Yearbook 2012
UK. The issue of Britain's relations with the EU created
tensions within the government coalition between the
Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats. Prime Minister
David Cameron's veto of EU plans for a fiscal pact at the
end of 2011 and increasingly loud opposition to EU
membership from parts of the Conservative Party fueled
speculation that Britain was about to leave the Union. As a
remission of the EU-critical faction within his party,
Cameron suggested that a referendum on the EU might be held
in 2015. A review would also be made of whether the British
could regain some of the EU's powers. The government also
pushed for a freeze on appropriations for the EU's long-term
budget for 2014-21. Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister and
leader of the EU-friendly Liberal Democrats,
 According
to countryaah, the local elections held around the UK on May 3 became a
setback for the ruling parties, and especially the Liberal
Democrats. In England and Wales, Labor performed strongly,
while the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) had great success
in Scotland. Great attention was paid to the mayor's
election in London, where Conservative Party Boris Johnson
managed to defeat Labor's Living Living by a small margin.
In the elections to the GLA municipal assembly, however,
Labor won a clear majority.
In 2012, Queen Elizabeth II was celebrated for 60 years
on the throne. It culminated with a series of events in
London in early June. All Brits got an extra holiday in
connection with the diamond anniversary.
In June, the Supreme Court ruled that WikiLeak's founder
Julian Assange would be extradited to Sweden, where he was
suspected of sexual abuse. However, Assange, who was free
from bail, departed and took refuge in the Ecuador Embassy
in London where he sought political asylum on the grounds
that he feared that Sweden would extradite him to the United
States. However, he remained at the embassy guarded by
police. Outside the embassy building, many of Assange's
supporters gathered to mark his support for him. On August
16, Assange was granted political asylum in Ecuador, but he
was still unable to leave the embassy.
From July 27 to August 12, London hosted the Olympic
Games. The host country won 29 gold medals and finished
third in the medal league, after the USA and China. London
Mayor Boris Johnson kept a high profile during the Olympics.
His high popularity figures fueled speculation that he was
aiming to take over Cameron's party leadership post.
In October, Prime Minister Cameron and Scotland's Prime
Minister Alex Salmond agreed that a referendum on Scottish
independence would be held in 2014. Salmond and his party
SNP had wanted voters to take a stand for another option -
on increased self-government for Scotland. According to
opinion polls, just over one-third of Scots were fully
independent, while a majority wanted the Scottish Board to
have greater powers. Cameron and the government, which
opposed Scottish independence, had wanted an earlier
election date because they thought it would benefit their
cause.
Media issues received a lot of attention during the year.
This was very much the case with the investigation of print
media conducted by Judge Brian Leveson on behalf of Prime
Minister Cameron. The investigation began after revelations
that the Sunday newspaper News of the World, owned by Rupert
Murdoch's media group News Corporation, had hacked into
computers and cell phones belonging to murder victims,
relatives of soldiers who had fallen in Iraq or Afghanistan
and a large number of celebrities. There were also
suspicions that several senior politicians were affected.
Other newspapers such as The Sun and The Mirror were also
suspected of illegally intercepting phones. Newspapers were
also suspected of having bought information from police and
others.
Among those heard by Judge Leveson in the spring were
David Cameron and two of his representatives as Prime
Minister, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, as well as Rupert
Murdoch and his son James. For Cameron, the issue was
sensitive because his former communications manager Andy
Coulson and his friend Rebekah Brooks both held leading
positions in Murdoch's tabloid newspapers during the
interception. Great attention was paid to SMS correspondence
between Cameron and Brooks in 2009, when The Sun magazine,
also owned by the Murdoch Group, switched to supporting the
Conservative party instead of Labor. Prosecutions were filed
in the spring against, among others, Coulson, Brooks, her
husband Charles Brooks and several employees within the
Murdoch Group.
When Leveson presented his final report in November, he
sharply criticized the press for all ethical violations. He
also felt that too close ties existed between parts of the
press and leading politicians from all the major parties. He
suggested that a new press-ethical system be legislated.
Both the Conservative Party and the press opposed
legislation. Both Labor and the Liberal Democrats advocated
implementing Leveson's proposal in its entirety. The latter
was considered to upset the contradictions within the
government.
Several police investigations were ongoing at the same
time. According to the police, perhaps over a thousand
people, possibly even more, had their phones hacked.
The BBC's media company also happened in blustery weather
when it was revealed in the autumn that Jimmy Savile, an
entertainment profile with a 40-year TV career, was
suspected of exploiting his position and sexually assaulting
hundreds of children. However, Savile, who was honored in
1990 for his charity work, had died in November 2011. BBC
executives were now accused of stopping a program on
suspicion against Savile for instead broadcasting a program
in which he was praised. The question was whether other
people in the BBC knew of Savile's abuse, and if they did,
why they had not intervened. Later in the fall, another
program was broadcast in which a conservative politician was
incorrectly identified as a pedophile. This led to the
resignation of the BBC's Director General George Entwistle
in November.
The European Court of Justice ruled in April that five
people, including Egyptian-born Islamic preacher Sheikh Abu
Hamza, could be deported to the United States for trial of
terrorist offenses. Abu Hamza, who, among other things, was
charged with having been involved in organizing a terrorist
camp in Oregon, appealed the decision, but was denied. All
five flew to the United States in October.
Scotland and Wales
England has always been the dominant of the three areas
of the island. From the 1960s, the demand for greater
self-government in Scotland and Wales developed. In Wales,
however, the claim was weaker as so many English miners had
settled in the region.
The crisis hit the Scottish working class hard, with
extensive unemployment and the closure of entire industrial
areas. The industry was traditionally dominated by the metal
industry - especially the shipbuilding industry. The petty
bourgeoisie also noticed that Scotland was lagging behind.
«Nationalist» currents emerged, especially in the context of
oil extraction in the North Sea, which led to some economic
growth and the creation of new jobs.
It was not a question of traditional nationalism,
but of a redistribution of power so that the periphery
gained greater autonomy. It was on such a program that the
Scottish Nationalist Party won the election in 1974. An
attempt to divide Labor and build a Scottish Labor Party, on
the other hand, failed.
At the first referendum in 1979 on increased
self-government, the proposal declined, but it was adopted
by the vote in 1997, and the two local parliaments have now
been given extended powers.
Working Parties
The political system in the United Kingdom is based on
elections in individual circles. In practice, it puts very
high barriers to political influence. For example, the
Liberal Party has. about 20% support among voters, but has
only approx. 2% of seats in parliament. Smaller groups have
no chance of making a parliamentary claim at all. Therefore,
the two major parties have traditionally been characterized
by coalitions. Although the contradictions within both Labor
and the Tory Party are greater than between similar parties
in other countries, the parties are held together by a
recognition that divisiveness is tantamount to
powerlessness.
Labor is different from other social democratic parties
in Europe. We can distinguish between three different levels
in the party, or three different "Labor parties", which have
little to do with each other.
The basis is the local party divisions - Constituency
Labor Parties (CLPs) - with direct membership. Officially,
they have over 600,000 members, but the real number is far
lower, and probably less than 10% of members are active. The
party congress is composed of delegates from CLPs and from
the trade unions that are part of Labor. They had earlier
voting numbers according to their membership numbers, giving
the delegates from a few large federations an automatic
majority. In connection with Tony Blair's takeover of the
lot, this system was abolished. Congress elects a main board
- the National Executive Council (NEC) - and establishes the
electoral program.
The party chairman and the prime ministerial candidate,
on the other hand, are directly appointed by the
parliamentary group - Parliamentary Labor Party (PLP). The
PLP functions completely independently and does not take
much notice of the decisions of the NEC or of Congress. In
the 70s, the NEC was dominated by the party's left wing and
the PLP by the right wing.
The Labor Party is often perceived as identical to the
political labor movement. The only political condition for
membership is that you cannot be a member of a party that is
running for election against Labor. Due. the electoral
system, there are not many political small groups that find
it interesting to stand for election, and Labor therefore
holds a wide variety of organized small groups - most
Trotskyists (see Entrism).
In the mid-1990s, the former chairman of the British coal
miners, Arthur Scargill, tried to launch a new labor party.
But despite Labour's violent right turn through the '80s
and' 90s, the new party has few opportunities to break
through - especially because of the electoral system.
Among the many organized Trotskyist small groups is the
Socialist Workers Party (SWP) with approx. 4,000
members clearly the largest. The SWP has achieved some
positions among the lower tiers of some unions, was in the
70s led in the construction of the Anti Nazi League and
played a central role in the anti-poll tax
movement in the early 90s. The party is very strongly
organized, which has made it possible to survive the crisis
of the other left, but at the same time its strong
dogmatism has been an obstacle to greater
dissemination. SWP is the mother party of the
International Socialism movement, to which also the
Danish International Socialists belong.
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