@Belarum @Hauts @Alpine have all been added. Sorry for the delay.

The map has also been purged of nations that are no longer in the region.

Are we here to debate this proposal, or the merits of the Legislative Powers Amendment of 2016?

Cllr Gisela Stuart

I'll note that 48 hours has now passed. Yalla, everybody!

Yes.

I think this has gone on for long enough now. Taking into account the votes and people's other comments, I think we should commit to a move to TEU (asap), and to the principle of attempting a refound of EU at some unspecified point in the medium-to-long-term future. I think that's the consensus here. I'll give 48 hours for people to object.

((BTW, better tweet generator: http://galau.me/?twitter_tweet))

Saturday, 6th May, 2017

Article by Sophie Berkeley

Democrat Candidates Pitch for Leadership

Madina, where the Democratic Party's new leader will be elected at their Spring Conference

The three candidates for leader of the Democratic Party have written for Ðe National Observer to set out their pitch to succeed Maria Sakrakur, who resigned amid poor polling in March. The leader, who will be announced at the party's spring conference in Madina (Berea) at the end of the month, will face the difficult task of reviving a party which is currently polling at just 18%, well behind the SDP, who lead on 36%. The Citizen Alliance are on 30%, the Coalition for Socialism and Liberation are on 11%, and others are on 5%.

While all candidates are agreed that Sakrakur's populist approach, which refrained from attacking the Citizen Alliance and adopted much of their anti-immigration rhetoric, has failed, they disagree profoundly on what the following course of action should be. Here, in their own words, the candidates explain why you should vote for them in the primary elections. You can vote in the elections either as a party member, or as a 'registered supporter' who donates a one-off payment of £5 to the party.

ROBERT RICE

Robert Rice, 52, is a property developer and political campaigner. He joined the Democratic Party in 2009. He has never held national or provincial office, but served on the Hundred Board of Palmyra from 2010 to 2014.

“One thing we can all agree on in this leadership election is that aping the rhetoric of the Citizen Alliance is a failed strategy. It only serves to legitimise what is a very dangerous, far-right ideology. When our party was founded and first won power in 2009, we did so by representing the common-sense centre. Our drift to the right on social issues, on refugees, on war, and on Europe must be lamented. We were elected twice because we were not the CLP, but since we made the crucial error of pitching our tents in their lawn, we’ve declined as a political force.”

“As leader, I will restore the common-sense liberalism which the Democratic Party originally embodied. We will stand up for the free market against constant attacks by Sam Courtenay and Emryc Isla. We will press for real social reform, aiming to catch up with the rest of the EU on issues such as divorce and LGBT rights. We will call out the SDP’s betrayal of its progressive principles in favour of Citizen Alliance votes in Parliament. And most importantly of all, we will apologise for our betrayal of our own principles by going into Dromund Kaas, and call for an end to that war.”

DESMOND BAYEUX

Desmond Bayeux, 60, served as Mayor of New Birmingham from 2008 to 2015. Originally elected as a member of the CLP, he defected to the Democrats when Navdeep Khatkar founded the party. He has never been an MP.

“When I was Mayor of New Birmingham, it was clear to me that a successful Democratic Party has to reach out to voters across the centre and centre-right of the political spectrum. We have lost many votes to the Citizen Alliance, yes, but to win in 2018, we will have to appeal to SDP voters as well. It’s worth noting that most Angleterics have voted Democrat at least once in the last eight years – the key is to get enough of them to come back to us.”

“So how do we get people to come back to the party? We must start highlighting the SDP’s dirty politics. They have sacrificed much of their platform to placate the populists in the Citizen Alliance, which I know appals many voters who switched to Sam Courtenay in 2015 – especially in New Birmingham. The CSL are pointing this out – so why aren’t we? As leader, I’ll point this out, I’ll open the doors of our party to all centrists, liberals, and conservatives, and I’ll also moderate our stance on Dromund Kaas – we can’t just be a party of right-wing hawks.”

SUE FAREHAM

Sue Fareham, 37, is a backbench Democrat MP who has represented Phepson (Quareytene) in Parliament since 2012. She has never held ministerial office. A lawyer by trade, she joined the Democrats in 2010.

“Democrats win by putting clear blue water between themselves and their opponents. Our party can no longer afford to be ‘Citizen Alliance B’, but it cannot return to office as ‘SDP B’ either. Attempting to recreate the extraordinary conditions of 2009 when the political landscape is so, so different will only take us along the road to ruin. We must become a proud, broad-based mainstream party of the conservative centre-right if we are to reverse our losses in 2015.”

“Angleter is, I believe, a naturally conservative country, and it is crying out for a conservative government. The SDP’s current success relies on economic success created by our policies, the limiting influence of the Citizen Alliance, and the fact that we have been slow to criticise Sam Courtenay’s bizarre pact with Emryc Isla. I am the only candidate in this race calling for a party which will have more in common with Theresa May than Hillary Clinton – that is, I am the only candidate who, as leader, can take us back into government.”

The point of this is to ensure we don't get raided. We are a major target, bigger than pretty much all other large founderless regions, for various reasons. Some founderless regions might have the luxury of being able to go about their business (relatively) unimpeded (for now), but we don't. We've had several close shaves in the last year or so. Dux had to password the region (again) because we were minutes away from being raided, and he can't keep doing the same thing over and over again. Which would mean me having to wake up at 5am more often to help him out. Our defences are stronger than ever, but they are not foolproof. The raiders are getting smarter, and they only have to be lucky once - and if/when they are, the future of our region depends on a wide variety of factors well outside of our control. The status quo is untenable. Nor is the de facto default option, which boils down to "make Dux and Angleter do more work".

As for publicising this discussion, I think I've done so enough. This discussion, and especially the vote, has to be held on the forums because that way we can check for puppets and suchlike. I've spent several years plugging major forum votes to the region at large, and this is not a particularly bad turnout. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I've extended voting by another day (and may do so further) because the discussion seems to have developed now, but I'd rather we not dawdle forever on this precisely because we're passworded and our population is decreasing. Obviously, this is not exactly the sort of discussion we can have when our region is open and, therefore, under threat again.

OK, I'm going to kick off a VOTE on this now. Vote starts now and ends at 23.59 GMT on May 3rd.

I vote FOR moving.