Business Insider: Here's what it would take for Theresa May's majority to collapse

One Tory MP has become a deputy speaker, alongside two Labour MPs, depriving their respective parties of their votes. The Speaker of the House, John Bercow, also does not vote.

The seven Sinn Fein MPs who were voted in do not take their seats in Westminster by convention, as they refuse to swear an oath to the Queen due to their staunch republican beliefs.

This makes the task for the minority government slightly easier, as Sinn Fein would almost certainly voted against the Tories on a number of issues. [...]

Between 1992 and 1997 the Tory government under John Major suffered a net loss of eight seats through by-elections. This would be enough to give opposition parties a majority if replicated during this parliament.

In four out of the 19 parliaments since the Second World War governing parties have lost seven or more seats. In the period from 1966 to 1970 the Labour government had a net loss of 15 seats due to 20 sitting MPs dying, although this is extremely unlikely to happen this time around.

read the article 

Jacobin Magazine: Between Capital and Volk

Today, even the Union recognizes Germany as a “country of immigration.” Its right wing has been weakened and outright reactionary positions like an ethnic definition of German identity marginalized. Women are no longer seen as the natural servants of their husbands, and the rights of gays and lesbians to life partnerships and parenthood are legally enshrined. The modernization of the Union’s immigration, gender, and family policies is primarily strategic: particularly since Angela Merkel become party leader in 2000, the party has increasingly sought to attract new voters from the political center, rather than the right.[...]

Generally speaking, a structural crisis can have two possible outcomes: either the ruling classes make adjustments to the prevailing order that allows it to survive, or the political paradigm undergoes a more fundamental shift. Although a paradigm shift in European politics seemed possible for a brief moment (Syriza’s rise in Greece, for example), it soon became clear that a slightly modified version of neoliberalism would prevail. [...]

The AfD now began to target voters among the “losers of globalization.” The party’s initial support had mostly come from professionals, entrepreneurs, and the upper echelons of society. Now, support among the unemployed and underprivileged grew as well, due to the AfD’s successful linking of social inequality to immigration in the public eye. While the similar material interests of refugees and the German poor were downplayed, ethnic and cultural differences were magnified. [...]

The AfD’s single biggest threat is by far internal conflict within its own ranks. Should the party collapse in the near future, it will be for this reason alone. The new right is extremely heterogeneous, and strife can break out at any time. Moderate national conservatives and national neoliberals are deeply concerned about the völkisch wing collaborating with forces of the extra-parliamentary far right. The biggest potential for conflict, however, relates to economic policy, as the party has failed to unite on key issues like free trade. While some members reject the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) categorically, others are willing to support it if certain conditions are met. Concrete policies proposals which serve the interests of Germany’s wealthiest stand alongside rhetorical claims to represent the poor and downtrodden. The völkisch wing’s attempts to introduce welfare policies clash with the party’s capital-friendly program and the strong support it still enjoys among small and medium-size business owners and the petty bourgeoisie. [...]

In this light, it appears that both the established parties and the media have exaggerated the threat posed by the AfD. The breaking of political taboos is a strategic tool that grants it disproportionate media attention. At the same time, government actions often escape scrutiny. After all, it was the Union and the SPD that drastically curtailed German asylum law in the past eighteen months, not the AfD. As a consequence, refugees receive less financial support and social services, asylum applications are rejected without proper investigation, Residenzpflicht (“mandatory residence”) has been reintroduced, severely limiting the free movement of asylum seekers within Germany, and war-torn countries have been declared safe, meaning that refugees are returned to them in increasing numbers. All of these measures reflect and echo the AfD’s demands.

read the article 

openDemocracy: Charting Russia’s most dangerous cities for LGBT people

n Russia, the first LGBT pride march was held in 1991 on the square before Moscow’s Bolshoi theatre as part of the Soviet Union’s first LGBT festival. The more modern history of LGBT parades in Russia began in 2006 when LGBT activist Nikolay Alekseyev attempted to officially organise a pride march in Moscow. Years passed, and the city authorities still haven’t found the guts to permit a march for LGBT human rights through the capital’s streets and provide security for its participants. However, other banned marches have been successfully challenged in the European Court for Human Rights and Alekseyev has generated support in other regions of the country. He and his colleagues have applied for permission to hold pride marches in Blagoveshchensk, Cherkessk, Cherepovets, Kazan, and Nizhny Tagil among many other cities across Russia, though they have always been rejected and sued city governments in response. A notable exception came in 2013, when the governor of St Petersburg did not forbid the city’s LGBT pride parade, although it did encounter violently homophobic protesters who tried to obstruct the march.

In fact, these violent far-right groups keep close tabs on LGBT activists in Russia and the events they hold – or try to. While the government fights some homophobic campaigners and inciters of hatred, it supports others. After all, instigating violence against LGBT people is essentially the Russian state’s official policy towards sexuality. For example, the 2013 law banning “propaganda” of “non-traditional sexual orientations” sparked a wave of hatred against LGBT people across the country. As we discovered from court decisions last year, after the “propaganda” bill was signed into law, the number of hate crimes against lesbians and gay men doubled.  [...]

After facts came to light about the systematic torture of gay men at secret detention camps in Chechnya, the republic’s press secretary immediately retorted that “you cannot repress those who are not and cannot be here in the Chechen Republic.” Despite the justified focus on Chechnya, these claims are hardly specific to one culture or region within the Russian Federation – officials in other regions speak in much the same manner. For example, the mayor of Svetogorsk in Leningrad Region declared his city “free from gays.” He subsequently argued that LGBT issues and rights are irrelevant there, neither an LGBT community nor LGBT people exist in the small city. [...]

One of the effects of Russia’s “propaganda” law was not simply the rise in violence against LGBT people. It also led to more frequent ewspaper publications on LGBT topics, hence public discussion on a topic which still remains taboo for many people. This was not entirely what legislators intended. We benefitted from this situation by researching the details and contexts of violence against LGBT in Russia as they were reported in media. The Sexuality Lab studied almost 4,500 media publications about violence against LGBT people in Russia between 2011 and 2016. We categorised all newspaper articles in accordance with the sexuality of the victims reported and the locations of crimes committed. All cities were then classified by population, making it possible for us to calculate an index of safety for every urban settlement.

read the article 

Politico: Bosnia’s Serb Republic leader: No breakaway vote next year

Many politicians, diplomats and analysts believe an independence declaration by the Serb Republic would trigger a new conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina and more violence elsewhere in the Balkans as other ethnic groups attempt to redraw national borders. International officials have repeatedly warned Serb Republic leaders against secession, making clear it would be regarded as illegal and would not be recognized by Western powers. [...]

Dodik made clear, however, that he was not taking the prospect of secession off the table. “Whether some of the forthcoming years will raise that issue, we’ll see, I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m sure that we are following that path — the path to independence.” [...]

The possibility of the Serb Republic seceding is one of several challenges to stability in the Balkans, along with continued disputes between Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority and Serb leaders in Belgrade, disputes over the rights of Albanians in Macedonia, and allegations of Russian attempts to foment trouble in Montenegro. [...]

Surveys suggest that the majority of the entity’s population favors independence, which some see as a precursor to union with Serbia.

Banja Luka already has the feel of the capital city of a small country, with public institutions lining boulevards, monuments to war dead in the parks, and the Serb Republic’s flag — similar in appearance to Serbia’s — widely on display. Bosnian national flags and symbols are far less common.

read the article 

FiveThirtyEight: Data On Drug Use Is Disappearing Just When We Need It Most

Most major researchers believe that source, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, vastly understates the increase in heroin use. But many rely on the survey anyway for a simple reason: It’s the best data they have. Several other sources that researchers once relied on are no longer being updated or have become more difficult to access. The lack of data means researchers, policymakers and public health workers are facing the worst U.S. drug epidemic in a generation without essential information about the nature of the problem or its scale. [...]

Among the key questions that researchers are struggling to answer: Is the recent spike in deaths primarily the result of increased heroin use, or is it also due to the increased potency of the drug, perhaps because of the addition of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that can kill in small doses? [...]

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which is an annual household survey, is sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a division of the federal Department of Health and Human Services. Through roughly 70,000 interviews, the survey collects information nationwide on the use of tobacco, alcohol and illegal drugs, as well as Americans’ mental health. Experts who study illicit drugs say the survey is an important source for estimating the number of those who use alcohol, tobacco and, increasingly, cannabis (because of the normalization of marijuana use). But many consider it inadequate for calculating the number of users of harder drugs such as heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine, which carry a greater stigma. Moreover, the survey excludes people without a fixed address, meaning people who are homeless or transient — a category that includes many of the heaviest drug users. These factors lead experts to believe the survey significantly underreports the number of users of hard drugs in the U.S. (A spokesman for SAMHSA said the survey doesn’t capture certain populations, including the homeless, and acknowledged that it faces other “limitations inherent in surveys.”) [...]

The lack of reliable national data is hindering efforts to tackle the spread of heroin, experts say. Some big cities such as New York have embarked on their own data-collection efforts, something the many smaller cities and towns ravaged by heroin overdoses likely can’t afford to do. Researchers say they need the federal government to help fund and coordinate efforts to collect data from local coroner’s offices, emergency rooms and crime labs so that local officials know where and how to direct their efforts. And, more broadly, they say they need a wide range of groups — researchers, public health workers, law enforcement officers, as well as federal, state and local governments — to work together to understand the heroin epidemic and to figure out how to stop it.

read the article