B U M P
U 
M 
P

@Pefki Added, and welcome! Sorry for the delay.

@Papal-States @Turkmenbaycan I'm not prepared to OK this. For one, we already have a Vatican and a Pope ( @Os-Corelia / @The-Holy-See), and secondly I think the Pope should be RPed region-wide anyway - he's an international figure and the player who controls him has a fair degree of influence over the spiritual lives of other players' peoples. The current RP Pope was elected in a region-wide conclave RP, for instance. Also, the last time someone claimed the Pope unilaterally, His Holiness ended up unsuccessfully trying to resolve a civil war (just ask @Inquista).

OK, sod that. I'll propose some things and wait for everyone to complain.

1. I think @Duxburian-Union and @Inquista were leaning towards integrating gameplay (or GP) things into roleplay (or RP) in this thread, and I think they're right. Part of our USP could be integrating, rather than segregating, RP and GP. The Foreign Affairs Commissioner (or FAC) should stay as an RP position with, in essence, GP responsibilities translated into RP language. At the same time, I don't think it's a wise idea to totally subsume GP into RP, since we could end up with our RP being stunted by having to take GP necessities into consideration. Or, alternatively, we could end up harming ourselves GP-wise because certain GP necessities would be intolerable to our RP governments. Therefore, what I'd like to suggest is having specific GP offices under the authority of the Foreign Affairs Commissioner. These would be, essentially, permanent diplomats, military commanders, and so on. Whether they'd be appointed or elected or some sort of hybrid system, I don't know, but I think that's the best way to deal with these things. In broad terms, GP issues would be the responsibility of the FAC and put into RP terminology, but specifics would be devolved to the diplomats &c. and spoken about in GP terms. This would involve the creation of a GP forum, of course.
2. As explained above, I think we should retain one common RP government, but with GP officers serving the FAC.
3. I think we should elect the Delegate (or WAD) and perhaps have a mechanism whereby we can decide whether to bind them to vote a certain way on a certain resolution. This would be on the GP forum and not interfere with the RP. SC resolutions, I think, should be subject to certain restrictions - perhaps it should be more difficult for the region as a whole to bind the WAD, or perhaps FAC/diplomats/commanders should be able to bind them. SC votes, obviously, can be quite serious business and we ought to tread carefully.
4. Personally I'd be fine with us just moving back to EU, but I'd like to invite @Duxburian-Union to tell us a bit about his government/opposition idea and how it could fit in with the general governance of the community.
5. The answer to this is 'yes'. Right now I feel like I in particular have to do a lot of the heavy lifting in this regard (case in point: creating and reviving this thread), and have an undue amount of sway. I'd like admin/mod positions to be formalised, elected or appointed for long terms (with a mechanism to cover what happens if someone goes AWOL), and for a formal mechanism to be established for voting on rule changes.
6. I'd happily support @The-United-Kingdom and his 0.5% population idea. Other than that, I'm sure we can come up with other ideas. We really ought to rewrite our recruitment TG once all this is done.

I'm, er, I'm going to bump this a little.

Saturday, 6th May, 2017

Article by Sophie Berkeley

Fareham Wins Democrat Leadership

Sue Fareham, new Democratic Party leader

Sue Fareham has been elected leader of the Democratic Party, in a vote that is unlikely to heal the party’s deep divisions.

A backbench MP and standard-bearer for the party’s conservative wing, Fareham, 38, had campaigned heavily on a conservative platform, accusing liberal candidates Desmond Bayeux and Robert Rice of trying to turn the party into ‘SDP B’, and comparing herself to the United Kingdom’s Theresa May.

In the first ballot, Fareham led with 47% of the vote, followed by Robert Rice with 29%, and Desmond Bayeux was eliminated with 24%. Though former Mayor of New Birmingham Bayeux had instructed his supporters to put Rice, a businessman, as their second preference, not enough of his voters took heed. On the second ballot, Fareham received 57% of the vote to Rice’s 43%.

Demonstrating the more conservative bent of the party’s membership compared to its more centrist hierarchy, Fareham had received the endorsement of only 44 of the Democrats’ 194 MPs. Rice had received 50 endorsements, and Bayeux 32, while 68 MPs had refused to endorse any candidate.

Fareham has called for unity in a conciliatory victory speech. “Robert Rice and Desmond Bayeux have given a voice to our party’s strong tradition defending liberty, and I would like to extend a hand to them to join me in taking the fight to Sam Courtenay,” she said, adding: “Together we are strongest.”

However, Fareham was unapologetic about her conservatism. “What our members have said is that they want an unabashedly centre-right opposition party, a new government in waiting. So we will be defending individual liberty and traditional values. We will be patriots, supporting our troops and protecting our borders, while being open to the best, brightest, and most vulnerable of the world. Neither the SDP or their allies in the Citizen Alliance offer this – but I firmly believe that it’s what the Angleteric people want.”

Fareham continued to blast the government, accusing Sam Courtenay of “riding an economic uptick which masks the true harm of his left-wing policies,” and of “surrendering totally to the Citizen Alliance’s nasty policies on migration.”

Desmond Bayeux, former Prime Ministers Navdeep Khatkar and Levon Bagratian, former Foreign Minister Vitus Duryzatehende, and recently-departed leader Maria Sakrakur have all congratulated Fareham on her victory, and have offered her their full support. Fareham is also broadly well-liked by the general public: 28% of Angleterics have a favourable opinion of her, according to an Interrego poll this week, compared to just 14% who view her unfavourably.

This does, however, mean most Angleterics still do not know enough about Fareham to form an opinion about her, and the new leader already faces a storm ahead. Robert Rice has refused to comment on his defeat in the leadership election, despite clamour from party grandees to congratulate and support Fareham.

Veteran liberals Terry McCain and Robert Uvacant, meanwhile, have caused rancour by calling on Rice to quit the party and form “a new liberal force, which can challenge all the main parties – the socialists in the SDP, the conservatives in the Democrats, and the nationalists in the Citizen Alliance.” When asked about this possibility, Levon Bagratian was dismissive: “none of these people are MPs any more – why are we listening to them? They probably won’t go, and if they do, it’ll be sad, but we won’t suffer. Everybody knows the Democrats are the true party of the centre-right, and that includes folks of a slightly more libertarian persuasion.”

Interrego’s polling shows a small fillip for the Democrats under Fareham. The SDP lead with 33% of the vote, and the Citizen Alliance follow with 28%, with the Democrats up to 24%. The far-left CSL are on 10%, and others are on 5%.

Had Rice been leading the party, the Democrats would only have managed 23%. However, the SDP would have been tied with the Citizen Alliance on 30%, with the CSL on 12%, indicating that the candidates’ target voters came from very different sections of the electorate.

I assume the results are in, and are as follows:

SPEAKER

Edward Mountain - 5
Jens Nørreport - 1
Abstain - 1

DEPUTY SPEAKER

Edward Firoux - 6
Abstain - 1

Cllrs Mountain and Firoux are hereby elected Speaker and Deputy Speaker respectively. Congratulations to them.

@Istanbaal @Sempiere Added!

So, we're now a foundered region! Rejoice, just rejoice!

This does, however, lead to a variety of questions about how we go forward as a region. Questions like:

1. To what extent do we integrate NationStates (henceforth, NS) gameplay (henceforth, GP) with the RP? For instance, if we wanted to create a 'military' force in NS, would that be decided by a separate GP government and legislature, or would we - as is traditional - put the whole thing in RP terms and have the European Council vote on it? On the one hand, we're an RPing region; but on the other hand, what's good for GP might not sit well in the RP. Do we want to risk detracting from our status as an RPing region, or do we want to risk RP ideology getting in the way of GP necessity (or vice versa)?
2. If we're to have a separate GP government, what form should it take? 
3. What role should the World Assembly Delegate play? How should they be chosen, and to what extent should the wider community have a say in how they vote?
4. What are we going to do about the fact that we've currently got two regions going? Should we focus on EU or TEU, or should we maintain both - and if the latter, how do we integrate that with the previous three questions?
5. While we're at it, should we create some kind of formal governing structure for the management of the community as a whole? Right now this is a bit of a free-for-all, to say the least.
6. What else can we do to optimise activity and help attract new people to the community, and in particular to the RP?
7. Any other questions I've forgotten to mention (please do mention any).

Plenty to discuss, so let's get discussing!

@Alpine said:

I'm not able to post in any of the European Council/Commission/Court of Justice forums.

 This should now be fixed.

On behalf of the Apostolic Kingdom of Angleter, I, Gisela Stuart, vote for Edward Mountain and Edward Firoux for the positions of Speaker and Deputy Speaker respectively.

I would also point out that Jens Nørreport's nomination was late.