Saber

Saber is the current Liberal leader, member of the National Assembly of Doggerland and former Shadow Chancellor of the Treasury. He unsuccessfully ran for the Senate in the 5th district.

Early life
Saber was born in 1980 in Port Nandels, Brun-Nord to a Korean-English agnostic left-wing family. He showed an early proficiency for debate and politics, and after graduating high school in 1998 went to the University of Leeds graduating in 2001 with an undergraduate in law.

Early career
After returning to Doggerland he chose to get immediately involved in politics joining several think tanks, staffing on several campaigns, and working with local councils. In 2001 Saber worked with the UK Labour Party's campaign in 2001 subsequently being affiliated with Tony Blair's Labour government. Subsequently, in 2003 he returned to Doggerland and travelled across the country to work in various policy institutes of all political spectrums and ideology, gradually transforming his views from being staunchly left-wing to more centrist and liberal. He also read voraciously regarding history and politics digging deep ranging from the rise of Hitler to New Labour's landslide in 1997.

He briefly lived in Abester to work in the local council for three years from 2005 - 2008, he would return in 2021 to run in the Senate elections.

Joining the Liberal Party
In 2021, Saber joined the Liberal Party after realising his position as a centre to centre-left liberal and permanently moved to Leestrom. He helped draft the social and justice mandates for the Liberal Party manifesto earning a 4th place spot on the party list for the 2021 January election. Saber was subsequently appointed the Shadow Chancellor of the Treasury.

February election
After again drafting the social and justice policy, and newly the Home policy, Saber was once again placed 4th on the list and reelected.

2021 February Senate election
On 23 February, Saber announced his official candidacy for the 8th Senate district, subsequently announcing his change to becoming a candidate in the 5th district. He later moved to Abester. He lost the election by one vote to Robert La Follette.

2021 March Liberal Party Deputy Leadership election
After Triangle's death and InsertUsernameHere's leadership, Saber ran for deputy leader handily winning.

Leader of the Liberal Party
Saber assumed the leadership of the Liberal Party after InsertUsernameHere resigned, and subsequently became the official leader after winning with 7 votes against Baveland.

In April 2021, Saber announced his tour across select countries in Europe and Asia to expand his knowledge of foreign policy as his new position as shadow foreign minister. This meant that although he will remain the official leader, Baveland would become the interim leader on any occasion of Saber's absence. In reality the tour was a lore reasoning when in real life Saber has IB exams so he would be more busy than usual.

Political views
Saber identifies as socially progressive and pragmatic in economic affairs while maintaining a largely liberal ideology. He supports LGBTQIA+ rights, women's rights, minority rights, and social progressivism. Saber is a supporter of centrism and rejects far-left and far-right approaches to politics. He mostly identifies as centre or centre-left, slightly left on most issues, but maintains a broad centrist appraoch. Saber is also a secular humanist.

In his campaign for Senate, he described his ideology as "liberalism inspired by social democracy" alluding to his past as being socialist. He personally considers himself to be on the more centrist wing of the party leaning left.

Previous views
Originally while growing up and learning about other ideologies, Saber had dabbled in various beliefs. Once a strong left-wing nationalist and briefly a communist, Saber gradually transformed his views after engaging with other centrist and right-leaning ideologies. He still harbours strong social-democratic sentiments which is the strongest cause of him tending to lean left on most issues.

Personal influences
Saber looks up to figures such as Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun of South Korea, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower of the US, and Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan. He personally holds Lee Kuan Yew's influences close to his heart which made him accept that ruthless pragmatism is necessary in government on many occasions, albeit he does disagree with many of Lee's views. He also feels he has a lot to learn from other political individuals like Angela Merkel and Tony Blair, however, he doesn't look up to all of them and often simply holds simple respect or acknowledgement for their skills in politics.

Social policy
Saber is extremely socially progressive supportive of the rights of all, except religious rights due to his personal opposition to it. Strongly opposed to social conservatism he also has a strong dislike of conservatives in the US, South Korea, and Japan seeing them as "fossils". He also supports the decriminalisation of soft drugs and the sale of such drugs, with his own philosophy being "if cigarettes and alcohol can be legal why not marijuana?"

Originally on the fence regarding LGBTQIA+ rights, after learning further and engaging with members of the community his views have completely changed and remains a strong supporter of the community. Saber is also strongly pro-choice.

Saber opposes communitarianism believing that if an individual does well then society as a whole does well but does believe certain checks do have to be maintained.

Economic policy
Saber is supportive of unions and the partial democratisation of the economy, however, opposes an entire transfer. A fervent believer in a social market economy akin to that of Germany and the UK, Saber is strongly opposed to both right-wing and left-wing policies, favouring moderate and pragmatic practices. His approach can be seen as regulating corporations while liberalising the local economy and preventing corruption to ensure fair practices. He has affection for Taiwan's model where there are a few conglomerates alongside a strong economy from small and medium-sized businesses.

In terms of wealth and taxation Saber believes that it is important to make sure that every corporation pays its workers accordingly, that they don't abuse workers, and eliminating corruption. However, he also believes that it is wrong for a government to take too much of one's wealth whether extremely rich or poor preferring at best a top tax rate of 60% for income taxes and believes that at least for small and medium-sized businesses taxation should be low. He is also supportive of unions deeming them a necessary balance against businesses but thinks that unions gaining too much power against large businesses wouldn't be in the economy's best interest, thinking the same for the reverse.

He is also in favour of implementing policy to ensures wage ratios (e.g. so if a company has higher profit then everyone regardless of whether they're CEOs or janitors receive a higher wage. Albeit he hasn't presented any legislation to implement this as of yet.

Foreign policy and immigration
Saber is a soft Eurosceptic and believes the EU should remain in its current state not expanding its powers, but is in favour of joining the union.

Saber also supports a points-based system for skilled immigrants while only providing visas for manual workers with a potential path to citizenship. It is his opinion that a country can only go so far in handling and receiving immigrants. Despite this, he leans substantially towards multiculturalism tolerating other cultures as long as it is within the realm of respecting Doggerland's laws and personally believes that while it is essential to maintain a strong sense of one's original culture it is just as important to broadly assimilate into society.

Monarchy
Saber is neither supportive nor opposed to the monarchy. While favourable of republicanism he harbours general respect for King Moose due to his actions to manage Doggerland.

Religion
Saber is an atheist but does his best to maintain respect for other religions, however, he maintains a strong hatred for Islam and radical Christianity. He has a strong hatred for the two due to their lack of social tolerance and what he deems a "roadblock" to government affairs. While an anti-communist, Saber feels the one good thing about Marx was his rejection of religion. He is likewise a strong secularist and opposes any religious influence in government.

Ryu is also supportive of most of Emmanuel Macron's policies after the beheading of Samuel Paty, however, he does oppose the ban on the hijab beleiving that wearing what one wishes to wear is a personal choice.

Neoliberalism
Saber is opposed to neoliberalism believing that it undoes too much of social security and welfare and considers a humane approach to an economy extremely important viewing over-deregulation as an inefficient way of economic management, while he also believes over-regulation to likewise be inefficient. Complementing his views he opposes austerity believing that simply cutting a budget isn't the right solution and that it causes more harm than good. He also thinks that the philosophy that a free market solves everything is a fantasy.

Socialist Reform Bill
Saber has shown staunch opposition to the Socialist Reform Bill, believing its economic and societal impacts will be extremely negative for Doggerland. Despite this, he has moderated his stance and has come to accept certain parts of the bill advocating for modification instead of abolishing it.