Kinda hard to enforce a law that no-one knows about. Also current bills that are in progress can be tracked: services.parliament.uk/bills

Well, we have the example of Nazi Germany and its semi-secret extermination program.

It's also difficult to enforce laws the people know about but do not accept. So the old racist sheriff might enforce the law while everyone else turns a blind eye.

It's easy to enforce a law that the police know about.

@Kys well the public did elect a racist government by a landslide, so its not as if there is contempt for the people in power

@S.Horgan I find a landslide victory difficult to believe given that "half the population are cat people". Are there no cat people policemen? politicians?

If half of your population is of Cat people, your country would break apart with that law. Half the people being nekos would mean that half of the workforce is also nekos. You can't enforce something on half of the population and expect it to work!

Additionally, what do the cat people contribute to society that they can essentially be put under house arrest? If you locked up half the working class of your country, you can kiss your economy goodbye.

@Kys Great minds think alike. I was wondering exactly at the same thing.

I decided to have it that humans elect the government for one election cycle and cat people for the other so that I can bypass having to explain lack of opposition (handwavium ;) ) Also, if someone does get a permit, then they can still work obviously. A lot of these things I hadn't considered, looking back, so I will probably need to change percentages.

This happens all the time in the United States, unfortunately.

After a few elections the system would equalize. Obviously the cat people would make it 10x hard for the humans the following year, and the humans would reciprocate. Someone would eventually realize how counter productive the laws are, and stop making racists law. If I make it worst for them they will make it even worse for me the next year, and if we cancelled all our racists laws against cats they will cancel the ones on the humans.

French style : pass your law during holidays

I like your naivity, @cybernard. It hasn't worked like since ever. This would end up spiraling out of control into a civil war.

The idea that "humans elect the government for one election cycle and cat people for the other cycle" is still grossly implausible. The UK does not have fixed electoral cycles in the same way as the USA (the "Fixed-Term Parliaments Act" only works if the government does not collapse). Presumably only humans can be elected in one cycle, and only catpeople in the other? The potential for abuse is so vast and so obvious that this can't plausibly get through parliament, and if it did, the monarch would refuse assent, with the full backing of the population.

@JohnDallman just like when the government collapses it goes to a general election currently, surely the same thing could happen in this universe if you said that if it was still within their term of being in charge (so if a human government collapsed in two years, it would be a human election). Also, if this is the norm to have alternating elections, then surely they would try to keep their laws fair for both sides (unless there was a surge in extremist views) so that life could continue normally.

That would simply ensure that all governments collapsed after 4-4.5 years, so that they could claim another five years in power. The law limits the length of time a parliament may last. It does not set regular dates for elections. Reading across from US practice is usually actively misleading, because one of the major ideas of the US Constitution was to do things differently.

@MichaelHampton Yes, it's called C-SPAN.

If we're being completely honest, unless it affects a vast majority of people and the media doesn't like it, laws and bills (At least in the US) aren't paid too much attention. The harder part is getting it through the opposition, but that shouldn't be hard given your handwavium.

@DougWarren "We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it"

In the US they do it every day. The obfuscation method used is called "an omnibus bill", which means "all kinds of unrelated crap packed into one huge piece of legislation which is then voted on with nobody, and I mean nobody, knowing what is really in there".

Could you please explain how policemen would know if a person is a cat person? I have coworkers that are cat people, but the only way I know is if they tell me they have cats back at home.

@NoctisSkytower I mean cat people as in Nekomimi

your whole story does not make any sense at all. You can't imprison half of the country, because: 1) the economy will not be able to survive without massive loss of workforce. 2) where will you find people who will watch/catch 50% of the population 3) where will you imprison them, you need to build facilities to do that and you can't build it in one day or even one month. 4) government could reap massive amounts of money, may be a couple of blns sounds big to you, but this is very little for the country. I know that you might be disappointed after elections, but it is not that bad.

@SalvadorDali I did mention that I am considering changing the population percentages in the universe, plus it's still only a first draft.

@S.Horgan you should significantly reduce the percentage. As far as I remember the population of Jews in Nazi Germany was < 2%, and they spend significant time building concentration camps and had significant amount of army and police. It didn't happen in one day.

While the humans and cats fight, the dog people will come and conquer throw the cats into the nearest sun. Then there will be peace and order. Dogs are mans best friends. Dogs rule cats drool!

@ThalesPereira "You can't enforce something on half of the population and expect it to work!" - unfortunately, yes they can. According to the current plan, half of the UK population are going to be removed from the EU against our will.