I agree that moving the parliament between two different places seems dumb. If it’s cheaper to remain in one place then they should do that.

As for corruption and misuse of funds, maybe that does happen. Maybe the solution though is to elect better politicians to run the EU, rather than leave the EU.

I’ve thought in the past that maybe the EU should have a directly elected president, in addition to EU citizens voting for European parliament members. This might allow for more democratic accountability of the EU. Someone might run for the presidency on a platform of stamping out misuse of EU funds.

Can I ask what specifically you think was corrupt/wasteful? As for unaccountability, we were able to vote for new members of the European parliament.

No, my reading is just fine actually. If you want to get mad about what I’ve said, well that’s your problem I guess.

Yeah I don’t think their family would be relevant in that case. If the next PM did start supporting Russia then I would criticise them for that decision, regardless of whether family connections influenced their decision or not.

Anyway. Like I say, we don’t seem to know whether Starmer’s wife even has Israeli citizenship. I definitely think it would be wrong to assume she does just because she’s Jewish.

But even if Starmer’s wife does have Israeli citizenship, that doesn’t necessarily make Starmer pro-Israel. He might be too pro-Israel, but a hypothetical Israeli wife wouldn’t necessarily make him pro-Israel.

OBS has a techy following though, rather than an audience of mainstream people who aren’t especially tech-savvy.

I suppose perhaps the best example of a successful open source social media platform is Bluesky. Some people on Lemmy don’t like Bluesky (and I don’t use Bluesky myself) but it’s getting at least some mainstream traction.

If Bluesky continues to grow then maybe a European open source social media platform could work. In fact maybe some European government or company could set up a Bluesky server.

I definitely want people to have control over their data. And I like open source platforms, which is why I’m using Lemmy. But I just think if we want a European social media platform that sees widespread adoption among normal people, then such a platform would probably have proprietary elements. Surely if it was completely open source then some company could come along, take the open source stuff, bolt on some proprietary novelties, and start grabbing market share.

Most people want to use a service which is big and popular and just works, and I don’t think they care about code licensing…

It would be cool if Europe could make a really successful, open source social media platform which most Europeans want to use, but if it was open source then I expect some company (maybe a foreign one) would take the code, bolt on some proprietary features, and start stealing users.

Realistically though, proprietary tech services tend to be more successful. Whether it’s Facebook, or Windows, or the most successful European tech service: Spotify.

I like open source, but realistically if we want a successful European social media platform, it would probably be largely proprietary.

Maybe Starmer is too pro-Israel, I’m not denying that bit. I just don’t think his wife’s nationality or religion is relevant. Just like I think it would be wrong to assume that Sadiq Khan favours Pakistan when he makes political decisions, just because he has Pakistani heritage.

Criticising Israel is obviously not antisemitic, but you seem to be assuming that Starmer’s wife is Israeli. And even if she was, that wouldn’t necessarily mean that Starmer shows favouritism towards Israel.

Why do you only call it racism when we’re talking about Muslims, but not when we’re talking about Jews? It’s either racism in both cases, or racism in neither case.

My understanding is that his wife is Jewish but that doesn’t mean she is Israeli. I think she’s just British. It’s like how not every Muslim is Asian; there are British Muslims.

It’s fair to criticise Starmer for his policies on Israel, obviously, and it’s fair to say he’s too pro-Israel if you think he is. But I don’t think his wife’s background necessarily determines Starmer’s views. Just like it would be wrong to assume that Sadiq Khan practices political favouritism towards Pakistan just because he has family from there.

Firstly I am not aware of his wife being Israeli. Apparently she is British. Secondly, even if hypothetically she has Israeli citizenship, that doesn’t necessarily determine that Keir would be pro-Israel. It also doesn’t determine that Keir would support the current government of Israel.

Yeah maybe there’s stuff I’m not aware of. I’ve seen some people on Lemmy point out that Bill Gates lobbied for the University of Oxford to not open source their Covid vaccine. I suppose that seems shitty on the face of it.

The recent elections in Canada and Australia were interesting. Right-wing MAGA-lite parties were leading the polls in each country, then both ended up losing to centre-left parties.

Who knows what will happen in the UK though. Like you say, it’s years until the next election, and lots can happen in that time.

I got downvoted on Lemmy the other day because I said that I prefer Bill Gates to Musk.

Maybe there are things about Gates I don’t know. Maybe he is actually quite an evil person; I don’t know. But he does at least spend billions of dollars helping vulnerable people, right? And Bill’s stances on global politics are far more sensible than those of Musk.

The centrists were booted out, yes. Philip Hammond, Kenneth Clarke, David Gauke, Justine Greening, Dominic Grieve, Rory Stewart, etc.

Anyway, I assume that by the next election, due to First Past the Post, there will be two main groups again. One will probably be a Trump-lite, pro-Brexit faction (either Reform or the Tories, or a pact of both maybe). The other will be a more liberal, pro-Europe faction (either Labour or Lib Dems, or a pact of them with maybe the Greens).

I dunno, I’m a political novice to be honest, I’m just guessing.

Fair enough. I just googled the meaning of “hegemony” and it said “leadership or dominance, especially by one state or social group over others”. So what I mean is that Europe doesn’t necessarily need to be dominant in the world, but it should be able to stand up for itself.

we literally need to get to a single-world-government as soon as possible to secure our survival as a species

I’ve thought about that a little bit. Perhaps such a government could help resolve disputes. It could perhaps prevent terrible wars like those in Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan. Maybe a single world government will happen at some point, in the distant future.

Maybe Europe doesn’t need to be a hegemony. Maybe instead Europe should just be a self-reliant world power, capable of standing up for itself against other large powers like the US, China, and Russia.