hRDCO

— Coface Group (@coface) February 20, 2017

#EnergyUnion: #Energy in German-Polish Relationship – focus should be on pursuing shared interests. #Poland #Germany https://t.co/aflN5wbl53

— SWP Berlin (@SWPBerlin) February 10, 2017

How will the Brexit process unfold post-#Article50? New working paper by @alanjrenwick co-published w @ConUnit_UCL https://t.co/NS1DL5hJn1 pic.twitter.com/Y9xv3RoiGK

— European Institute (@UCL_EI) February 3, 2017

"As the Arctic melts, the US needs to pay attention" http://t.co/TwABwvLGG1 @US_Conversation @bi_politics pic.twitter.com/d3UShhtTqB

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) January 9, 2015

"THE GREAT EIGHT Trillion-Dollar #GrowthTrends to 2020 @kkharris33 @BainAlerts http://t.co/lqZIksuLKy" #MacroTrends pic.twitter.com/GWGChfH0kn

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) August 17, 2015

Hungary: conflict with fundamental values of EU constitution – democracy, rule of law, human rights @LSEEuroppblog cf http://t.co/eLClZoMK0w

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) January 6, 2015

Europeans' Understandings and Evaluations of #Democracy was the fourth publication in our Topline Results Series https://t.co/NKHj7WDqLO pic.twitter.com/DnoqKf0dnS

— ESS ERIC (@ESS_Survey) February 13, 2017

World War I: Lessons from 1914 for 2014 – Harvard – Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs http://t.co/R9oDwOccw9

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) July 31, 2014

Latest Issue of @JournalPolitics is out now! Intersectionality, IR theory & teaching Africa: https://t.co/nMMdu8lEV2 @PolStudiesAssoc

— Politics (@JournalPolitics) January 31, 2017

Jan'17 Country Risk Map from @coface. In CE, improved assessments for Estonia, #Bulgaria , Serbia, Hungary. #invest https://t.co/8zbkjqUEDR pic.twitter.com/tIhtGuIOoC

— Sofia Invest Agency (@InvestSofia) February 1, 2017

MT @JPublicPolicy: We're excited to announce that our most-cited papers are FREE for a limited time https://t.co/P5JX3oB5Ae pic.twitter.com/jlO7K1s9aj

— CUP Politics (@CUP_PoliSci) January 26, 2017

"Podcast: Who Was the Greatest President: Washington or Lincoln? @TheGreatCourses http://t.co/7JaiP9QQql" – lives, achievements, legacies…

— WSlightly (@WSlightly) February 17, 2015

Free papers, reports, et al. Vol.1

Here are @_WorldSolutions’ recent RTs which include free PDFs of papers, reports, et al.

.@po_qu Managing Orderly Decline? Nationalism in Northern Ireland Since the Good Friday Agreement (1998) https://t.co/RYC7lAy44O

— Wiley Politics (@WileyPolitics) April 3, 2017

We're offering free access to 150 articles in this 'The Dissolution of the #SovietUnion: 25 Years On' collection: https://t.co/Y7Ll78zS6e pic.twitter.com/lIHIWXNtXY

— Routledge Strategic (@RStrategic) April 13, 2017

The Spring 2017 Brookings Papers on Economic Activity were presented last week. Here are the quick takeaways: https://t.co/MIl2kfT1PD #BPEA pic.twitter.com/n7TwE5WMvl

— Brookings (@BrookingsInst) March 26, 2017

This article on 'Star-spangled fascism' is one of the top reads in 2017 so far – find out why for yourself: https://t.co/Kzv7dE1Dc5 pic.twitter.com/E4vxLiaJ4g

— Routledge History (@RoutledgeHist) April 3, 2017

Read the latest @Strath_FAI Economic Commentary here: https://t.co/DhdoFqKYss

— The FAI (@Strath_FAI) December 13, 2016

You can read the full #openaccess paper here: https://t.co/e6uvEiajJb

— Sheff Social Science (@SheffSocScience) March 27, 2017

Read Treasury Secretary Lew's contribution to the Harvard Journal on Legislation on managing the national debt: https://t.co/jOLHy7xo31

— Harvard Legislation (@HarvardJOL) January 5, 2017

New @Journal_IS article by @NinaSilove debates US strategy in Asia has been balancing or retrenchment. Available at https://t.co/lofcBnkKXv pic.twitter.com/vp2nljqR46

— ANU_SDSC (@ANU_SDSC) February 15, 2017

Leonardo Maugeri writes that unless oil demand growth rebounds in 2017, prices could be headed for another fall https://t.co/1KWyYg0S95 pic.twitter.com/f5A6vVy1yW

— Belfer Center (@BelferCenter) March 26, 2017

Pleased to announce our fantastic special issue 'Agents of Internationalism', now free to download for a week! https://t.co/QyK4sNmcgq

— ContEuroHistory (@ContEuroHistory) June 1, 2016

Lunchtime read: @Airminded 'Constructing the Enemy Within', from our latest issue https://t.co/qErvhQPPhP

— BritJnlMilHistory (@BritJnlMilHist) March 3, 2017

ESRI researcher Iulia Siedschlag discussed impact of #Brexit at @CEPS_thinktank conference. Read the key points here https://t.co/HN6Gs5QqWi

— ESRI Dublin (@ESRIDublin) February 10, 2017

Which EU countries are fostering social participation
for all? NEW #ReformBarometer #socialrights #socialpillar https://t.co/2E6xcfXFxo (dl) pic.twitter.com/GGbcGZPSHn

— BertelsmannSt BRU (@BStBrussels) February 21, 2017

How should the #EU reform its #InternalAffairs & hold its members’ loyalty? Ask @StevenBlockmans https://t.co/9cBedb8sbp cc @CEPS_thinktank

— CSS Zurich (@CSS_Zurich) February 27, 2017

New publication: @BritJPIR Special Forum: 'European integration as a peace project'. Edited by our two co-directors https://t.co/XbR05yotkv

— CETS (@CETS_GT) February 6, 2017

UK Vol.81 (Post-EUref #Brexit Vol.14 – Theresa May calls for a General Election to be held on June 8th)

Here are articles on UK PM May’s seeking a snap general election. Excerpts are on our own.

Tories can win 100-seat majority, analysis from poll of polls suggests (w Videos & Maps; 18/4/2017) | @benrileysmith @Telegraph
… @WhatScotsThink @UniStrathclyde …
… Labour marginal seats in the West Midlands, on the edge of Northern cities and in London suburbs are believed to be the most likely to fall to the Tories. …

We need an election now to deliver Brexit as rebels are trying to subvert will of the people ‘every step of the way’, Theresa May says in exclusive chat with The Sun – The Prime Minister also laid down the gauntlet to her own rebel Tory MPs to sign up to her Brexit plans, or ship out (w Videos; 18/4/2017) | @tnewtondunn @SunPolitics
…there is very clear potential for voting against the legislation to implement the leaving of the EU, and against the final deal – trying to stop us every step of the way.”
She added: “It became clearer that the next stages of the process – the Great Repeal Bill – would become more difficult.
…not waiting for constituency boundary changes to be enacted in October 2018, which would have given the Tories an extra 20 seats. …
The PM also rejected SNP boss Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that an election victory in Scotland for her party would count as a fresh mandate to hold another Scottish independence referendum. …

The key questions posed by Theresa May’s call for a snap election (w Videos;19/4/2017) | @APLhack @SkyNews
Firstly, it is important to remember the Prime Minister has not called an election, but has signalled her intention to hold one.
Under the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act…
…able to call an election before then if it is backed by two-thirds of MPs or if there is a no confidence vote in the Government. …

PRIME MINISTER THERESA MAY’S EARLY ELECTION CALL AND THE FIXED-TERM PARLIAMENTS ACT (18/4/2017) | Petra Schleiter @OxPolBlog
… The Prime Minister is seeking a vote in Parliament tomorrow. …
First, it will lift the threat of possible by-elections that could be triggered by the ongoing police investigation into allegations that the Conservative Party systematically over-spent in the 2015 election and far exceeded legal restrictions on election expenses in more than 10 seats. …
In Northern Ireland, the election compounds the political turmoil, …the subsequent inability of the unionist and nationalist parties to come to a new agreement. …

Good for the Conservatives, bad for the country: Four reasons why a snap election is a bad idea (18/4/2017) | @adefty (@unilincoln) @LSEpoliticsblog
…simply not necessary
…will not alter the reality of the referendum result
…unlikely to change the fundamental divisions across the UK and may accelerate the break-up of the Union
…distraction from the Brexit negotiations

Theresa May seeks House of Commons backing for early general election (w Video; 19/4/2017) | @itvnews
… Overnight Mrs May spoke to US President Donald Trump who “wished the British people the best of luck in their electoral process”, the White House said. …
… @PlymUni’s Professor Colin Rallings (in the video)…

Election 2017: No TV debates this time (18/4/2017) | @GaryGibbonBlog @Channel4News
… Theresa May is not a huge fan of these sorts of encounters and her team think they open up risks that don’t need to be taken. So the 2017 general election will make the 2015 one look like “access all areas” as far as the Tories are concerned. …

Jeremy Corbyn blasts chicken Theresa May for refusing to take part in general election TV debates – Labour’s leader branded the PM’s behaviour “strange” and the Lib Dems said her “attempt to dodge scrutiny shows how she holds the public in contempt” (18/4/2017) | @benglaze & @mikeysmith @MirrorPolitics
… They believed the victory in Cumbria opened the door to a raft of seats the party would never have previously targeted.
Tory high command believes central and western areas of the North are now seen as particularly vulnerable for Labour. …

Theresa May ‘rules out taking part in TV debates’ ahead of snap election (18/4/2017) | SEAN MORRISON @standardnews
… A BBC spokesman said that it was too early to say whether the broadcaster would seek to stage a debate ahead of the election on June 8.

Labour MPs announce they are standing down as Theresa May calls for a snap general election – Tom Blenkinsop says he cannot ‘in good faith’ run for re-election while Jeremy Corbyn is leader while Alan Johnson decides to retire now rather than wait for 2022 (w Video; 18/4/2017) | @cjmortimer @Independent
… Middlesbrough, in North Yorkshire, is considered part of the traditional Labour heartland but voted for Brexit in the referendum last year. …

‘Crush the saboteurs’: British newspapers react to general election – The Daily Mail has an air of menace and the Sun and Telegraph trumpet Tory triumph, while the Times and Guardian see bid for political strength (19/4/2017) | @janemartinson @guardian

General Election: May pledges to ‘strengthen UK’s negotiating hand’ as Brexit talks loom – THERESA May claims a Conservative victory in June’s General Election will give Britain “the best possible negotiating position” as she hopes for national “stability” while negotiating Brexit. (19/4/2017) | WILL KIRBY @Daily_Express
… She said: “If we’re negotiating at a point that is quite close to a general election, I think the Europeans might have seen that as a time of weakness when they could push us. …

Pound shoots higher but FTSE 100 dives 2.5%, as Theresa May calls for snap General Election (18/4/2017) | Mark Shapland @DailyMailUK
… Sterling had dropped 0.3 per cent this morning on news of a surprise announcement by the Prime Minister, falling to $1.251, but as she gave her speech it recovered and then shot up to trade higher at $1.276.
In contrast with the pound, the FTSE 100 stock market index, which was already trading down this morning, did not bounce back. At the close it was down 181 points, or 2.5 per cent, at 7,147.5. …

Theresa May calls snap election in bid to strengthen hand in Brexit talks – Sterling climbs on expectation of bigger Tory majority and ‘softer’ EU exit (18/4/2017) | @GeorgeWParker @henrymance @PickardJE @FT
…privately some fear they could be exposed to a strong challenge from the Liberal Democrats, who are promising a second referendum on any final Brexit deal. …

Ireland Vol.24 (Munster Vol.2 – Kerry, Cork)

Kerry

.@countykerry Socio-Economic Profile'15 https://t.co/WLsDsF6LDJ Map1.2,7.1,8.1&Tab2.8; Farming pp42-47; Housing pp72-83; Infra pp84-91; p104 pic.twitter.com/d2bh8lTQga

— WSlightly (@WSlightly) March 3, 2017

#Kerry: @outlookkerry;@ourkerry;@KillOutlook;@Kenmare_dot_ie;@morrison_tours;@TomCreans;@DingleSkellig;@parknasilla pic.twitter.com/QjweiD1kiL

— WSlightly (@WSlightly) July 15, 2015

cf. County Kerry: Kerry is more than a mere county – it’s a Kingdom | @GoToIrelandUS Kerry Group is a world leader in the food and beverage industry | @kerryfoodgroup Zoning and Landscaping Maps | @countykerry

Tour County Kerry with Ireland RnR Tours. https://t.co/HlEl1jJxEz See https://t.co/qcWu09jx6z for details.

— Ireland RnR (@IrelandRnR) April 5, 2017

Cork

.@Corkinnovates https://t.co/jCYQXuHkGJ https://t.co/GUuGvlx9zK @Corkcoco Socio-Econ https://t.co/LRASxU9VBz pp22-58https://t.co/BSxXFDADKJ pic.twitter.com/Yb0jzXInep

— WSlightly (@WSlightly) March 12, 2017

#Cork:@CorkHour;@VisitCorkCounty;@atasteofwestcor;@FranciscanWell;@whitehorsecork;@CoffeeCork;@PhotosCork;@fairyflour pic.twitter.com/9sC5bmQyY0

— WSlightly (@WSlightly) July 16, 2015

This short film is SO beautiful… You are a legend Mr. H! @FrankHederman A Flavour of Ireland – Cobh, County Cork: http://t.co/pMWQKCM6sR

— Clodagh McKenna (@clodaghmckenna) August 12, 2013

Cf. April 18, 1949 – Ireland Leaves the Commonwealth of Great Britain | @LawLegalHistory Ireland | @edpearce080759 Republic of Ireland Act of 1948 | William Karr The Republic of Ireland Act, 1948 | ISB The formulation and consequences of the Republic of Ireland Act, 1948-49. (w PDF; 1990) | James Ian McCabe @LSELibrary

IrelandKerryCork

UK Vol.78 (Wales Vol.3 – Isle of Anglesey, Conwy, Gwynedd)

Isle of Anglesey

YnysMôn @VisitAnglesey http://t.co/HD8q6Wh90g
rg.. http://t.co/E0vSs7A3lu @Fisheriesbangor http://t.co/QnHkdoWVDF pic.twitter.com/rOlacpw7Vj

— WSlightly (@WSlightly) October 16, 2015

Conwy

Conwy http://t.co/qTlSeRYQTj GDHI@CartrefiConwy http://t.co/tiXoCuntfm WHQS@SocialEnt_UK http://t.co/OR4c2Cm0Ty pic.twitter.com/Ees6ICPItV

— WSlightly (@WSlightly) October 15, 2015

Gwynedd

https://t.co/czdLCr01Yw p10,20..http://t.co/MLZaFjw169 @MenterMon p20,30..http://t.co/R1iGnTBCMo @ArchaeoNewsNet pic.twitter.com/5YRDu7IYO8

— WSlightly (@WSlightly) October 17, 2015

Ireland Vol.23 (Munster Vol.1 – Clare, Limerick)

#StPatricksDay #HappyStPatricksDay #HappyStPatricksDay2017 #SPD2017 #HappyStPattysDay #Paddysday #Guinness

Timelapse video shows the Chicago River being turned green with 45 lbs of dye in honor of St. Patrick's Day. https://t.co/SkbKXQ9bEz pic.twitter.com/Y6eCiqkexq

— ABC News (@ABC) March 13, 2017

Ireland Munster

Clare

.@ClareCoCo https://t.co/rBG6DVuga2 Demographic; Rurality; Age; Education; SES; Industry; Commuters; Enterprises; FDI; Production; Summary pic.twitter.com/Tg2h3bQEkm

— WSlightly (@WSlightly) January 31, 2017

#Munster Clare:@Digital_Clare;@RowantreeEnnis;@clarevirtually;@StTolaCheese;@burrenescape;@EnnisChamber;@ClareTourism pic.twitter.com/FWH0GIpdmk

— WSlightly (@WSlightly) July 11, 2015

Limerick

2030 @LimerickCouncil https://t.co/VBI90Q6JF9 knowledge economy, outstanding business env & conditions for long-term growth; quality of life pic.twitter.com/ZVNZtriZ3c

— WSlightly (@WSlightly) February 22, 2017

#Limerick:@LimerickHour;@SoLimerick;@ilovelimerick;@limerickslife;@PeopleofLIMK;@LimerickArts;@Limerick2020;@mydolans pic.twitter.com/CLd0pGwTxQ

— WSlightly (@WSlightly) July 13, 2015

Netherlands Vol.3 (general election 15/3/2017)

Here is a part of information on the Dutch general election 2017. Excerpts are on our own.

The House of Representatives (The Second Chamber) – 150 members; proportional representation

@epc_eu
NL2017election1
@EuropeElects
NL2017election2
NL2017election3

One image perfectly captures why populists didn’t win the Dutch election (3/16/2017) | @aamnamohdin @qz
…unlike in the US and Britain, the Netherlands is not a winner-takes-all system. …

What future for the Netherlands: do Dutch brace for more political instability? (3/7/2017) | @VoteWatchEurope
NL2017election4
NL2017election5

Electoral Systems – The Netherlands | Brechtje Beun & Galen Irwin

THE NETHERLANDS – EARLY PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS – 9 June 2010 (PDF; 3/29-31/2010) | @OSCE
Page: 3
A. BACKGROUND AND POLITICAL CONTEXT
The Kingdom of Netherlands is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of government. It consists of 12 provinces, the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba. The Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba conduct their internal affairs autonomously and pursue their common interests on a basis of equality. The Head of State is Queen Beatrix, in power since 1980. The Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles and Aruba elect their own independent parliaments and have their own executive branches.
The parliament of the Netherlands (Staten Generaal) is bicameral with a first chamber (Eerste Kamer) comprising of 75 members indirectly elected by 12 provincial assemblies and a second chamber (Tweede Kamer) consisting of 150 members directly elected for a four-year term. The executive branch of government is formed by the Council of
Ministers, headed by the Prime Minister. The Council of Ministers is appointed and dismissed by the monarch.
Page: 5
C. ELECTORAL AND VOTING SYSTEM
Members of the second chamber of parliament are elected through a proportional list system in a single nationwide constituency without a legal threshold. The Netherlands is divided into 19 electoral districts for administration of the elections only; all votes cast for candidates in each district are combined during the tabulation of results. However, the system provides for preferential voting, as each voter votes for a particular candidate. It is only through the candidate chosen that a vote is attributed to the respective electoral list.
The number of seats allocated to each candidate list is determined by dividing the total number of votes cast by 150 (number of mandates in the second chamber of parliament) to determine the electoral quota. Once the allocation of seats to parties has been determined, the names of the elected candidates are specified in accordance with the numbers of votes cast for each candidate. This procedure begins from the top of the list and moves down until the party’s entitlement to seats is filled. However, a candidate who obtains at least 25 per cent of the electoral quota is declared elected automatically regardless of his or her number on the list.
D. ELECTION ADMINISTRATION
Elections in the Netherlands are administered by a three-tiered, decentralized structure. This includes the Electoral Council (EC), 19 Principal Electoral Committees (PEC), and some 10,000 Electoral Committees which act as polling stations. The MoIKR and municipal executives also play an important role in the organization of an election. The second chamber of parliament is responsible to certify its own final results.
Page: 6
The 431 individual municipalities each have at least one electoral committee. The approximately 10,000 electoral committees consist of a chair and between two and six members, together with sufficient number of alternates. Electoral committees are not permanent bodies and are appointed by the municipal executive. They are responsible for
carrying out the election on election day.
The MoIKR oversees the overall conduct of elections at national level. It establishes the regulations and appoints the 19 PEC members for parliamentary elections, the 431 mayors and the heads of local government administration. At a local level municipal executives are responsible for administering elections, for maintaining computerized voter registers, and for distributing voter registration cards. The municipal executive also decides the location of polling stations and compiles all the results for the municipality.

cf. Netherlands Provincial elections 2015 | @welections
Per province – 12 September 2012 | @nlverkiezingen
NL2017election6-provincies

Romania, Bulgaria

RO https://t.co/BmhOF07udS https://t.co/FY2uCqgr2E +3.9%https://t.co/K6Ql9YdF2p @johnfeffer https://t.co/TeZVAjrrE1 pic.twitter.com/BPT6gTwLDY

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) March 31, 2016

BG @TheSofiaGlobe https://t.co/A4jUTy6I8T https://t.co/BMdca7e13c p6-,59-,66,84-,91,95@ebrd https://t.co/3ZDe1EwoLy pic.twitter.com/JsaFVX88OD

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) March 14, 2016

Ireland Vol.20 (Ulster – Donegal, Cavan, Monaghan)

Donegal

CFN @donegalcouncil Local Econ&Comm Plan 2016-22 https://t.co/QBs9KyaQIM TASTEcouncil:food -by'20 double output 3-6% pic.twitter.com/XDqdPfI2fm

— WSlightly (@WSlightly) July 7, 2016

#Ulster #Donegal:@EaragailArts;@visit_donegal;@donegalcouncil;@donegalgolfclub;@DonegalNowNews;http://t.co/GEEwu2lYMu pic.twitter.com/CuvsSrw7rv

— WSlightly (@WSlightly) July 3, 2015

Cavan

.@cavancoco Local Economic and Community Plan (LECP) 2016-21 https://t.co/emRRQ5P46g @RAI_ie https://t.co/XoX9BMjjFd pic.twitter.com/U2nxABrgL6

— WSlightly (@WSlightly) August 14, 2016

#Cavan:@ThisIsCavan;@cavancoco;@CavanChamber; @CavanHistory1;@CavanBWC;@cavantv;@tasteofcavan; http://t.co/VexDkn6TeM pic.twitter.com/7yLbetz2pR

— WSlightly (@WSlightly) July 4, 2015

Monaghan

Local Economic and Community Plan (LECP) @MonaghanCoCo https://t.co/jocH1Xwt1F
Ulster Canal https://t.co/EtnyAxTj4L pic.twitter.com/TebeKCOm1s

— WSlightly (@WSlightly) August 20, 2016

#Monaghan: @monaghanlife;@MonaghanTourism; @MonaghanCoCo;@Carrickmacosscc;@MonIntDev; @MonaghanMouth;#PatrickKavanagh pic.twitter.com/4AUUfexSbs

— WSlightly (@WSlightly) July 5, 2015

Netherlands Vol.2

.@hollandtrade https://t.co/NJ6pkr1snJ https://t.co/BFXlwBti4O @ppk https://t.co/Qe1yfI2kfJ https://t.co/SLwvhCceRh pic.twitter.com/8GFRpcG5kl

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) March 22, 2016

Biomass offers the opportunity to cover a quarter of EU’s energy use by 2050. @EUBCE https://t.co/LdR0Xx4Jru @Energy__Academy @univgroningen

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) March 23, 2016

World Economic Forum: The #Netherlands has the best #infrastructure in #Europe @wef https://t.co/4IJKZpDBWD @WSjp_insight

— Hollandtrade (@hollandtrade) December 7, 2016

"@WSjp_insight: The #Netherlands in top 3 for economic #infrastructure according to WOrld Economic Forum @wef. https://t.co/Dw9nP15ojz 1/2

— NL Enterprise Agency (@NLEnterprise) December 7, 2016

MT @EurActiv: Using #TTIP to lift unnecessary #trade burdens on #textiles http://t.co/J7Sd8l8vLr (photo: A factory in the #Netherlands)

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) October 15, 2014

Ireland Vol.19

"[Podcast] Ireland & Brexit @voxeu #tcddublin Prof Patrick Honohan (Gov of #centralbank_ie 2009-15) https://t.co/EeZhRWqshm" EU landborder..

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) August 19, 2016

RT @_WorldSolutions: Ireland ranked as one of the best for industrial #competitiveness. http://t.co/czvJMGWufF #FDI pic.twitter.com/44a1ECUuz6

— #Irishbiz (@Irish_Biz) September 28, 2014

"#Frenchconservatives say… #Ireland’s experience @LaraMarlowe #IrishTimes http://t.co/JY74hnMx3H" #TaxHarmonisation http://t.co/YI6GQyW7U3

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) March 24, 2015

TYVM @HuttonPulitzer "[LSR]@VoxHib https://t.co/9GgSsv3cty StarWars #SkelligMichael"..Medieval..Ireland was literally the end of the Earth..

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) May 9, 2016

VIDEO: Warning video includes #nudity: 100 #naked #swimmers bare all to raise #money for #MND http://t.co/CANOiPDUEU via @Independent_ie

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) October 13, 2014

Baltic States and Finland

EE @EstoniaInvest https://t.co/uLiovYG87T @ChrisChinch https://t.co/p9QIXnphNC @e_Residents @pipedrive,@toggl @EF PR pic.twitter.com/P8CHA8lmaz

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) February 23, 2016

LV @Britannica https://t.co/2vkjienfCX @LVinEU https://t.co/JJofWyp2IJ p46,59,85@EBRD https://t.co/XMAmMFzUze p3,34 pic.twitter.com/Z9Xr1aqj7b

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) February 16, 2016

LT https://t.co/E5Hh3n3dSA @Invest_LT https://t.co/pHZbOsNH0H https://t.co/fPkssosGqp p9,24https://t.co/9Mg8PaKZYP pic.twitter.com/JO5TKHF7vP

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) February 9, 2016

FI https://t.co/aTNQHsi0kP @brittkpeterson https://t.co/mDV1MmFMgA @tomashirstecon https://t.co/g5VwVQrLr1 xprt;wage pic.twitter.com/Nz50hdeIeh

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) March 1, 2016

Balkan @ecfr https://t.co/sdbB0LmEUQ instability:…#GreatPowerPolitics
Baltic @ICDS_Tallinn https://t.co/5zAvGTB8pr pic.twitter.com/wmlJiMNgED

— World Solutions (@_WorldSolutions) May 26, 2016

Canada Vol.25 (Trudeau administration Vol.1)

Here is a list of Current Ministry (Cabinet) | PARLIAMENT of CANADA (* CABINET SHUFFLE 2017.01.10; # Minister Mandate Letter from Prime Minister). Excerpts are on our own.

Innovation, science and economic development: NAVDEEP SINGH BAINS
Indigenous and Northern Affairs: CAROLYN BENNETT
International development and La Francophonie: MARIE-CLAUDE BIBEAU
Treasury Board president: SCOTT BRISON
Natural resources: JIM CARR
*Foreign affairs #: *Chrystia Freeland (Preceded by STÉPHANE DION)
Families, Children and Social Development: JEAN-YVES DUCLOS
Science: KIRSTY DUNCAN
Public services and procurement: JUDY FOOTE
*International trade #: *François-Philippe Champagne (Preceded by CHRYSTIA FREELAND)
Transport: MARC GARNEAU
Public safety and emergency preparedness: RALPH GOODALE
*Status of Women: *Maryam Monsef (Preceded by PATTY HAJDU)
Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence: KENT HEHR
Canadian Heritage: MÉLANIE JOLY
Small Business and Tourism: BARDISH CHAGGER
Government House Leader: BARDISH CHAGGER
National Revenue: DIANE LEBOUTHILLIER
Agriculture and agri-food: LAWRENCE MACAULAY
*Immigration, refugees and citizenship #: *Ahmed Hussen (Preceded by JOHN MCCALLUM)
Environment and Climate Change: CATHERINE MCKENNA
*Employment, Workforce Development and Labour #: *Patty Hajdu (Preceded by MARYANNE MIHYCHUK)
*Democratic Institutions: *Karina Gould (Preceded by MARYAM MONSEF)
Finance: BILL MORNEAU
Health: JANE PHILPOTT
Sport and Persons with Disabilities: CARLA QUALTROUGH
National Defence: HARJIT SINGH SAJJAN
Infrastructure and Communities: AMARJEET SOHI
Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard: DOMINIC LEBLANC
Justice and attorney-general: JODY WILSON-RAYBOULD
cf.
THE TRUDEAU CABINET (1/5/2017) | @globepolitics
Here are all 30 cabinet ministers at a glance (11/5/2015) | @OttawaCitizen

The 3 new faces of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal cabinet (1/10/2017) | @JPTasker @CBCNews
Long-time Liberal MP John McCallum is leaving federal politics for Beijing, where he will become Canada’s ambassador to China, and he will cede his immigration post to Ahmed Hussen, the first black Canadian to serve in Trudeau’s cabinet. …
Gould’s appointment as minister of democratic institutions will lower the average age of cabinet ministers considerably. …
Gould, 29, is the youngest female cabinet minister in Canadian history. …
… Champagne takes over the hot file as support for global trade wanes in much of the Western world amid an ascendency of protectionist rhetoric.
Champagne has one notable supporter in his corner: former prime minister Jean Chrétien. …

New Hands, Not Enough Cards (1/21/2017) | @RLindenFraser @NATOCanada
… With rising nationalism in Belgium, France and Germany, Canada will have to play a nervous game of wait-and-see.
… She carries the cachet of successfully concluding CETA negotiations in Europe. …
… The US government is not Wallonia, and Canada’s trade negotiators won’t have 28 EU governments on their side, as they did in the final dash to conclude CETA. …
… The risk of renegotiating, then, is not that America will punish Canada directly. The danger is that an American administration dead-set on Mexican concessions (anything, for example, that could be spun as payment for a certain wall) will throw the Canadian baby out with the NAFTA bathwater. It leaves Canadian officials with a classic dilemma: do they band together with Mexico, and risk handing everyone a worse deal, or do they strike out on their own, aim at a better agreement for Canada, and leave their erstwhile partners out in the cold? John Nash would have been proud.

In a major shuffle, Justin Trudeau re-tools cabinet in preparation for the Donald Trump era (1/12/2017) | @davidakin @calgaryherald
… McCallum had been Trudeau’s immigration minister and distinguished himself on that file by executing, albeit a bit tardily, on Trudeau’s campaign promise to bring thousands of Syrian refugees out of harms’s way and into Canada. …
Trudeau, at a House of Commons press conference after Tuesday’s shuffle, said he has asked Dion to take on a “senior role” and hinted that it will involve some sort of diplomatic role. …
Trudeau’s pick of Freeland is particularly interesting given that Freeland, whose family has roots in Ukraine and who speaks fluent Russian, is persona non grata in Russia. …
Trudeau said it’s clear the Trump presidency is likely to focus on jobs and growth.
“So it makes sense for the person who is responsible for foreign relations in the United States to also have the ability and responsibility…
Trudeau preserves the gender balance with this cabinet shuffle but has broadend cabinet’s ethnic diversity. Gould and Hussen are, respectively, the second Jewish and Muslim members of cabinet.
Monsef, the other Muslim member of cabinet, had badly handled the electoral reform file…
The former status of women minister, Patty Hajdu of Thunder Bay, Ont., will be rewarded for what the PMO believes has been a strong performance by being promoted to the labour portfolio. …

*Chrystia Freeland (Foreign affairs – moved from International trade)
*Maryam Monsef (Status of Women – moved from Democratic Institutions)
*Patty Hajdu (Employment, Workforce Development and Labour – moved from Status of Women)
*François-Philippe Champagne (International trade) @FPCChampagne
*Ahmed Hussen (Immigration, refugees and citizenship) @AhmedDHussen
*Karina Gould (Democratic Institutions) @karinagould

UK Vol.67 (Post-EUref #Brexit Vol.13)

Here are articles on UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s meeting with US President Donald Trump, et al. Excerpts are on our own.

Theresa May, I hope you cringed at Trump’s grasp. The alternative is grim (w Videos; 1/28/2017) | @jhedelstein @guardian

Trump’s Press Conference With British Prime Minister, Annotated (1/27/2017) | @NPR

‘OPPOSITES ATTRACT:’ THERESA MAY ON DONALD TRUMP AND RENEWING THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP (1/27/2017) | @Reuters @Newsweek

Theresa May: Donald Trump to make state visit to UK (1/27/2017) | @elizamackintosh @CNN

How did the WhiteHouse Stumble on Theresa May’s Visit? Let Us Count the Ways. (1/27/2017) | @emilyctamkin @ForeignPolicy

Theresa May’s meeting with Donald Trump ‘could sour Brexit negotiations’ (1/27/2017) | @DanielBoffey @guardian
… Macron added that he now feared the EU could no longer rank the US as a reliable partner in safeguarding western values. “What’s happening today with Trump’s first statements and choices is extremely serious and worrying,”…
…Michel Barnier…
A European commission spokesman declined to comment on Barnier’s private views. He repeated the organisation’s official position that the UK is not legally permitted to negotiate on the detail of future trade deals while still under treaty obligations with the EU. …
…the chancellor, Philip Hammond, insisted the UK would abide by its obligations to wait until it withdrew from the EU. …

British Alignment With Trump Threatens European Order (1/26/2017) | @Max_Fisher @nytimes
… “The people at the top of our system, whether they’re politicians or officials or journalists or think tankers like me, we’re all totally focused on Brexit,” said @CER_Grant @CER_London. “We haven’t thought about Trump as much as we should have.”. …
“The British debate on Trump is over very trivial stuff, like who Trump spoke to before May, and the German debate is over the future of the liberal order in the West,” said @markhleonard @ecfr. …
…Mr. Trump offered to reward Britain’s exit from the European Union with a speedy trade deal. But this risks encouraging more exits from the bloc and possibly its disintegration. …
“If America eases up on Russia, Britain will be under heavy pressure to pick the United States, not to side with Merkel,” said @RobinNiblett @ChathamHouse. …
Jeremy Shapiro @ecfr… …said he had been unable to convince British officials that Mr. McCain, whom Mr. Trump has publicly mocked, was an unlikely savior.
Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies @KingsCollegeLon… “There isn’t a Plan B,”…
Mrs. May is only barely holding together the governing Conservative Party, leaving her overwhelmingly focused on managing divisions that are mostly about Brexit and migration. …
Other European states are already preparing for the possibility that the Continent can no longer rely on Britain, Mr. Leonard said, on issues from Russia to the Iran nuclear deal to global free trade. …

Donald Trump and Theresa May caught holding hands in White House photo – It is unclear who initiated the contact (1/27/2017) | Tom Batchelor @Independent

LIVE – Donald Trump tells Theresa May: ‘Brexit is going to be a wonderful thing for your country’ as two leaders hold hands at White House | @barneyhenderson & @nickallen789 @Telegraph
… Challenged about his views on torture, Russia, banning Muslims and punishment for abortion by BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg, Mr Trump joked to Mrs May: “This was your choice of a question. There goes that relationship.” …

Theresa May meets Donald Trump – but what does she hope to gain? (1/27/2017) | @RachelRizzo & @Jparakilas @NewStatesman
… Unfortunately, the pomp and circumstance hides the fact that this relationship will not be easy for the United Kingdom. The special relationship has always been asymmetrical – both in terms of the outright power balance and the extent to which the relationship is considered unique. But the collision of Brexit and the aggressively idiosyncratic beginning of the Trump presidency has left the UK in a much less advantageous position than normal. …
… At a time when those relationships with its closest neighbours are complicated, it is absolutely crucial that the UK’s other critical relationships can be seen as resilient and improving. …
…he will push for a trade deal written on Washington’s terms, not London’s – and May will have little leverage to push back.
In the longer term, Trump’s desire to build a closer relationship with Russia and challenge China stands diametrically opposed to Britain’s positions… …a crisis under these conditions might very rapidly put British foreign policy in an untenable position.
May is therefore in an exceptionally tricky position. She has little choice but to reaffirm the strength and importance of the US-UK relationship, and to hope that doing so will buy her influence that she can use to gently steer President Trump away from some of his more outlandish promises. …

Brexit, Donald Trump and the threat to Europe (1/19/2017) | @philipstephens @FT
… It was not until this week that Mrs May finally accepted the remorseless logic of her determination to shut out Polish plumbers and Hungarian fruit-pickers. …
Britain will cease to be a platform for foreign businesses — manufacturing and services — that want to sell unimpeded into the world’s largest market. Companies will face new barriers to trade with an EU 27 accounting for more than two-fifths of British exports. Dozens of third-country trade deals will be upended. As economic ties weaken, political relationships will wither. …
… At Mr Trump’s bidding, Mr Johnson is busy scuppering European criticism of Israel. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth will be obliged to ready Buckingham Palace for a visit from the Trump circus.
British leaders always fret about getting on with new incumbents in the White House. The relationship is an essential pillar of national security. As the English Channel widens, the neediness looks set to grow. Mr Trump has promised a trade deal. So there would have been no harm in a little flattery. There comes a point, though, at which fawning sinks to self-abasement. …
More than half a century ago Britain bowed to US pressure and pulled out of an Anglo-French enterprise to retake control of the Suez Canal. France cried treachery. …a united Europe would be France’s revenge against the perfidious Anglo-Saxons. …

…but he’ll soon learn that this doesn’t mean May wants the overarching European project to fail. …

Theresa May needs a better defence: Mirror Politics morning briefing:The Prime Minister’s launch of a new industrial strategy is overshadowed by the row over Trident (1/23/2017) | @JBeattieMirror @DailyMirror

Hundreds of thousands of retired Britons in EU ‘may be forced to return’ (1/18/2017) | @lisaocarroll @guardian
Hundreds of thousands of elderly Britons living in Europe may be forced to return to the UK unless the government guarantees that their healthcare will continue to be reimbursed by the NHS…
Retired Britons in receipt of a British pension and their dependents can access medical treatment for free, or near free, in countries such as Spain, France and Germany, with the cost reimbursed by the UK government. Some workers posted overseas can also avail themselves of the “S1” benefit. …
Debbie Williams, who was giving evidence about Britons in Belgium, said the healthcare support provided by the Treasury could be “a dealbreaker for some people”. …
“The British government is our government,” retorted Nicolas Hatton, a French citizen and founder of the3million campaign group.

A NEW DAWN: Theresa May lands in Washington ahead of meeting with President Trump after evoking Thatcher and Reagan in historic speech to US lawmakers- Prime Minister tells leading Republicans that Brexit Britain and Trump’s America have the ‘responsibility’ to lead the world (1/26/2017) | @_NealBaker @TheSun

If UK Didn’t Leave the Single Market, What Was the Point of Brexit? (1/18/2017) | @MrRBourne @thehill @CatoInstitute
… The European Commission itself believes the single market has only raised EU-wide GDP by 2.1 percent. For the U.K., this would be less significant. …
Its proposed “Great Repeal Bill”, despite its name, will actually transcribe all existing EU law and regulation onto British statutes, meaning there’s no cliff-edge in regulatory compliance for business.
As a result, at the point of exit, U.K. firms will still be fully compliant with EU rules. …

Be careful what you wish for: a tale of two prime ministers (10/2/2016) | Richard Rose @PolStudiesAssoc

UK Vol.66 (Post-EUref #Brexit Vol.12 – Theresa May’s Trump visit)

Here are a part of articles on the visit. Excerpts are on our own.

Theresa May: UK and US cannot return to ‘failed’ interventions (w Videos; 1/27/2017) | @BBC
…@bbclaurak…
BBC diplomatic correspondent James Robbins said it was a hugely significant speech, arguably the biggest by a UK PM in the US since Tony Blair’s 1999 speech in Chicago advocating armed interventionism against dictators – something repudiated by Mrs May.
It followed comments by UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to a House of Lords committee earlier that Bashar Assad should be allowed to run for election to remain in power in Syria – a complete reversal of UK foreign policy. …
Mrs May said: “We should not jeopardise the freedoms that President Reagan and Mrs Thatcher brought to Eastern Europe by accepting President Putin’s claim that it is now in his sphere of influence.” …
Mr Trump said: “When they’re shooting, when they’re chopping off the heads of our people and other people, when they’re chopping off the heads of people because they happen to be a Christian in the Middle East, when Isis (IS) is doing things that nobody has ever heard of since Medieval times, would I feel strongly about waterboarding? …
Under British law and policy, the UK military and intelligence agencies cannot join operations where someone is being tortured – or officers believe there is a risk that it may happen. …

Theresa May: America and Britain will ‘lead together again’ after Brexit and election of Donald Trump (1/25/2017) | @peterdominiczak @Telegraph
… Mrs May will present Mr Trump with an engraved Quaich – an ancient Scottish artefact – and give his wife, Melania, a hamper full of produce from Chequers including Bakewell tarts. …
The Prime Minister on Wednesday confirmed that she intends to publish a detailed Brexit White Paper after demands by Conservative Remain supporters who had been planning a Commons rebellion over the issue.
Labour was again in chaos over the issue, with suggestions that Jeremy Corbyn could allow Labour MPs to oppose the Government’s Brexit Bill in the face of a rebellion by his front bench despite he himself last week saying he would force MPs to vote for Article 50. …

Theresa May To Praise Donald Trump As She Declares Britain And US Can “Lead Together Again”: PM moves to woo Republican Congress as well as White House (1/26/2017) | @paulwaugh @HuffPostUK
… Ahead of her visit to the White House on Friday, May will use a speech to the Republican party’s Congressional ’Retreat’ conference in Philadelphia to underline historic links as well as future opportunities for cooperation on trade and security. …
“The United Kingdom is by instinct and history a great, global nation that recognises its responsibilities to the world.
“And as we end our membership of the European Union – as the British people voted with determination and quiet resolve to do last year – we have the opportunity to reassert our belief in a confident, sovereign and Global Britain, ready to build relationships with old friends and new allies alike.” …
No.10 was furious when President Obama ended his term in office by visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel and praising her as his “closest international partner” throughout his eight years in power. …
Opponents of Brexit feared that Britain would have even less influence in the world…
However, the UK’s status as a nuclear power and one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, as well as its crucial intelligence and military expertise, are all being used by ministers to push for a strong global role.
Downing Street revealed that on Friday morning May will visit Arlington Cemetery in Virginia…
The PM will present the President with the gift of an engraved silver Quaich, an ancient Scottish drinking cup that is a deliberate nod to Trump’s mother and her Hebridean roots. …
Her trip to the biannual Republican event is not without controversy and some Democrats complained that it would be a “partisan visit” and a “breach of standard protocol” not to meet their party leaders too. …

How Donald Trump, Theresa May are the 2017 version of ’80s power couple Reagan-Thatcher (1/26/2017) | @khjelmgaard & @janeomara @USATODAY
… Trump spoke to nine other world leaders in the 24 hours after his election before conversing with May. The trip helps put to rest concerns within May’s ruling Conservative Party that former U.K. Independence Party chief Nigel Farage could get in the way of a strong relationship between the prime minister and Trump.
Trump had suggested shortly after his election that the anti-establishment, anti-immigration Farage should become Britain’s U.S. ambassador, an idea quickly rejected by May. …
… “Obama appeared to spend the first four years in office forging relationships with everyone else. Now we have an opportunity to reinstate what we once had.”
…Conor Burns, a Conservative Party lawmaker. …who got to know Thatcher late in her tenure, cautioned against drawing too many comparisons between Reagan-Thatcher and May-Trump. …
…Quentin Peel @ChathamHouse… “She has few friends because of her determination to push ahead with Brexit… And Trump is also, quite deliberately, alienating the world with his ‘America first’ talk.”
… Trump, too, wants a trade deal with the U.K. so he won’t be presented as this ‘terrible protectionist’ who only wants to pick fights with people.” …

Theresa May to seek special deal with Trump in White House visit: PM will shrug off concerns about new president as she pledges to rekindle special relationship and ‘lead, together, again’ (1/25/2017) | @GuardianHeather & @rowenamason @guardian
… Global trade experts have warned that Britain may gain little from a bilateral trade deal with Washington. …
May also hopes that by establishing a close relationship, she can persuade Trump to stick to his pledge of pursuing a bilateral trade deal with the UK that could be put into effect after Brexit.
But trade experts are sceptical that a deal can be negotiated quickly – and warn that the US may take advantage of its superior bargaining position as a much larger economy to force open Britain’s markets to US firms.
@AdamPosen @PIIE said: “It would require an enormous, transformative relationship with the US to make up for the decline in trade with the EU.
“For 70 years, since the second world war, the US, beyond very narrow intelligence-sharing, has always treated the UK as subservient, or wanted it to be subservient.” …
Namali Mackay @EEF_Insights said while there might be opportunities for British firms from a bilateral deal, average tariffs between the US and the EU were already low, at an average of 2%. …
Peter Mandelson…said any deal was unlikely to bring rapid benefits for the UK. …
The source emphasised the government’s belief that there was big potential for British dairy farmers and cheese-makers to export more. …@dairyuk, said its members had identified the US as a prime target market for dairy exports outside the EU – and that with 19.7% of the UK’s dairy exports to non-EU countries by value, the US is currently the most important non-EU market. However…

Theresa May suggests UK health services could be part of US trade deal – PM insists Government remains ‘committed to an NHS that is free at the point of use’ (1/26/2017) | @JoeWatts_ @Independent
Theresa May has left the door open for the greater involvement of US corporations in British healthcare as she arrives in America to lay the groundwork for a future trade deal. …
A Number 10 spokesman said later: “The NHS will never be part of a trade deal and will always remain free at the point of delivery.” …
Liberal Democrat Leader Tim Farron said: “The public were told Brexit would mean another £350m a week for the NHS, not that our health service would be opened up to US firms. …
cf. the full transcript of Ms May’s speech

Theresa May urged to confront Donald Trump over ‘return of torture’ when she flies in for talks: The President is poised to lift a ban on overseas CIA ‘black site’ prisons – as the Prime Minister prepares to meet him in America for trade talks (1/26/2017) | @Rob_Merrick @Independent
… She said Ms May had been “very clear” on the issue, adding: “We don’t condone torture or inhumane treatment in any form.”
However, the spokeswoman declined to say whether the Prime Minister would take the opportunity to raise the issue, adding: “There are going to be issues where we differ in our approach and view from President Trump.”
… Ms May declined to discuss details of her hopes for her trip to Washington, instead saying they were to “increase prosperity and bring growth”.
…“It is very simple – we want to achieve an arrangement that ensures the interests of the United Kingdom are there and are put first.”
…“I can ensure the right honourable gentleman that, in doing that, we will put UK interests and UK values first.”

Theresa May refuses to rule out private US firms taking over NHS services – Prime Minister faces repeated questions over the potential threats to public services and food standards, ahead of her talks with President Trump later this week (1/25/2017) | @Rob_Merrick @Independent
… And the SNP raised fears that such a deal will open the door to British supermarkets being stocked with meat produced in unhygienic ways currently outlawed across the EU.
The price of freer transatlantic trade will include the sale of chickens washed with chemicals – a practice in the US – critics say. …
And Ed Miliband, the former Labour leader, urged her to take along British scientists who could convince the President that climate change is “not a hoax invented by the Chinese”. …
Nick Clegg said Joe Biden, the former US Vice President, told him the US would not agree to “anything that the chicken farmers of Delaware don’t like”. …

Theresa May seeks price of Trump friendship – Five diplomatic tensions to watch for as the British prime minister visits the US. (1/26/2017) | @TomMcTague (@CharlieCooper8) @politico
… The embassy did not want May to only address the Republican gathering, worrying it would seem partisan, the source said, but it was overruled by Downing Street. The prime minister will meet Democrat and Republican members of Congress at an embassy reception Thursday evening. …
Trump’s White House sees Brexit Britain as its number one ideological ally in a world of hostile powers and multilateral stitch-ups…
…the cost of cooperation with the most unpredictable president in post-war history is unknown.
From the future of NATO to Russian relations, ISIS, global warming, trade barriers and the use of torture, Trump’s new regime may pose significant problems for the U.K.
… Here are five diplomatic tensions to watch out for during May’s trip.
Too special relationship?
…— and the disruption of a cosy elite it symbolizes for them — than May, who campaigned to remain in the EU. In Trump, May might find a friend urging her to go further than she is comfortable to.
… Wigmore joined Farage and millionaire British businessman Arron Banks…
Personal chemistry
… Above all, May is pragmatic. She kept her head down during the Brexit referendum campaign as everyone else lost theirs, and has been conspicuous since becoming prime minister in keeping her counsel on the U.S. election, despite widespread criticism in the press. …
Republican retreat
…her understanding that whatever the U.S. president says about free trade, Congress has the final say. …
… All it takes is a rebellion by a handful of Tory MPs representing rural constituencies and the trade deal could peter out into something of very little substance. …
Sir Christopher Meyer…
“I don’t think Theresa May is a naïve person, nor are the people around her,” …
NATO, Russia and ISIS
… May this week reaffirmed Britain’s commitment to Ukrainian sovereignty in its battle with Moscow. …
The real danger is not being left out in the cold of a Russian reset, but being dragged further back into the mire of the Middle East in Trump’s ramped-up war on ISIS. One of May’s co-chiefs of staff, Nick Timothy…
Nigel Farage
… He does not get why they don’t like Nigel. …

Theresa May: Brexit Britain and Donald Trump can lead the world TOGETHER – BREXIT Britain and Donald Trump-led America can lead the world together, Theresa May will declare. (1/26/2017) | MACER HALL @Daily_Express
… And Mr Trump is to show Theresa May the bust of Winston Churchill that has been returned to the Oval Office on his instructions in a symbol of his regard for Britain. …

UK Vol.65 (Post-EUref Vol.11 – including UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit speech)

Here are articles on Brexit including scholars’ analyses, UK Prime Minister’s speech, et al. Excerpts are on our own.

I was wrong on Brexit (12/12/2016) | Niall Ferguson @BostonGlobe
The three words you are least likely to hear from an academic are “I was wrong.” Well, I was wrong to argue against “Brexit,” as I admitted in public last week. …
…Europe became the world’s most dynamic civilization after around 1500 partly because of political fragmentation and competition between multiple independent states. …the rule of law ? and specifically the English common law ? was one of the “killer applications” of western civilization.
…the costs of Brexit would outweigh the benefits. …the doom-laden projections of a post-Brexit recession from the International Monetary Fund, the Treasury, and others. …
…Americans since the 1960s have wanted the Brits inside the EU to counterbalance the French…
… First, the warnings I and others gave about European monetary union back in the 1990s have been wholly vindicated.
Second, Europe’s supposedly common foreign policy has been a failure. …
Third, the EU institutions mishandled the financial crisis. …
Nor is that all. Last year EU leaders… Finally, they utterly misread the mounting public dissatisfaction ? not only in Britain ? with the consequences of unfettered free population movement.
… His mistake was to accept the risible terms that the European leaders offered him back in February on EU migrants’ eligibility for benefits, instead of marching out of the conference room and announcing that he would campaign for Brexit. My mistake was not to urge that.
… Many “Remainers” have dug in deeper and waste their time dreaming up ways of derailing Brexit. The Brexiteers meanwhile are dividing like 19th-century Protestant sectarians over how “hard” Brexit should be. …

Key points from May’s Brexit speech: what have we learned? (w Video; 1/17/2019) | @jonhenley @guardian
The single market
…her top two Brexit priorities are controlling EU immigration and withdrawing from the jurisdiction of the European court of justice.
… Single market membership, she said, would mean accepting the EU’s four freedoms – free movement of goods, services, capital and people – and “complying with the EU’s rules and regulations that regulate those freedoms”.
…Britain will seek “the greatest possible access to it through a new, comprehensive, bold and ambitious free trade agreement”.
The customs union
…goods from outside the area are charged a common external tariff to cross its border and enter it; goods already within it can circulate and cross borders freely.
…she did not want Britain to be bound by the common commercial policy and the common external tariff.
But she also said she wanted tariff-free trade with Europe and cross-border trade there to be “as frictionless as possible”…
… Car parts, for example, cross EU borders dozens of times before completion, and customs checks would be disastrous…
Parliamentary involvement and article 50 timing
… This deadline may be problematic if the supreme court rules, as expected, later this month that parliament must vote on the formal article 50 notification to the EU, and it could also be delayed by elections in Northern Ireland.
… “I can confirm today that the government will put the final deal that is agreed between the UK and the EU to a vote in both Houses of Parliament, before it comes into force.”
Controlling EU immigration
…while wanting to continue to attract “the brightest and best to study and work in Britain”…
… She has previously rejected the idea of a point-based regime, and ministers have hinted at the possibility of work visas, but no new system has yet been formally announced.
A transitional deal
…a “cliff-edge”: …with no future relationship defined.
…“implementation period”…
But she is opposed to the kind of interim arrangement favoured by some who want a lengthy…
Status of EU citizens in UK and UK citizens on continent
…“negotiating capital”. …the government wants to guarantee their rights – and those of British citizens on the continent – “as early as we can”. …
The EU budget
…“some specific European programmes… …it is reasonable that we should make an appropriate contribution.”
The EEA option
… “We do not seek to adopt a model already enjoyed by other countries.”
… Britain did not want “partial membership…or associate membership…
Ireland and the union
…maintaining the pre-EU common travel area between Britain and Ireland… …avoid a “hard border” between Northern Ireland and the Republic.
…describing the union between England, Scotland and Wales as precious. …
Tone
…“I want us to be … the best friend and neighbour to our European partners,”…
…“an act of calamitous self-harm for the countries of Europe. …
…“no deal for Britain is better than a bad deal for Britain”…
Conclusion

Theresa May’s Brexit speech in full: Prime Minister outlines her 12 objectives for negotiations: Britain is leaving the Single Market but will still cooperate in other areas (1/18/2017) | @independent

London Mayor Sadiq Khan in stinging attack on Theresa May’s Brexit plans, warning they could ‘rip Britain apart’ (w Videos; 1/18/2017) | @PippaCrerar @standardnews

How a British Court Ruling Could Delay Brexit Negotiations (w Podcast; 11/9/2016) | @whartonknows
… Olivier Chatain, professor of strategy and business policy at the HEC Paris business school, and a senior fellow at Wharton’s Mack Institute of Innovation Management, and Michelle Egan, a professor at American University’s School of International Service…
More Uncertainty
Economic Impact
Finding Common Ground
Brexit Referendum Will Stand
A Brexit Bill

Oxford academics warning of Brexit ‘disaster’ (1/11/2017) | @seanjcoughlan @bbc
A “hard Brexit” would be the “biggest disaster” to have hit the UK’s universities for many years, a university head told MPs.
‘Culturally allergic’
‘Manchester Utd problem’
Research funding
Unanswered questions

Can Brexit Be Achieved with Minimal Damage? (w Podcast; 10/7/2016) | @whartonknows
American University’s Michelle Egan…

How Brexit Could Boost the European Union (9/21/2016) | @whartonknows
Size Matters a lot
Then There Is Regulation
Talent Is Key
Real Investments
Yet More Uncertainty
Opportunities for the Rest of Europe
– Big is beautiful? promote it
– Boost the single market? but shift the focus to direct benefits for people
– Smart integration? do things that could not be done before
– Bring over banks, corporates and the ecosystem? make it appealing to move
– Leverage investment opportunities? follow the money
– Attract the leaders of tomorrow? EU-27 as the place to be
– Make it appealing for skilled workers to move back
– Finally, it is all about trust, stability and the reduction of uncertainty

Amid Brexit and Spotify threats, Stockholm adapts to remain globally competitive (9/20/2016) | Elizabeth Patterson and Marek Gootman @BrookingsInst

What Comes Next for Europe? (6/27/2016) | @DBachYSOM & ANDREW METRICK @AdvancedMgmt @YaleInsights
Andrew Metrick:… The bigger concerns are long run. … With the UK exiting, it’s the first time we’ve seen any significant pullback from this project, which had mixed success, but certainly kept alive its noble ideals. …
… Uncertainty discourages people from making long-term investments. …
David Bach:… Three million EU citizens live and work in the UK, and 1.5 million UK citizens live in Europe. …the European Union has to think, on the one hand, about how to manage this exit in a way that protects the interests of the stakeholders in the 27 continuing EU countries…
…at least three different groups within the “Leave” camp. You have conservative, neo-liberal types around Boris Johnson and others who feel that EU regulation was stifling business and want to control their own sovereignty. The second camp is around Nigel Farage and the UK Independence Party—the nativists who are anti-immigration. And then you have a third group, trade unionists who felt that Europe was too pro-business, and they want to go back to a model of greater protection. …
Metrick:… Northern Ireland is really tricky. It is the case that they’ve had no borders with the Republic of Ireland for a while, but I don’t know whether the religious issues that made this split in the first place are going to be any less potent.
Bach:… The presumption was that if we used Article 50, it was going to be some small Eastern European nation that couldn’t keep up with the regulations. …
Metrick: No one believes the optimal size of government is everybody under one government. There are always going to be certain things we want local control over. This is a battle we have a lot of experience with in the United States, and we fought a civil war over it. …

Ivan Rogers and the great British Brexit pantomime (1/4/2017) | @RGWhitman @ConversationUK @UKandEU

Scottish independence: Decapitate Britain, and we kill off the greatest political union ever (9/8/2014) | Boris Johnson @telegraph

UK Vol.64 (Post-EUref Vol.10 – BREXIT AND BEYOND Vol.5)

Here are excerpts from BREXIT AND BEYOND – HOW THE UNITED KINGDOM MIGHT LEAVE THE EUROPEAN UNION (PDF; Nov 2016) | @UKandEU @PolStudiesAssoc.

CHAPTER FIVE: HOW MIGHT BREXIT AFFECT THE FUTURE SHAPE OF THE UK?
5.1 Brexit and the devolved nations
… The least constitutionally disruptive means by which the divergent policy interests of the devolved nations could be accommodated within the current state structure would be for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales to take advantage of the repatriation of competences, along with existing powers, and to shadow EU, rather than UK policies in some fields. …
… All sides are agreed that closing the Irish border would be a serious mistake and that some accommodation will have to be made. … It is difficult, however, to envisage Northern Ireland being within the Single Market and the rest of the UK being outside it without controls on trade in goods and services between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. In Scotland, there has been talk of a ‘reverse Greenland’ under which EU law would not apply in England and Wales (as it does not in Greenland) but would apply in Scotland and Northern Ireland. However, the Greenland analogy is hard to make…
The most radical option… Scotland would become independent, and perhaps either continue as a successor state to the UK, or more likely join as a new member. Northern Ireland could retain membership through unification with the Republic. …
… Polls do not suggest that Scottish voters would be ready to abandon the UK market in order to remain within the European one. If the UK were to negotiate access to the Single Market, however, that would make Scottish independence more viable. Irish unification would keep open the border between the two parts of Ireland, but leave a hard border with the UK, which would not be acceptable to unionist opinion. …

CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION
… The implications, as we have illustrated, range from the obvious reshaping of relations between the UK and the EU, to changes in the structure of the British state, to potentially profound alterations in the relations between the nations that make it up. …
…the rise of UKIP, divisions within the Labour and Conservative Parties, and the popularity of the SNP north of the border are all related in some way to the politics of British EU membership. …
Ultimately, Brexit will be driven by politics and the preferences of powerful political actors in both the UK and the remaining EU Member States. …

UK Vol.63 (Post-EUref Vol.9 – BREXIT AND BEYOND Vol.4)

Here are excerpts from BREXIT AND BEYOND HOW THE UNITED KINGDOM MIGHT LEAVE THE EUROPEAN UNION (PDF: Nov 2016) | @UKandEU @PolStudiesAssoc.

CHAPTER FOUR: HANDLING THE NEGOTIATIONS
… In David Cameron’s pre-referendum negotiations, the three devolved administrations asked for a place at the table but were given only a consultative role. …even the UK Parliament will be marginalised… if the devolved governments were involved in the negotiation, even at the civil service level and on technical matters, this might commit them to accept the outcome. …

4.1 Who controls Brexit in the British Government?
… First… underlying tension between keeping Leave campaigners within the party on board and administrative efficiency. Second, by creating a tier of ministers with nominal responsibility for Brexit… Finally, the necessary complexity of Brexit means that no one minister can have the overview and authority required to reach a final agreement…
… Mrs May reportedly announced her end-March 2017 deadline for triggering Article 50 without informing, or consulting with, the Cabinet. …
… Her party could turn on her if she does not seem to be fighting Britain’s corner hard enough. …
… The danger lies in collective action by these figures: if they can marshal their actions then they could force May to change position. …
… David Davis, the Secretary of State for the newly-formed Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU). … a combination of staff from
the Cabinet Office’s Europe Unit, the Europe Directorate of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), and staff of the UK’s Permanent Representation to the EU (UKREP)… The start-up phase of preparing for Brexit has been marked by media coverage of turf wars between Davis, Liam Fox, appointed to a new Cabinet role of Secretary for International Trade, heading a Department for International Trade (DIT), and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson…
… Prime ministerial interests and coordination issues involving the Cabinet Office and ministerial departments, including the Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland Offices, executive agencies and regulatory authorities will all need to be accommodated. …

4.2 Civil Service: Stretched to breaking point?
… As members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) which participate in the European Economic Area (EEA), Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein apply EU Single Market law. While they do not vote on this legislation, they implement it almost as if they were Member States. …
… Some of the work conducted by the European Commission in terms of compliance monitoring would fall under the scope of the EFTA Surveillance Authority, which performs a similar function for the non-EU states within the EEA, enabling their participation in the Single Market.
In this Norwegian scenario… with British officials left with little to do other than lobby decision makers in Brussels. British officials would also have to work within the EFTA committee structure and negotiate, in particular, over which EU provisions were relevant to the EEA. … As in the case of Norway and Switzerland, most rules would be automatically adopted even if the myth existed that HM Government was sovereign in deciding to do so.
… One possibility is that relations with the EU would have to be negotiated on a bilateral basis and issue-by-issue, and permanently updated. Such a ‘Swiss-style’ arrangement is unlikely to be popular with the EU. …it is unlikely that these novice negotiators would be in possession of sufficient policy memory to carry out their role especially effectively. …
…potential EU sanctions against non-Member States for breaching rules can be worse than for Member States…
… Brexit requires, in the short term, an extensive knowledge of policy detail… In the long term, depending on the form Brexit might take, demands on Whitehall competence could range from lobbying the EU… to the simple business advice services as to how to trade with the EU…

4.3 The role of Parliament in negotiations
… The House of Lords EU Committee has taken a more expansive view of what parliamentary oversight might mean in a report published in July, and is currently engaged in a follow-up inquiry…
…changes are already noticeable in the work carried out within the existing House of Lords EU Committee and House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee, responsible in the two Houses for scrutinising all documents produced by the EU as part of its normal ongoing policy business…

4.4 How will Parliament manage the volume of work required to amend legislation?
… In terms of volume, the overarching Parliamentary measures are likely to be relatively few: passage of the ‘Great Repeal Bill’ to repeal the 1972 European Communities Act; ratification of the UK-EU withdrawal agreement required by Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union; and ratification of whatever UK-EU agreement or agreements may be reached to govern post-Brexit relations. …
…by far the bigger task will be transposing into domestic law all the EU law which currently has direct effect in the UK, and amending the thus-augmented body of UK legislation which gives effect to EU law so that it can stand independently. The planned ‘Great Repeal Bill’ may give only blanket authority for these tasks. …
…with the Commons hampered more than the Lords by political upheavals and party conferences and appearing somewhat slow off the mark, the Lords EU Committee has proceeded to elaborate an initial Brexit-related work programme of its own. …

4.5 What information will be available to the public about the negotiations?
… The only possibly relevant ground for refusing disclosure under this law would be if it undermines protection of the financial, monetary or economic policy of the Union or any Member State, including the UK. …

US Policy Changes Vol.26 (National Security Vol.2 – Key posts, Europe…)

Here are articles on national security including Eastern Europe. Excerpts are on our own.

Donald Trump’s national-security team takes shape (11/26/2016) | @economist
… Despite General Mattis’s nickname, “Mad Dog” (earned for his aggression in combat and a talent for cheerfully menacing quotes), he is regarded as combining military dash with intellectual seriousness.
Moreover his views, expressed during his time spent as a scholar at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think-tank, contrast with Mr Trump’s zero-sum, transactional concept of foreign policy. “Like it or not, today we are part of this larger world and must carry out our part,” he said in testimony to the Senate armed services committee in 2015. “We cannot wait for problems to arrive here, or it will be too late; rather we must remain strongly engaged in this complex world.”
Generals Flynn and Mattis do have one other thing in common, in addition to their military service. Both were dumped before they were due to retire by the Obama administration. General Mattis was relieved of his command of CENTCOM…
General Mattis has continued to be a critic of Mr Obama’s foreign policy which, he believes, has emboldened Russia, China and Iran, who have exploited the president’s reluctance to apply America’s military power. If appointed, he would attempt to steer Mr Trump away from isolationism and deals with Vladimir Putin.
General Flynn is likely to push in the opposite direction. “We’re in a world war against a messianic mass-movement of evil people, most of them inspired by totalitarian ideology: radical Islam,” he wrote in a book published earlier this year. “But we are not permitted to speak or write those two words, which is potentially fatal to our culture.” In another passage, he asks: “Do you want to be ruled by men who eagerly drink the blood of their dying enemies?…There’s no doubt that they [Islamic State] are dead set on taking us over and drinking our blood.” …
General Flynn believes he was fired from his post as director of the Pentagon’s Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) in 2014 because of pervasive political correctness within the Obama White House, which disliked his conflation of Islam with terrorism. It was also infuriated by his insistence that the war against jihadists was being lost, even as Mr Obama was trying to put it behind him.

Who is Monica Crowley, Trump’s latest national security team addition? (12/16/2016) | @storyhinckley @csmonitor
… Lt. Gen. Kellogg and Crowley will serve under the council’s previously announced leaders: retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as national security adviser and K.T. McFarland as deputy national security adviser. …
As director of strategic communications, Mr. Rhodes ran the Iran-deal messaging campaign and negotiated the reopening of American-Cuban relations. …

Web of deals compromises Donald Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn (12/17/2016) | @davidkski @smh
…FIG – by adding one senior executive whose firm does extensive cybersecurity work for government agencies and another who was soliciting defence department aviation contracts.
… In 2014, he founded his company with Bijan Kian, a prominent Iranian-American banker who served on the board of the Export-Import Bank, was a senior fellow at the US Naval Postgraduate School and a member of the White House Business Council. …
FIG worked as a lobbyist for Inovo BV, a Dutch company with close ties to Turkish President Recep Erdogan. When that arrangement was reported last month by The Daily Caller, Flynn responded by having FIG leave the field of lobbying and said he would “sever ties” with his company. …
He was re-elected to his paid position on the board of Drone Aviation on December 6…
…Jordan Libowitz @CREWcrew…

Michael Flynn, Trump’s new national security adviser, loves Russia as much as his boss does (11/21/2016) | @yochidreazen @voxdotcom
…. Democrats would have lashed into Flynn because he broke with the longstanding tradition of retired officers avoiding direct criticism of presidents they had served. Republicans would have pressed Flynn about Trump’s stated Russia policy, which is predicated on building closer ties with Putin despite the Russian strongman’s human rights violations and annexation of Crimea.
Republican lawmakers would also likely have grilled Flynn about his decision to do a paid series of events in Moscow…
During his July 9 2015 confirmation hearing to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr. said, “Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security” and “could pose an existential threat to the United States.” ISIS was fourth on his list, behind China and North Korea.
… “The forces of radical Islam derive their ideology from radical clerics like Gülen, who is running a scam,” Flynn wrote in an op-ed in The Hill. “We should not provide him safe haven. In this crisis, it is imperative that we remember who our real friends are.”

Trump Picks General “Mad Dog” Mattis for Secretary of Defense (12/5/2016) | Patrick Martin @CRG_CRM
… Though this requirement was immediately waived to allow for the appointment of General George Marshall in 1950, no former general has occupied the post in the past 66 years.
There is, however, no commitment to the basic democratic issue of civilian control of the military within the US political establishment. There is little opposition in Congress, in either party, to the passage of a waiver for Mattis.
… Within these circles, Mattis—who has differed with Trump on Russia—is seen as a counterweight to any tendency of the incoming administration to move away from the anti-Russia policy.
The only real concern expressed by the Times is “whether General Mattis intends to roll back military personnel policy changes adopted during the Obama administration, including opening all combat roles to women, allowing openly gay troops to serve and accommodating transgender troops.” …
US imperialism has been at war for most of the past 25 years, and continuously since 2001. Barack Obama, when he leaves office next January 20, will be the first president in American history to have been a wartime commander-in-chief for an entire eight years in office. It is not an accident that under such conditions, the military has come to play such a decisive role in national-security policy.

How Defense Secretary James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis Will Remake The Pentagon (12/5/2016) | @lthompsonlex @Forbes
… Mattis is one of the most gifted warfighters of his generation, a highly decorated officer who has led troops in every major U.S. military campaign conducted since the new millennium began. That includes the occupation of Afghanistan, where he was the first marine ever to command a Naval Task Force in combat, and the invasion of Iraq, where he led the 1st Marine Division and then went on to command in both battles of Fallujah.
… He not only has an unsurpassed understanding of combat, he actually enjoys engaging in it. …James Mattis is the closest thing in modern America to the hard-charging General George S. Patton of World War Two fame…
… The NSC was originally conceived as a venue in which the most senior officials in the cabinet could meet to discuss security matters, not an independent player. …
… It’s a longstanding tradition in American politics to select service secretaries and other senior appointees with an eye to shoring up domestic political constituencies…
… Much of the time, congressional involvement in managing the Pentagon consists of thinly-veiled efforts to assist district-level interests at the expense of warfighters and taxpayers. …
…none of the “leap-ahead” technologies being discussed would have made much difference there, but cultural and language training would have helped a lot. …
… He will be more inclined to see air power and sea power as means for supporting the primary battle on land, rather than as alternatives to ground combat. …
… He knows Europe is mostly an Army theater, but the handful of Army units that would face an invading Russian army are so lacking in force protection, air defense, electronic warfare and the like that they are an invitation to aggression.
… Mattis knows that preparing for war is the most effective way of keeping the peace. … “No better friend, no worse enemy.”

Putin’s Russia seeks to project power with modern military (12/6/2016) | ‏@visachenkov @washingtonpost
… While all men aged 18 to 27 still face a mandatory year of military service, Russia increasingly is attracting volunteers for at least two years and building a culture emphasizing the military as a career.
While conscripts are paid a paltry 2,000 rubles ($31) a month, those signing contracts for longer tours of duty receive 10 times the starting pay and extra privileges. Promotion to sergeant could mean a monthly paycheck of around 40,000 rubles ($620), better than average civilian wages.
… At the start of the decade, the Kremlin pledged to spend 20 trillion rubles (more than $300 billion) on defense through 2020…
Last year alone, Russia spent a record 3.1 trillion rubles ($48 billion) on defense, 25 percent higher than in 2014 and more than a fifth of Russia’s entire budget. Russian forces received 35 nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles, more than 240 warplanes and helicopters, and nearly 1,200 tanks and other armored vehicles — a growth in Russia’s arsenal unseen since Soviet times.
… @DmitriTrenin said the prospect of personal rapport between Trump and Putin “could mean a better way to manage a fairly difficult relationship.”
… (Pavel Felgenhauer) “The Russian military,” he said, “has a vested interest right now in having more and more confrontation with the West.”

Finland walks a 1,300 kilometer fine-line with Russia (10/30/2016) | @herszenhorn @POLITICOPro
… Finnish officials said they shared a desire for greater cooperation, but that joining NATO was not an imminent consideration and that they also planned to keep up their good relations with the big neighbor next door.
…Finland’s defense minister, Jussi Niinistö, said he would refrain from offering any specific advice, either to the West or to Ukraine…
Niinistö, however, said he believed NATO’s increased presence was helping, especially in calming nearby NATO members unnerved by Russia’s recent moves.
“Yes, we have relatively good relationship with Russia and Finland’s view on this enhanced forward presence is that we think it’s good for the security of the Baltic Sea region,” Niinistö said. “We hope it calms things down and there will be no escalation.”
… Niinistö said it was important for countries to remember that being a partner of NATO is not the same as being member of the alliance, which carries the protection of the common defense clause — Article 5 of the NATO treaty. …

Poland: Russia seeks ‘new empire’ in Europe (11/25/2016) | @apsyrtus @euobs
…Witold Waszczykowski, the Polish foreign minister… said the fall of the Soviet empire “to an ever greater extent appears to have been a temporary situation, and not a definitive end in history”.
He said Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 and of Ukraine in 2014 showed that “Russia is ready to resort to military force against her neighbouring sovereign states”.
…@iiea…
… Flanagan, the Irish foreign minister, said Polish relations had “grown hugely in recent years” and that “the Polish community is an extremely valued and integral part of Irish society”.
Ireland and Poland also have special ties with the US. …

What are Moscow’s expectations for Slovakia and the EU? (7/9/2016) | Ruslan Kostyuk @Russia_Direct
… Even before the voting in the UK, the center-left government of Slovakia announced four key priorities of its future EU presidency…
The first of these priorities is the promotion of investment and the future economic development of the EU. … For this purpose, in particular, it is important to strengthen the European fund for strategic investments and activities, and move more quickly towards a common banking union.
Secondly… the formation of an Energy Union within the EU and the launch of a single digital market. The third… the immigration agenda.
The fourth priority, called “Europe, fully integrated into the global environment,” to a greater extent than the other priorities, should be of particular interest to Russian diplomats.
While the first three priorities are at least tangentially linked to the domestic political goals of the Slovak government of Robert Fico, the prime minister of Slovakia, the foreign policy direction of the Slovak presidency has almost no specific goals.
…
… As Grigoriy Sejnikov, head of the Slovak Institute for Social Problems, noted, “Slovakia is part of the integration system created by NATO.” Therefore, the position of the foreign policy program during Slovakia’s presidency of the EU seems quite clear: The Slovak presidency will help strengthen the strategic partnership between the EU and the U.S.
…a few months before Slovakia assumed its new role in the EU, Alexey Ulyukaev, the minister of Economic Development of Russia, said that Moscow is expecting to improve relations with the EU during the period of the Slovak presidency.
… According to historian Yulia Tscherbakova, Slovakia “is of great importance to Moscow, in terms of the transit of Russian energy resources directly to the West.” This is true, but then again, Slovakia itself is almost 90 percent dependent on Russian supplies of oil, gas and nuclear fuel. …
Many Slovak businessmen, politicians and parliamentarians agree with Fico’s point of view – that sanctions are counterproductive for Russia, as well as for the entire European Union.
At the same time, the current president of Slovakia, center-right politician Andrej Kiska, is a firm supporter of maintaining the sanctions regime against Russia, considering that the Baltic countries and Ukraine are in need of protection by the “collective West” against the aggressive encroachments of…

Shootout raises fears over Russian ties to Hungary’s far right (11/27/2016) | @aqbyrne @FT
… What was less well known was the far-right militia’s multiple ties to Russian secret services. “We don’t believe this attack was a plot orchestrated by the Russian government,” said Peter Kreko, director of Political Capital, a Budapest think-tank. “But there are strong suspicions…
… “It’s not about classical espionage, but rather manipulation of the press, the public and the political system,” he said, arguing that groups like the MNA can be used to destabilise politics. “The Russians are using totally different weapons to create an alternative reality. …
… Russian support to militants had been known for years but the government’s strong political links with Moscow and fears of an economic backlash had… Hungary’s heavy reliance on Russian gas and the €10bn in Kremlin funding to build two Russian-designed nuclear reactors in Paks, by far the largest investment in Hungary in years. Prime minister Viktor Orban, who enjoys cordial relations with Russian president Vladimir Putin…
… Peter Szijjarto, Hungary’s foreign minister, said he would await a full report from authorities before making any formal diplomatic complaint. …

EU should recognise Romania as bulwark against Russian expansionism (12/8/2016) | @NTenzer (@CERAP_Paris) @EurActiv
… First of all, the new cabinet must reaffirm Romania’s willingness to remain faithful to NATO and the EU. …
We should not forget that Russia now encircles Romania with new puppet presidents and that Russian troops stationed in Crimea are just 250 kilometres from Romania’s Black Sea coast.
Secondly, the future cabinet must ensure that its economic program is ambitious enough to give hopes to Romanians suffering through low wages and pensions, without undermining the budgetary balance. …
Thirdly, the new cabinet should be truly committed to pushing forward European and liberal values. Any complacency on populism and illiberalism…
Fourthly… Romania should show a true concern to push for a sustainable reform of the EU in the context of Brexit and the threats to media freedoms and the values of tolerance and openness being aired in Hungary and Poland.
… Romania will chair the European Council’s rotating presidency in early 2019, exactly when the UK and the EU are expected to finish Brexit negotiations. …

Pro-Russian candidates win presidential votes in Bulgaria and Moldova (11/14/2016) | @RolandOliphant @telegraph

The new presidents of Bulgaria and Moldova are less pro-Russian than advertised (11/14/2016) | @economist
… Victoria Bucataru of the Foreign Policy Association, a Moldovan think-tank, suspects that Mr Dodon and Mr Plahotniuc had “a secret alliance” to stop Ms Sandu and her reform agenda. …
Mr Radev was supported by Bulgaria’s ethnic Turkish community, whose main party has close links both to domestic oligarchs and to Russian businesses. Bulgaria’s Socialists are supported by conservative pensioners and the Moscow-linked Orthodox Church. Yet in previous governments, the party assented to hosting American military bases in Bulgaria and embraced NATO membership.
Dimitar Bechev of Harvard University says the country “can have its cake and eat it too,” by remaining a loyal member of the EU and NATO while reaching out to Russia… “Until recently, I flew a Soviet jet fighter. I graduated from an American academy. But I am a Bulgarian general. My cause is Bulgaria.”
… But the reality is that politics in both countries is driven by domestic forces, most prominently oligarchs’ efforts to secure their financial interests. Their leaders are well versed in the art of playing the West and Russia against each other. …

us-policychanges-nationalsecurity-2

UK Vol.62 (Post-EUref Vol.8 – BREXIT AND BEYOND Vol.3)

Here are excerpts from BREXIT AND BEYOND – HOW THE UNITED KINGDOM MIGHT LEAVE THE EUROPEAN UNION (PDF; Nov 2016) | @UKandEU @PolStudiesAssoc.

CHAPTER THREE: BEYOND ARTICLE 50 – SHAPING THE FUTURE RELATIONSHIP
… the Article 50 notification should set out two categories of negotiating items: those to be included in the withdrawal agreement, and the proposed framework for future UK-EU relations, to be set out in a separate document underpinning both the withdrawal agreement and any eventual UK-EU treaty governing their relations in the longer term.
… An important distinction should be highlighted between the agreement on the future framework for relations between the UK and the EU and the withdrawal agreement: a framework may not be legally binding, while the withdrawal agreement will be. …
… whether the UK can somehow retain its access to the EU Single Market after Brexit, while curbing the freedom of movement of workers from other EU countries and drastically cutting (or eliminating) its EU ‘membership fee’. …it appears incompatible with preserving UK membership of the Single Market. …
…Annex 2… Probably the least risky economically would be for the UK to have a status similar to Norway, participating in much of the Single Market, perhaps with some new curbs on free movement of labour. … The pure ‘Norway model’ seems, already, to have been ruled out.
… The UK, a founding WTO member, but currently a member via EU membership, may need to reapply to join the WTO… a further, fundamental problem about dividing up the EU’s tariff quotas… …negotiate to take over a portion…of the EU quota, or add a new quota itself. …the EU’s allowances for farm subsidies…
… a ‘Canada model’ in which a new free trade arrangement…would likely mean limits on market access for UK services…
… EU foreign and security policy is made largely on an inter-governmental basis…

3.1 What does Brexit mean for laws in the UK?
EXISTING LAWS
…repealing the European Communities Act (ECA) 1972… Many EU laws have been transposed into UK law under the European Communities Act by the Westminster Parliament…
… much more EU law has entered into the UK order through ministerial statutory instruments… The repeal of their ‘parent’ act could see these measures themselves wiped out. …a clause ensuring those measures remain in force pending a decision to amend or repeal them at a later date. …enact into UK law EU Regulations which currently automatically enter UK law without any further action at national/subnational level, due to their ‘direct applicability’. …
…given the extent of the task of unpicking existing EU-influenced law, the UK courts are likely to continue to have regard to the rulings of the ECJ, as its decisions have influenced many areas of English case law.
…Articles 2-6 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU)… customs union, the functioning of the internal market, monetary policy within the Eurozone, conserving fish stocks and common commercial policy…
…agriculture, some of fisheries, environment and higher education and research. … If they are left to the devolved administrations, there would be a need for coordination mechanisms within the UK and provisions to maintain the single UK market.
…the monies previously coming from the EU to finance these policies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will have to be diverted to the devolved administrations. The principal items are agricultural support, cohesion funds, and research funds. …Barnett Formula, but…

FUTURE EU LEGISLATION
Any new deal that the UK signs with the rEU will have to develop a position on the extent to which the former continues to apply the latter’s rules and regulations …‘acquis communautaire’…

FULL AND ON-GOING LEGAL COMPLIANCE:
… This would imply that Parliament would continue to transpose relevant EU legislation into domestic law, and that British courts would continue to ensure that UK citizens could rely on relevant provisions in any cases they might bring. … The quid pro quo here is that the EU commits to consulting with EEA states as it formulates this legislation, although…it certainly does not amount to any voting rights. … However, it would turn the UK into a rule-taker and would have some complications in terms of areas of the acquis being linked to budgetary contribution costs.

EFFECTIVE, BUT NON-LEGAL COMPLIANCE:
…courts would only be bound by domestic law, rather than any international instrument. …imitation as flattery, in essence. The benefit of this would be that the UK retains the capacity for a high level of access to the EU (including the internal market), while keeping more formal independence and the freedom to choose not to apply certain provisions if it felt they were unacceptable. …

PARALLEL COMPLIANCE:
… Practically, the only change to current practice in the UK would be that the source of rules and regulations would be the relevant international organisation, rather than the EU. … Thus, the main areas will relate to technical and health standards, with security policy also falling roughly in this area too…

EXPLICIT NON-COMPLIANCE:
Finally… As a sovereign state, it would be well within its rights so to do, assuming it met its other international obligations, and there is no a priori need for the UK to accept any particular area of the acquis once it leaves. …the Leave campaign… both as a harking back to previous freedom of action and as a strategy for prospering in a globalising political economy… Rejection of existing policies and laws which derive from EU sources at a UK level may find resistance in devolved jurisdictions, where the political complexion of the incumbent government may place a higher value on, for example, environmental or social rights. This may generate pressures for greater devolution of competence in currently centralised areas (e.g. employment rights).

UK Vol.61 (Post-EUref Vol.7 – BREXIT AND BEYOND Vol.2)

Here are excerpts from BREXIT AND BEYOND – HOW THE UNITED KINGDOM MIGHT LEAVE THE EUROPEAN UNION (PDF; Nov 2016) | @UKandEU @PolStudiesAssoc.

brexitbeyond-annex1

CHAPTER TWO: INVOKING ARTICLE 50 TEU
2.1 Who gets to decide (whether) to trigger Article 50 TEU?
…the Government’s position that it can, through notification, trigger Article 50 negotiations without parliamentary assent on the basis that treaty negotiations fall within the Crown prerogative. Beyond general constitutional law doctrines about the relationship between Parliament and the executive, much…rests on the outcomes of these challenges, which have been brought together in an action to be heard by the High Court in October, with a possible leapfrog to the Supreme Court in December. … Beyond Government reporting on what it thinks fit, significant involvement of Parliament will be confined, it would appear, to repealing the European Communities Act 1972, under the Government’s plan for a ‘Great Repeal Bill’.
… Triggering Article 50 does not in itself have an impact on the legislation which brings EU law into effect within the legal orders of the UK – the European Communities Act 1972. Nor does it necessarily follow that EU-derived rights currently available in this UK legislation will be removed by Brexit. …
… A slightly stronger argument is that even without legislation, exit will result in British citizens losing certain rights granted by the European Communities Act. These include the right to vote and stand for the European Parliament, to secure grants from EU institutions and to apply to work in EU institutions. This is true, but…
… Possibly most persuasive may be the arguments raised by litigants from Northern Ireland, where there was a majority vote to remain from 55.8% of the electorate. In the Northern Ireland case there is an additional set of constitutional concerns, specific to the island of Ireland, which may support the need not just for the UK Parliament’s approval, but also that of the Stormont Assembly. …

2.2 Article 50 TEU: Many negotiations or one?
…@instituteforgov…there will have to be at least two negotiations as Article 50 talks only of ‘arrangements surrounding withdrawal’. … Article 50 goes only to those matters which would, otherwise, lead to a legal limbo on exit, and separate negotiations will be needed, possibly in parallel, for the UK’s future arrangements with the EU on matters such as trade, security, protection of the environment and transport. …these can be rolled into one. …any Article 50 arrangement is required to take account of the UK’s future relationship within the EU, and this is simply not possible if any exit agreement is confined to legal limbo issues.
The scope of Article 50 negotiations will, therefore, be one of the first issues to be formally engaged with after the handing in of the Article 50 notification by the UK Government. …
… First, an Article 50 agreement only requires a qualified majority in the Council. Trade and security agreements of the sort sought by the UK outside the Article 50 framework will almost certainly require a unanimous vote. …
Second… Article 50 negotiations have to be concluded within two years, unless the unanimous agreement of the other Member States can be secured to extend the negotiations…. there is a likelihood that these could take longer than two years. …

2.3 The minimum Article 50 TEU items of negotiation
ACQUIRED RIGHTS:
The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which binds both the EU and the UK, requires that when a treaty is dissolved, any rights acquired by virtue of it and which now have an independent existence continue to be protected. … Property rights, contracts and pension rights…are almost certainly protected. Similarly, employment or transnational contracts for the supply of goods and services would almost certainly have to be honoured. There is a belief that those granted permanent residence in another EU Member State would retain that status. …
TRANSITIONAL REGIME:
…both the UK and the EU will want to make sure that they are legally protected as the courts will look at what a prudent trader could have anticipated. … These include receipt of EU funds, pending applications for EU authorisations for products and processes, and protection of existing contracts to supply goods or services into the UK from outside the EU.
SHARED LIABILITIES AND ENTITLEMENTS:
…who is responsible for existing liabilities and who receives unallocated funds for projects or actors in the UK. …
TRANSFER OF REGULATORY AND POLICING RESPONSIBILITIES:
EU institutions have regulatory and policing functions over the UK, whether this be in the form of Europol files, or Commission authorisations in fields as diverse as competition law, genetically modified food or pharmaceuticals. …

2.4 Parliamentary Consent(s) and a second referendum at the end of Article 50 negotiations?
A statute will be needed at the end of the Article 50 negotiations – agreement or not – if only to stop EU law generating new rights, obligations and responsibilities after secession by virtue of the European Communities Act 1972. …Great Repeal Bill …Sewel Convention provides that the Westminster Parliament will not normally legislate on devolved matters without the devolved parliaments’ consent, and does not amount to a blanket prohibition. …a further stimulus to a redefinition of the relations between the nations of the UK.
… The European Union Act 2011 …section 4(1)(i) of the Act …a referendum must be held if the new treaty confers any power on any EU institution to impose a requirement or obligation on the UK. …

2.5 Can the triggering of Article 50 be revoked?
…given that the process is likely to take an extended period of time, the situation…might well change, necessitating a breaking off of the process before it can be concluded. …changes in government, major economic shocks, major diplomatic shocks and military aggression. …
MUTUAL CONSENT:
… Hence if the UK were to indicate that it was changing its mind, then it should find a broadly positive response from the rEU. …the working assumption would be that the UK would continue as a Member State on the terms of the status quo ante. In particular, the deal concluded by David Cameron in spring 2016 would not come into effect, as the European Council has now agreed that this has lapsed: specific re-approval would be needed for it enter into force. …
UNILATERAL REVOCATION BY THE REU:
Under both Article 50 and customary international law, this is not an option. …
UNILATERAL REVOCATION BY THE UK:
…one where the UK decides to abort Article 50 without seeking the approval of the rEU. If this is possible, then it changes the balance of bargaining power within the Article… Instead of choosing between taking a deal that might contain much that is unfavourable and leaving with no deal at all, the UK might be able to terminate Article 50 and revert to the prior terms of membership. …
The 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties offers some guidance on the matter. Articles 65-8 establish that a Member State is not only free to leave a treaty if it no longer wishes to be subject to it, but that until it finally leaves, it is also free to change its mind on the matter and retain its membership. …
… First, not all Member States of the EU are signatories to the Vienna Convention… the EU itself is not a signatory… However, the Vienna Convention itself is essentially a codification of customary international law…so a case would have to be made that the UK’s unilateral rights did not apply here. …
…no exit mechanism exists… Article 54 of the Vienna Convention states that once a Member State has made its notification to withdraw, it effectively cedes its rights to change its mind, especially since its initial decision will have been made in accordance with some domestic decision-making procedure – such as a referendum. …
…if the British Government revoked Article 50 in the face of a bad deal, and then shortly afterwards submitted a new Article 50 notification, in the hope of securing a better deal from the rEU with the clock reset. …highly politically damaging, with substantial reputational costs …use of both the EU treaties and the Vienna Convention… potentially lead to the United Nations playing a role in settling the dispute.