I could have kept an eye on the news from Brussels last night. But I had suffered enough. As a family we opted out of Brexit and went to see Fisherman's Friends. It was touchy-feely, mildly left of-centre, meaning of life, rom-com stuff with enough folk music to keep at least two of us happy and the rest content. You came out feeling as if life could be better than the rat-race defined by pre-set arbitrary goals that exist mainly to constrain whilst offering the illusion of freedom. It was definitely a better use of time than watching endless news reports from Brussels.
Now we know that because of a fudge in which the U.K. played little part that we are to have another Brexit extension. The agony - for that is what it is - goes on. The indecision is perpetuated. And with May in charge nothing will change. She seemingly is incapable of any compromise to achieve that necessary goal.
What do we need now?
European elections, of course.
National elections too: I suggest the same day.
And then, revocation ideally. The farce of a Norway deal if necessary.
But most of all we need to move on. As we waste time on this issue we forget the countdown to irrevocable climate change continues; other issues needing to be addressed are ignored, and across the country millions continue to suffer as a result of austerity policies. There is a world beyond Brexit to deal with.
It's time to end this farce. May cannot do that. Let's be candid about that and move on. Only a change in government will permit that - even if I now have little confidence in the leadership available from either party likely to lead any administration. It will take a long time to create the feel-good factor Fisherman's Friends portrayed. In the meantime escapism will become the prevailing political requirement, simply as a matter of survival.
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You want serious politics? Real crises?
Look at what is emerging in Israel.
Frightening.
When a people that has been persecuted become persecutors themselves, you know that the shit is going to hit the fan.
And what about Iran with the US declaring it a ‘terrorist state’ (the US should know BTW because it too has always supported terrorist groups in South America and elsewhere)?
As for last night, 6 more months is not enough. Macron? More like ‘Moron’. Does he not realise that Europe is already infected with anti-EU sentiments? Those nationalistic sentiments have always been there which is why the EU was born in the first place. These issues did not start exclusively in the UK.
Macron is typically centrist-right in his outlook: he does not pay heed to history or detail and thinks that he is there to make it – not heed it. No wonder the Germans are apparently irritated. I got no sense that this was a staged ‘good cop/bad cop’ situation. Macron has had enough.
Cue Mark Francois (eugh!) talking about Waterloo, Agincourt etc., ad nauseum.
But yes – the UK is well…………….in no mans land.
BREXIT: the never ending scrum. Stop. Reset. Stop Reset. The Tories keep collapsing it. They need to be sin binned and we or the other parties working together need to send them there, with a red card for May and one hell of a citation.
As Auden put it in ‘September 1, 1939’, “Those to whom evil is done do evil in return.”
“It’s time to end this farce”
Welcome to what it feels like to be a Scot of independent mind in the UK – Powerless, ignored and frustrated in one’s aspirations for a governance based on good common sense, no more, no less!
Agreed
Phil, a lot of people in England now feel exactly the same way. A government not drawn from a party of right wing nationalists and market fundamentalists and greedy egotists, which is only in power due to the moronic FPTP voting system and the ‘witch-burners’ of the DUP, would be nice.
And an opposition that could get its act together in rejecting the fraudulent 2016 referendum result, and co-operate with other parties of the left to form the next government, instead of indulging in it’s futile tribalism would be good too.
It no longer matters if people want to leave or remain. If we leave, there will be complex negotiations with the EU and other countries. It is clear and demonstrable now that our government is not competent to carry out those negotiations. That is now my line to any leaver. It is unarguable.
We have to revoke.
Then we need a long and deep period of reflection as to how we brought ourselves to this point. That must involve consideration of the pernicious role of the public schools. It is normal for countries to have an elite. What is abnormal is to have an elite so utterly useless. Lions led by donkeys again.
I agree with you
Glad as I am not to be facing a catastrophic exit from the EU on 12th April, and to get to vote in the European elections, I don’t see 6 months as being long enough to sort this mess out in Parliament, given that the leadership of both main parties are so useless.
So yes, I agree, just Revoke A50. Interestingly, it seems some prominent Leavers have come to the same conclusion. First Peter Oborne, then Nick Ferrari (LBC’s resident gammon), now, Lionel Shriver in The Spectator – I think. From the tone of the article, it may well have been a sarcastic mickey take, given that she blamed Remainers and MPs for blocking Brexit, and finished with a factually incorrect sentence claiming over half the electorate voted to leave the EU. But still, it did read as though she was throwing in the towel.
How are your local Leavers in the NE taking this morning’s news?
I have avoided Leavers so far today….
According to Wikipedia:
“Jim Mellon is reportedly the man who first introduced Arron Banks to then UKIP leader Nigel Farage.
He donated up to £100,000 towards campaigns to leave the EU in 2015…
In July 2018, Mellon said there would be “a second referendum” that “remain will win”.
Amen to all the above – and thanks for the mild confirmation that Fisherman’s Friends is worth the watch.
On the General Election front, however, there will be very little point unless the Labour Party gives an unequivocal committment to a second/fresh/confirmatory referendum on whatever ‘deal’ i.e. both a WA and a PD, is arrived at. We really, really cannot have a government with a fresh mandate with nothing but the imposition of the result of a previous referendum – especially one so discredited that the present government’s own lawyer had to concede that it would have been voided, but for the bizarre get-out clause that it was only advisory and NOT compulsory.
There will be much written and said about May having run out of road – but it is even clearer that Corbyn has too. Nowhere to hide now, Jeremy. In the words of a Gunner Flynn (Ian Holm) in John McGrath’s “The Bofors Gun” – “So what are you – a fox man or a hound man – for you can’t be both?” Time’s up.
Agreed
By coincidence me and my wife went to see Fishermen’s Friends last night too. It gave me a good laugh. Spoiler alert, I especially enjoyed the bit where they were asked to sing the national anthem on the queens birthday on live breakfast tv. The look on Eamon Holmes face when they struck up with “Shall Trelawny die”, the unofficial Cornish national anthem, was priceless.
A good break from the Brexit incompetence and today’s grim news about Julian Assange’s arrest. Can American and British journalists travelling to third countries anticipate being arrested and extradited to any old regime they have crossed in the future?
If so the US has another crime on its charge sheet.
Fisherman friends for the family instead of the champions league? Should have put that to a vote..
Wasn’t even considered