Bijan Parsia

Remember, the war with Iran is necessary because it’s unacceptable to have aggressive governments run by theocratic lunatics launching unprovoked attacks on the rest of the world

Note that in this poll the left-liberal bloc has an absolute majority (21+16+14=51%) and a huge lead over the right bloc. This would be a stunning defeat for ethnonationalist politics if it wasn't for the vanity of a party that won't do deals or consider changing the voting system

Can we extract the Reform nonsense from Labour? These immigration proposals are obscene, but the government can be forced to think again.

No administration with a moral core would have put these plans forward, let alone try to enact them without a vote. Once these proposals are in place, they will not be reversed. Make them think again iandunt.substack.com/p/can-we-ext...

if the leftists you follow are rightfully mad about the bombing of iran but silent about or supportive of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, you need to stop talking to them, listening to them, and keeping company with them. They're not allies. They're fascists in disguise.

Portrait of a man without a plan or a clue.

It’s never a good sign when you push propaganda on your parliamentary party and in writing. WTF.

As Maria Sobolewska and I first said in Brexitland, the legacy parties under FPP are like Tinkerbell - they need belief to survive. if people cease to believe they see the best and only options, they can die fast. Is this the moment Labour’s Tinkerbell dies?

Again exactly. Humans can survive a week or so without food, but die in three days without water. This belongs in public ownership.

This is insane. Insiders profiting off of knowledge about the military is not just insider trading, it's also a threat to national security because our adversaries can certainly monitor these markets!

This.

Mahmood’s move to make asylum temporary ‘may undermine refugee convention’ Law Society says home secretary’s review of refugee status after 30 months is in tension with UK’s legal obligations

Law Society being a bit cautious here, since obviously it is in conflict with what the UK agreed to. I like that the Guardian is making full use of Mahmood's self-sabotaging sartorial choices

This is nothing. Just send Mahmood out again to announce some more anti-refugee policies and you can easily find your way to fifth place.

🚨 It looks like the UK government is gearing up to upend copyright law in favour of AI companies, legalising the theft of their work.

This is despite creatives' huge protests, and despite previous proposals being roundly rejected by the public.

Please spread the word.

🧵 1/4

Honestly, it just bugs me that people are allowed to spout weird ass bullshit. I mean they should be so allowed, but it bugs me.

Just constantly stealing Anil’s phrasing “it’s designed to reflect your priors in someone else’s voice” is a line that might actually persuade people I work with.

There’s lots significant here - not just the Greens in second place. Reform falling back, the combined right bloc vote being just 39%. British politics in a state of flux. Is it time for Labour MPs to act?

It will be interesting to see the government’s legal advice. Hard to see what the limiting principle would be given Gulf War II style “preventative war” doctrine. Can the UK help open the strait of Hormuz? Help defeat the regime directly on the fear of terror responses?

Since the results of the Gorton and Denton by-election, we have witnessed a barrage of smears against Muslim people in the UK.

Voting is a fundamental right. Voting according to political interests is entirely ordinary and is how our democratic system is set up.

I’m sorry, I know this sounds like a smart take but saying Ali Khamenei was “the highest religious authority in Shia Islam” means you don’t really know what you’re talking about here either

Yikes.

I think the UK attacking Iranian missile sites is probably fine. They have a casus belli. Maybe that’s enough?

I guess the question is to what degree does failure of US’s jus ad bellum taint the UK’s moves here?

What duty, if any, does the UK have to resist engagement in the war?

If the US uses UK bases for infrastructure attacks, what’s the UK culpability?

But it still seems to leave so many opportunities for an aggressor to co opt all the time.

Doesn’t giving US access to the UK air bases stretch beyond “helping” (or even defending) UK citizens?

Maybe fungibility isn’t strong here eg you could collaborate with an aggressor force for defensive operations even though it net helped the aggression.

BREAKING: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has barred the U.S. from using Spanish military bases for attacks on Iran.

Refugee status becomes temporary in asylum shake-up Adults and accompanied children claiming asylum will only receive refugee status for 30 months under the changes.

Abysmal, immoral, cruel, small hearted, tiny minded, ineffective, undemocratic, and just generally utterly indecent. What a bitter godforesaken disappointment these people are.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Now, as it happens I think the various factions around MAGA are wrong in believing that there are no strategic or domestic constraints on the projection of American power. But it will take time for those dynamics to catch up with Trump in ways that won't help the IRGC much now.

Analysis needs to adapt to a US administration that believes the constitutional and geopolitical guardrails on American power are gone and doesn't care what anyone things about it

I spent 6 years of my life writing a PhD about UK policy in Persian Gulf in the 1960s, including the role of the Anglo-American alliance.
Key to the Persian Gulf policy of both countries: AVOID a power vacuum under any circumstances &keep Iran&Saudi Arabia from attacking the smaller Gulf States.

The Guardian has a strategic partnership with OpenAI so nothing it says about AI can be trusted

from a standpoint epistemological view you have to take this view particularly seriously