Anyone else feeling politically homeless and disillusioned with UK politics?

[Twister11]

Is anyone else finding the current political situation in the UK quite depressing? I used to be an active Labour supporter and I was very keen on the idea of a Labour government. But the last two years have completely taken away all my enthusiasm. The latest scandal with Keir Starmer in the Commons today is absolutely the last straw for me. I know no party or government is without its flaws but this feels beyond the pale. I don’t know how to vote in the locals. I guess maybe green although I don’t like the local candidates or some of their positions. Just feel politically homeless and disillusioned and a little scared for the future because nobody seems to be able to run the country in a decent way. Thanks for reading my vent if you’ve got this far.

Well yes...that's how the law in this country works. We aren't a utopian society unfortunately. Those rights don't come from an international convention as we don't have direct effect for the ECHR in the UK. They come from domestic law which is made by Parliament amd which puts into effect the ECHR and which obviously can repeal its provisions.

There's no such thing as an "inalienable right" just as, as we are discovering, there's no such thing really as international law if a country doesn't want to follow it. How would you enforce those rights?

@FernandoSor

Without the Equality Act and EHCR signatory status we have no human rights - the bundling up of all previous rights legislation into a single act means that they can be removed in one fell swoop by a parliament intent on doing so.

But a UK government can withdraw us from the EA and EHCR just as easily as they could remove the UK's own equivalent Act so I don't see a difference.

I once liked the Greens and voted for them in local elections a couple of decades ago. Unfortunately, they won enough seats to have influence on our "hung" local council and are imposing insane anti-car policies on our local towns and city, such as pedestrianising the entire one way system which causes gridlock in the only alternative routes through housing estates, lots of new pedestrian traffic lights meaning traffic is now stop/start throughout the city with huge tailbacks of hundreds of cars to allow the odd pedestrian to cross the road without waiting more than a minute for the pelican lights to change in their favour. Lots of roads made "access only" to turn them into cycle lanes (than cyclists never use). Latest is to close down the two central car parks. The town/city centres are already ghost towns because they've alienated car drivers who now just go to the retail parks and out of town supermarkets, but they've still not finished their campaign and plan to do even more damage by closing down more roads! Utterly insane. I'd never vote for them again.

I honestly don’t care about the EHCR. I do however very much care about the EA and HRA, which currently are the only statutes that codify our rights.

I very much disagree that humans don’t have inalienable rights derived from natural law. I’m with Thomas Aquinas, Kant, Hobbes, and Paine on that one. And indeed the US founding fathers and the signatories to the UDHR agree.

Well quite. This is the downside of not having a proper constitution - the legislation that codifies rights is just ordinary legislation that can be repealed or amended at will.

None of them get my vote and I would rather abstain than vote Green.

The Green Party are anti-semitic, have been for years and have done nothing about it.
As for their policies, they have abandoned protecting the environment in favour of hard left radical socialism. In 2026, analysts found that the Green Party’s messaging on "Climate Change" and "Net Zero" has plummeted. They now spend more time talking about wealth taxes and drug legalisation than they do about carbon emissions Report by Climate Outreach
Open Borders: Free housing for all comers paid for by our taxes..
War on Renters: Abolishing landlords = zero rented housing supply, lack of mobility to move for jobs.
Land Value Tax: A forever-tax on your garden that could force you out of your family home.
Drug Crisis: Legalizing Class A drugs.
Pension Raid: Scrapping tax breaks for your retirement.
Wealth tax: Driving away investment in the UK
Unilateral nuclear disarmament: Scrapping our nuclear deterrent while tyrants and dictators keep theirs.
Banning nuclear power before we have sufficient renewables to replace them: Blackouts and higher energy bills.
It’s a recipe for personal impoverishment and national bankruptcy.

We have similar..but it's a lib dem council..utter nightmare

That is nonsense, we do have a constitution.
“The main disadvantage of an uncodified constitution is that it is harder to understand. Another is that it is easier to amend than in countries with codified constitutions with elaborate amendment procedures. But this flexibility can also be seen as an advantage: it has enabled the removal of hereditary peers from the House of Lords, introduction of the Human Rights Act, devolution to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and creation of the Supreme Court.
Some argue that we should have a codified constitution. But the difficulties of agreeing a codified constitution should not be underestimated and the democratic benefits of a codified constitution should not be exaggerated.”
This explains it in simple terms
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/social-historical-sciences/constitution-unit/constitution-unit-publications/constitution-unit-explainers/what-uk-constitution

In fact, it is exactly the kind of stuff someone like Farage would propose to make us sound more American, like a written constitution.
We, England, and the rest of Great Britain and more widely the United Kingdom have a complex history of law and rights and values. We actually make new citizens sit a test now which explains it rather well. Sometimes I think every adult voting should bother sitting this test.

Oh well if we're taking about the philosophy of inalienable rights, then of course humans have inalienable rights .......

until such time as one lot of people are going to die unless another lot of people have their "inalienable rights" removed and then all the gloves come off.

Human Rights are context based, just look at the U.S., in spite of its legally binding constitution.

Also as far as I remember there is some technicality surrounding the Good Friday Agreement 1998 which means we cannot easily leave the European Convention on Human Rights anyway and it is more bluffing from Reform.

@Eyoperpublismoney Reform think they're going to see economic growth and major savings in public spending, eg benefit bill and environment spending. We've heard it all before. How will they magic up economic growth? Seems very unlikely.

Most Jews despise him.

I never claimed we didn't have a constitution. We have an unwritten constitution, which is worth as much as the paper it is not written on.

Ok but that's not the point I'm making. How would you realistically enforce those rights? Because they certainly don't apply to women in Afghanistan for example. What you are referring to is what Western political philosophers have suggested are certain human rights applicable at a particular time in history (looking at which philosophers you cite ). But they aren't considered "human rights" world wide of course. And there's no world wide court that can enforce them.

No, the constitution is not unwritten, it is just not written in 1 place. Read the link I sent you explaining it in simple terms by UCL.
Our constitution written across different legislation and common law etc is more flexible and adaptable than the US constitution. Hence they are stuck with gun rights etc they cannot get rid off although outdated. That was the point the other poster was making.
The whole point is our constitution is adapted and amended by acts of Parliament which keeps it more up to date and keep it flexible. Rather than a threat to democracy/putting us at risk of autocracy, many believe the opposite to be the case.

In any event, we are more like the French anyway than the US. Have always been. Just because the US has economic and political dominance and now via media including social media too and huge influence on the UK, does not make us aligned ideologically or even legally. Our histories differ massively.

I don't think thats true actually. I don't think there's a requirement to be in the ECHR to prevent the IRA bombing tbe UK mainland.

Agree.

People should not just ask about their individual rights or civil liberties. They absolutely need to consider their civic duty as well and that seems forgotten these days. The whole history of England is based on noblesse oblige and then the welfare state, but none of it works if people do not feel a moral obligation of their own duty to society and their community.

It's making me more and more labour tbh. The press obviously wants to get rid of KS. Teh fact that they are owned by the obvious seems to be playing a big part. He is exactly who we need I feel. Just quietly getting the job done and delivering on the election promises while keeping us out of a war. A true diplomat

So what you are saying is that the more KS is exposed as incompetent with poor judgement and a desire to appoint his mates to plum roles the more you like him?