Lessons from the Emotivate Project for Increasing Take-Up of Big Society and Responsible Capitalism Initiatives

2013 ◽  
pp. 208-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Bishop
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
The Other ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Big Society ◽  
Cooperative Movement ◽  
The Uk ◽  
State Socialist ◽  
Society Project

Cooperation and respect for different opinions have been considered prime didactic goals in environmental projects which encourage citizen participation (Tsevreni, 2011). Through the realisation of the UK Government’s Big Society project, families, individuals, charities, and communities can come together to solve problems through galvanising, catalysing, prompting, encouraging, and agitating for community engagement and social renewal (Cameron, 2009). Environmental activism has long been touted as a necessary addition to the education system (Sanera & Shaw, 1999), and this chapter shows how the Big Society was made a reality before Conservative Party Leader David Cameron first presented it. However, as it usual in British politics, despite being in keeping with the aspirations of the other parties, partisanism is holding it back. For instance the Labour Party believes in “joining the forces of cooperation with competition” yet opposes the Big Society using superficial reasoning. Equally, the Co-operative Party, which is affiliated to Labour, appear more interested in attacking the Conservatives past record on cooperativism than engaging with them to further the cooperative movement. On its own, this shows that the Big Society, where people take action outside of government is needed, especially when one considers that Labour Governments rarely get anti-statist cooperative measures through without the support of other parties, such as the Conservatives in the case of the Cooperative Trust Schools in England. The Big Society therefore needs to be market-led on the basis of responsible capitalism rather than government-led such as via state socialist or state capitalism.

The Big Society in China: A Failed Experiment

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Lei ◽  
Alan Walker
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Economic Restructuring ◽  
State Ownership ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Big Society ◽  
Coalition Governments ◽  
Liberal Ideology ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Society Project

From 1988 the Chinese Government pursued a policy of ‘small government, big society’. The policy was determined at the highest level and, after a pilot study in Hainan Province, was implemented vigorously in a series of political reforms. It was the chief political dimension of the economic restructuring which led from state ownership of enterprises to the so-called socialist market. Like its economic counterpart, it reflected China's adoption of neo-liberal ideology. The aims were to encourage both civil society and the private market to provide social welfare and, thereby, to restrict demands on public expenditure. However, it failed to realise these goals and was recently replaced by a more state oriented approach. The article discusses the Chinese big society project and, specifically, examines why it was introduced, what it consisted of, its impact on social welfare, the criticisms it attracted and its recent changes in nature. The article concludes by considering some possible lessons for the UK Coalition Governments’ big society project and any similar initiatives attempted in other countries.

scholarly journals Assessing the Performance of UK Opposition Leaders: Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘Straight Talking, Honest Politics’

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 15-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Diamond
Keyword(s):  
Political Leadership ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
The Other ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Interim Assessment ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Uk

This article contributes to a burgeoning literature on political leadership, offering an interim assessment of Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure as leader of the UK Labour party. At the time of writing, the candidate of the party’s Left had been leader for a mere seven months. Media commentators and pundits have been critical of Corbyn’s platform and performance, gleefully predicting his imminent demise. On the other hand, the ‘Corbynistas’ who swelled Labour’s ranks in the aftermath of the 2015 defeat have remained steadfast and committed supporters. Their hope is not only that Labour will win the next election, but that Corbyn can recast the landscape of British politics by challenging the economic and political establishment which has assented to the growth of inequality and austerity.

UK Parties Abroad and Expatriate Voters: The Brexit Backlash

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 856-873
Author(s):  
Susan Collard ◽  
Paul Webb
Keyword(s):  
Online Survey ◽  
Voting Rights ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Eu Countries ◽  
Liberal Democrats ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Organisational Structures ◽  
The Uk

Abstract Recent developments in British politics have foregrounded two issues of particular importance to Britons living overseas: their voting rights in the UK and Brexit. In light of this, the number of British expatriates registering to vote has risen sharply and provided an incentive to develop UK parties abroad. We, therefore, set out the history and organisational structures of the major British parties abroad, and report the results of a unique online survey of British expatriate citizens, which tests whether ‘Votes for Life’ and Brexit have significantly impacted on their political preferences. We find that latter has done so, but the former has not. In view of this, the historically embedded expectations of a general expatriate preference for the Conservative Party no longer apply to those based in EU countries. In the wake of Brexit, this group appears to have swung decisively against the party and turned towards Labour and the Liberal Democrats. This suggests that the likelihood of the current Conservative administration introducing legislation to extend expatriate Britons’ voting rights, as pledged in the Queen’s Speech of December 2019, is remote, raising existential questions for the future of UK parties abroad.

scholarly journals From ‘Brexhaustion’ to ‘Covidiots’: the UK United Kingdom and the Populist Future

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell Foster ◽  
Matthew Feldman
Keyword(s):  
Conservative Party ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Far Right ◽  
New Politics ◽  
The People ◽  
Political Events ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Right

Boris Johnson’s electoral victory and the 2020 culmination of Brexit are accelerating Britain’s shift towards the right and towards open criticism of technocracy in the UK and EU. Since 2016 the UK’s political atmosphere has polarised into hostile extremes. The continuation of this toxicity beyond Brexit, the dominance of nationalist narratives as Britain’s new ‘politics of everything’ (Valluvan 2019). While the Conservative Party remains traditionally centre-right and the Brexit Party has ceased to be relevant, the UK continues to witness the growth of the far right and what is called here the ‘Radical Right’, which have been accelerating since 2016, rapidly gaining influence (Norris and Inglehart 2019: 443-472), and ‘mainstreaming’ (Miller-Idriss 2017) in the Conservative majority elected in December 2019. The past four years have seen growing British contempt for technocracy in London and Brussels, while the Leave vote has been represented as a “Will of the People” antithetical to a Remain/Revoke/Second Referendum position, often portrayed as an anti-democratic scheme by “the elite” to frustrate the will of “the people”. This ‘us and them’ populist narrative is deepening as the UK’s volatile political environment moves away from the political procedures and economic values by which the UK has operated since 1945. Since early 2020, this narrative has been significantly accelerated by Covid-19 countermeasures, with anti-EU parties and narratives on the left and right becoming anti-lockdown or anti-vaccine parties and narratives. This paper approaches the radical right as emblematic of British politics’ shift from centrism towards polarised factions defined not by party but by support or contempt for technical governance. In this paper we propose a new explanatory basis for studying the populist radical right not as a temporary phenomenon in response to specific political events and conditions, but as a fluid, amorphous, and heterogeneous set of groups, parties, and narratives whose strategies, appeal, and narratives make them extremely adaptable, and significant as a force with substantial influence of politics into the future.

British General Elections Since 1964

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Denver ◽  
Mark Garnett
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Electoral Campaigns ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
General Elections ◽  
Eu Referendum ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Eu

This book provides a concise account of general elections during more than five tumultuous decades in British politics. Beginning in 1964, when partisan allegiances in the UK were relatively stable, it ends in 2019 when the volatility of voters was illustrated by the success of Conservative Party candidates in constituencies which had previously been ‘safe’ for Labour. The book describes the changing influences on voting behaviour—from the early 1960s, when allegiances were largely based on social class, to the 2020s when factors such as impressions of party leaders and new media outlets such as Facebook seem far more important. The electoral contests of these years produced dramatic results, ranging from Labour’s landslide victory in 1997 to the three closely fought battles of 2010, 2015, and 2017. These elections have taken place against a background of concern arising from the low turnout of voters, reaching its nadir in 2001 when less than 60 per cent of the electorate participated. Yet, in recent years, competition for the support of volatile voters has been complicated by issues like devolution to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland—not to mention the question of EU membership, which cut across long-established party lines and has helped to raise political passions to unprecedented levels. Apart from its analysis of electoral campaigns and outcomes, the book describes the most relevant developments between elections (including the EU referendum of 2016) which help to explain the dilemmas facing the system of liberal democracy in contemporary Britain.

The Financial Settlement

2020 ◽  
pp. 131-147
Author(s):  
Michele Chang
Keyword(s):  
Conservative Party ◽  
The Other ◽  
New Era ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Financial Framework ◽  
The One ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Financial Settlement ◽  
The Eu

This chapter explores the provisions of the Withdrawal Agreement on the financial settlement — the money the UK shall pay to the EU in connection to its departure. The financial settlement for the withdrawal of the UK from the EU posed numerous challenges to both parties. For the UK, internal divisions in the ruling Conservative party made it difficult to develop a coherent position. On the one hand, Brexit hardliners saw continued contributions to the EU budget after Brexit as a betrayal of the referendum result. On the other hand, the so-called Remainers favoured maintaining close relations with the EU and paying to ensure access to its markets and various programmes. For the EU, Brexit threatened the budgetary agreement that had been carefully negotiated in the context of the 2014–2020 multi-annual financial framework. Moreover, the exit of the UK from the EU ushers in a new era. Because the UK was, despite its rebates, one of the largest net contributors to the EU budget, Brexit could impair the EU’s ability to finance some of its traditional programmes or to expand into new areas.

THE KENYAN ASIANS, BRITISH POLITICS, AND THE COMMONWEALTH IMMIGRANTS ACT, 1968

1999 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 809-834 ◽  
Author(s):  
RANDALL HANSEN
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
British Politics ◽  
British Government ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Right ◽  
Social Conservatism

The article examines the 1966–70 Labour government's decision to withdraw the right of entry from Asians with British passports who were driven out of Kenya by its ‘Africanization’ policies. It examines the decision within the context of three issues: first, the existence and status of a pledge, allegedly made by Macmillan's last Conservative government, that the Asians' right to enter the UK would be respected; second, a decline in both major parties' commitment to the Commonwealth; and, third, competing ideological strains within the Labour party. The article concentrates on the first of these issues, focusing on an as-yet-unresolved debate between Duncan Sandys and Iain Macleod, both Conservative Colonial Secretaries. Macleod argued that a solemn pledge had been given to the Asians, while Sandys and the Conservative party adamantly denied the claim. In the light of new archival evidence, the article argues that the Asians' exemption from immigration controls, which had been applied to the whole of the Commonwealth, did not result from an explicit commitment by the British government; it was rather the unintended result of the mechanism chosen to restrict Commonwealth immigration in 1962. It was a consequence, however, that was recognized by civil servants at the time of the passage of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act in 1962, and accepted by key figures in the British cabinet, including Duncan Sandys himself. The position taken by Sandys and the majority of the Conservative party in 1968 was, behind the safety of the Official Secrets Act, a betrayal of commitments made and pledges given only a few years earlier. The article concludes by suggesting that the Kenyan Asians' crisis represented both a shift, in the two parties, away from previous commitments to the Commonwealth and, in the Labour party, the triumph of James Callaghan's strand of Labour ideology – nationalist, anti-intellectual, indifferent to arguments about international law and obligation, and firmly in touch with the social conservatism of middle- and working-class England.

From the “Judicialization of Politics” to the “Politicization of Justice” in the UK and Switzerland

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-135
Author(s):  
Lucia Della Torre
Keyword(s):  
General Rule ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Specific Field ◽  
Widespread Phenomenon ◽  
Judicialization Of Politics ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Migration Law

Not very long ago, scholars saw it fit to name a new and quite widespread phenomenon they had observed developing over the years as the “judicialization” of politics, meaning by it the expanding control of the judiciary at the expenses of the other powers of the State. Things seem yet to have begun to change, especially in Migration Law. Generally quite a marginal branch of the State's corpus iuris, this latter has already lent itself to different forms of experimentations which then, spilling over into other legislative disciplines, end up by becoming the new general rule. The new interaction between the judiciary and the executive in this specific field as it is unfolding in such countries as the UK and Switzerland may prove to be yet another example of these dynamics.

UK prime minister will likely remain in power for now

2022 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
Consumer Confidence ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Net Zero ◽  
The Eu

Significance As many as a dozen lockdown parties are now alleged to have been held at Downing Street, significantly damaging Johnson’s support among the public and his Conservative Party. His position as party leader and prime minister is gravely threatened. Impacts Johnson’s domestic troubles, coupled with rising economic concerns, increase the chance of an agreement with the EU over Northern Ireland. Disillusionment with Johnson, opposition to net-zero and culture wars open the door for Nigel Farage’s Reform Party to revive its appeal. Rising inflation threatens to undermine consumer confidence and slow the economic recovery over the coming year.

Ruth Davidson's Conservatives: The Scottish Tory Party, 2011-19

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Retrospective Study ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Point Of No Return ◽  
Lgbt Politics ◽  
The Uk

Examines the startling revival of the Scottish Conservative Party under Ruth Davidson’s leadership: A very timely retrospective study of the Scottish Conservative Party's revival under Ruth Davidson's leadership (November 2011–August 2019). Analyses the Scottish Conservative Party under Ruth Davidson’s in the context of gender and LGBT politics; its relationships with the SNP, Northern Ireland, the Scottish media and the UK Tory Party; and its use of Scottish national identity. Helps inform Scottish political and academic discourse ahead of the 2021 Holyrood elections. When Ruth Davidson was elected leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party in 2011, it was considered something of a joke: in electoral decline for decades, politically irrelevant and seemingly past the point of no return. But by 2017, ‘Ruth Davidson’s Conservatives’ had become Scotland’s second party at Holyrood and Westminster, and its leader spoken of as a future leader of the UK Conservative Party, if not the next Scottish First Minister. Then, in August 2019, Ruth Davidson resigned.

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