UK Politics: Welcome to the Age of the Boris

[Lukasz]

4. No brexit. Queen takes over, any would be rioters are happy when half of the politicians are sentenced to death.

[BillButNotBen]

Yeah, it has less to do with the intelligence of the UK population and more to do with the way the referendum was held. There was simply no way to know what leaving would actually mean. A simple yes/no referendum especially one held at the speed this one was, was never going to be enough for that.

Yeah. It’s all a bit stable door, but imho such a big change should have at least required a 2/3rds majority.
(It’s probably a downside of not having a written constitution. Japan’s been talking about a referendum on whether to remove the pacifist clauses from their constitution. But if they do it then it needs a 2/3rds majority to change).
They should probably have set it up initially as something like a 2 stage referendum: 1 - Whether to begin negotiations, 2 - Whether to go for the deal negotiated, no deal, or remain as before.

Which is of course basically indyRef2, but they should have specified it beforehand as otherwise it just seems like sour grapes or a re-run.

Of course, given 20 years of hostile newspaper coverage, and a general lack of understanding of the way global business and economy works, and decades of London ignoring the needs of the rust belt, it probably wouldn’t have made much difference.

5. Megan takes over. After all, who has a better story than Megan.

[BillButNotBen]

So… apparently there is a deal, but the DUP won’t support it.
Given that Boris expelled 20 MPs, and even with the DUP and all conservative votes, he doesn’t have a majority, the question is whether he can get it through.
(same issue as before, basically).

Will the threat of no-deal work this time?

Will writing to the EU asking for an extension while simultaneously saying to them ‘don’t give us an extension or we’ll cause trouble and sulk in a corner’ work?
(If I was the EU I’d be half tempted to give them an extension just to spite them )

[Sarfrin]

Christ knows. I’ve given up even trying to work out what’s going on. All I’m sure of is that Boris will inevitably fuck everything up beyond redemption.

[BillButNotBen]

I’m wondering if it might pass just based on everyone being fed up and not wanting it to keep dragging on.

I’ve heard it said that the deal is worse than May’s deal, but I’ve not seen any details. It sounds like, other than the NI issue, it’s basically May’s deal… which is basically a transition period while they work out a proper deal… which means… ? Who knows?

[Sarfrin]

which means… ? Who knows?

That’s it in a nutshell.

[BillButNotBen]

And I’m now more confused than I was 6 hours ago when I wrote that.

[Sarfrin]

The government gives the appearance of being willing to ignore both the law and parliamentary protocol so no one knows what’s going to happen on Monday. The speaker is highly pissed off though.

ETA If you’re on Twitter Ian Dunt is a good explainer of what’s going on, albeit from a remain perspective.

[TheDreamlord]

Ian Dunt is indeed very good at analysing current British politics. His main website is very good

www.politics.co.uk

[BillButNotBen]

I’m unsure whether to be happy that politicians rejected the ridiculous idea of approving one of the most important pieces of legislation in recent history in 3 days… or pissed off that this whole thing seems likely to drag on even longer. *

It seems like Boris’s deal has more support among the public and politicians than May’s deal did. Despite being basically the same deal!
I wonder if this is because everyone is just fed up and wants things to be over, or because all the shennanigans with parliamentary process, court cases etc… have overshadowed the actual content of the deal (which no-one really seems to be talking about this time).

It’s therefore somewhat ironic that despite having more support, it seems like Boris’s shennanigns and insistence on Oct31 may scupper a deal that he actually might be able to pass with a bit more time.

It’s also somewhat ironic that the Conservative and Unionist Party seems quite happy to basically abandon Northern Ireland and set up a defacto border between NI and the rest of the UK.
The paperwork is likely to screw over any small businesses in NI who export mainly to the UK.

It’s pretty clear at this point that a lot on the Brexit side are basically on the Engxit (Exit?) side and don’t really care very much about any of the other home nations.

(I also wonder how long it’s going to be before the Express is full of stories about all the horrible foreign criminals who are entering the UK via Ireland and the unchecked borders. )

*Although, given that the deal then sets up a trade-deal negotiation period ending in 2020, which seems totally unrealistic, even if the deal gets passed this whole thing seems likely to drag on for a while yet…

[Zephro]

I do kinda wonder, and god forbid I say something in defence of her, but Theresa May possibly is at the end of a shitty sexist stick. E.g. some bolshy public school boy just does exactly the same and it’s fine somehow? She is still personally an arsehole mind.

[TheDreamlord]

Nothing is normal in British politics at the moment. Nor society, mind…

[Sarfrin]

I do kinda wonder, and god forbid I say something in defence of her, but Theresa May possibly is at the end of a shitty sexist stick. E.g. some bolshy public school boy just does exactly the same and it’s fine somehow?

I get what yoiu mean. Boris somehow gets away with the same complete lack of any discernible human personality that she was castigated for. It’s still not fine from him though. That’s just what, depressingly, all British newspapers seem to think.

[LexW]

Yeah all the Maybot stuff wasn’t wrong, her entire political persona was clearly a poorly-constructed puppet, but Boris is an oily fuck who has absolutely no beliefs apart from “GO BORIS” with the maximum possible level of “emperor has no clothes”, and it would be easy to continually rag on this, but he doesn’t get the same level of stick.

I’m just personally amazed that stuff which would 100% have meant resignation in, say, 1999 (let alone 1989), apparently is grounds for absolutely nothing now (like all this Arcuri stuff, which is clearly 100% crooked).

He’s also like, genuinely bad at this. It’s kind of astonishing. He could have his shit deal basically done already but he just wants to grandstand and behave like a twat, because he doesn’t get it. I see he has managed to shove Cummings into a cupboard and prevent him appearing in public and verbally assaulting people and so on though. So I guess there’s that.

[Sarfrin]

I’m just personally amazed that stuff which would 100% have meant resignation in, say, 1999 (let alone 1989), apparently is grounds for absolutely nothing now (like all this Arcuri stuff, which is clearly 100% crooked).

Don’t be amazed, be frightened. Now they’re getting away with this stuff, what’s to stop them?

[BillButNotBen]

I was reading this (on the BBC)

An online tool that can break political deadlock

And I was thinking “Maybe the BBC should use something like this rather than their usual gambit of having every single comment section on all their brexit related posts devolve into a cesspit of division and trolls”.

I was chatting about Brexit with a non-brit this morning, and ended up talking about how this massive mess could have been avoided.
I feel like the solution I suggested would actually have been a bit similar to this in effect.

I feel like the first referendum should have been framed as the beginning of the decision, not the end. It should have been along the lines of "should we seriously consider leaving the EU and begin the process of investigating it?"
If it got a simple majority then the government would investigate the options and maybe present about 5 possible options. Those would then go through a few elimination round referendums which also took into account people’s second choices. There would be a defined separation period between each referendum to allow the government to research and publish more information about each option.
Then it would come down to a final choice between the last 2 options.

(Though of course my suggestion is made with the benefit of hindsight as when Cameron called the referendum I don’t think he or anyone expected it to end up like this).

[TheDreamlord]

Well it looks like the conservatives are in full on election mode. Earlier today I received a phone call (landline) from my local conservative party asking me if I will support them and if I have anything to suggest to them.

I was caught a bit by surprise and couldn’t really come up with sth more elaborate and witty, but after telling him I cannot in any good conscience support the tories since they have managed to fuck up the country, I got asked “so that is a ‘no’ then?”. Followed by “will you vote for labour or lib dems?”. I replied that it is not my job to help you canvas the electorate nor am I willing to help you with your data collection.

After thanking me for my time, I told him to fuck off.

What a start to my Saturday!

[BillButNotBen]

So it seems like, despite Boris being pretty much a total failure on all levels, the Conservatives are likely to bash Labor in key areas due to Brexit + Corbyn.

Which means the last chance to stop Brexit is pretty much gone, partly due to Labor/Momentum managing to be awful at a key time.

This surprisingly frank piece from the BBC sums up basically what I was thinking just before I read it - That Boris has somehow persuaded a lot of people that capitulating to the EU was a great victory, and that his self imposed deadline to negotiate a trade deal within 12 months is going to put the UK in a very very weak negotiating position.

Johnson's race for trade deal strengthens EU hand

But somehow none of that seems to matter.

Maybe I’ve missed it, but have the opposition been emphasizing that Boris only got a deal by basically giving up on things that May wouldn’t give up on?

[Skalpadda]

I’ve almost entirely given up on trying to follow what’s going on in the UK lately. It just seems like you’re permanently stuck in Tory Hell. It also seems to be spreading, with centre/left parties across Europe somehow managing to be crap at both socialism and capitalism and burning political capital at an alarming rate because of it, while nobody has any expectations that right wing lunatics are going to be decent moral people so nothing seems to stick to them no matter what madness they get up to.

Or maybe I’ve just been having a bad mood for a couple of weeks.

[BillButNotBen]

Even a month or two ago, I’d intellectually kinda assumed that the Tories would win due to being on the side of having a simple united message, whereas the anti-brexit side is split between 2-3 parties and Labour has a very muddled message.

It’s just, now that it’s actually rapidly approaching, my emotional response has kicked in and i’m depressed.

I’ve missed out on most of the details of the actual campaigning, but it Labour and the Lib Dems haven’t been plastering “He only got a worse version of May’s deal by capitulating, and now he thinks he can get a fair deal from the EU and the US??!!!” over every available surface in the UK then they’re idiots. Project Fear be damned.

As you said though, nothing seems to stick.

I mean, does anyone really believe his promises on the NHS? Even if he actually means it, does anyone think the US aren’t going to insist on greater access for their drug companies, or that Boris is going to be in any position of strength to resist that?
And now he’s talking about getting rid of the license fee (and therefore basically the BBC).

I feel like I’m watching a horror movie where I’m shouting at the people on screen not to do the stupid thing, but they’re carrying on obliviously.

Kinda ironically, given how the UK might need to rely on the oft-bleated WTO-rules soon, I note that the WTO is currently entirely non-functional as Trump has blocked appointment of any judges.

Ok, I’ve vented now.