[Speaker] Pressing Forwards

Day 2,302, 06:04 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Speaker of the House



Greetings eUK, today I want to write quite a lengthy article about the events of last night’s meeting on IRC, and set out my plans for the week ahead.

This isn’t the official report of the IRC meeting, as I was heavily involved in the debates and was simply unable to keep a written summary of what was being said, whilst actually keeping track of what was being said. I would’ve looked back through the logs, but I’m not good with IRC stuff so don’t have it saved. I’m going to get them off somebody else who was there, so don’t worry; the full logs (of things that weren’t sensitive) will be published.



I know that some of you will have seen the Goku Jones quote that I and others shared from the meeting, before sharing the rest of the logs. Please be assured that this is not a bias attempt to smear Goku, I simply judged that what he was saying was so serious that it had to be shown ahead of the rest of the meeting; if you need the full context to that quote, it will be out by the end of today.

As a result of what Goku said, essentially pledging to let in as many Serbians as he could- as a form of blackmail so that we would agree to the kind of citizenship procedures that he wanted. In my opinion, and the opinion of a few other congressmen who were there, this statement amounts to a betrayal of the eUK and it is reasonable to presume him to be working against the interests of our community; he has subsequently been removed from Congress discussion on both PMs and the IRC channel.

Can I just make clear again, this decision was not taken because Goku disagreed with me or because he’s a New Era member, it was taken because I just don’t think its safe to have someone who is so openly working against the best interests of the eUK for his own political gain privy to potentially sensitive congress discussions. I am not an entirely impartial Speaker though, nor do I have to be- I have my opinions on what is best for the eUK, and I see nothing wrong with me airing these opinions like any other member of congress. But no special or harsh treatment is given to anyone or any particular party, I do not abuse my position as has been implied by some.



But in future, I don’t want to have to take decisions such as these unilaterally, and that is why I’m going to be setting up a Congress Committee, which will consist of one representative from each of the top 5 parties (appointed by the PPs) plus chaired by the Speaker.

The function of this committee will be two fol😛

To draft guidelines for how Congressmen should act whilst in Congress covering all aspects of Congress; a kind of ‘Codes of Practice’. Agreement on these guidelines will then be sought from the PPs of the top 5 parties.

If Congressmen fall foul of these guidelines, then their misdemeanours will be made public through articles and informing their PPs. If the committee considers their actions severe enough, they can take action against them; for example banning the congressmen from sitting on Policy committees (Which I know don’t exist yet, but they will), or restricting access to Congress discussions.

A particular area of focus for this committee will be Citizenship applications. The committee will look at each one and recommend acceptance or refusal on each one. If Congressmen choose to ignore this and have no valid reason, then action can be taken against them too.


You may notice that I’m not proposing this as legislation, and the reason for that is very simple. This weekend, much of Congress’s time has been spent debating a set of small changes I proposed to the Speaker Act, and I think that there has been such a big fuss over it that any legislation can wait until after these reforms are implemented.



Essentially I’m saying that I want to get a workable system in Congress going before we formalise it, if things don’t work or there are serious issues with things that I bring in, then we can change them and get it right. But at this moment in time, with our Country under threat, we just need to start working and worry about the wording of legislation later.

So, in addition to the committee I've proposed above, this week will see the return of the three policy committees that Lord Farhan tried to bring in last month.

Its going to be a basic form of a committee, as I don’t want to over-complicate the system too early on, we can build on it as we go. So there will be three committees:

Foreign Affairs and Defence (10 people)
Finance (8 people)
Home Affairs (8 people)

You can’t sit on more than one committee, although it is possible to sit on the as-yet-unnamed committee above and a Policy committee. The purpose of these committees is going to be very simple; to make sure that the Government is performing as well as it can in these desperate times. This is Congress’s way of keeping tabs on our esteemed CP.

You can volunteer for your chosen committee using the GDoc below:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ibeZ7eu0D7uSqW9wce2jgc72gyHubjehwePjJ73J2XY/viewform

Right, lets try and get some things done this week Congress.


Cheers if you read it all,


Adrastos
Speaker