Adam’s post below has more detail on this whole Brexit clusterfuck, but since he posted it, Boris Johnson has lost what appears to be a major vote – 21 Tories voted with the opposition to allow debate on a bill which would disallow a no-deal Brexit. Boris’ other move – a snap election – appears to be blocked unless and until that no-deal bill passes, since Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn says his side won’t vote for the election, which requires a 2/3 majority.
In other words, Boris is in a box. I watched an hour or so of his presentation and questions today, and he seems not-so-clever. He artlessly ducked questions about the kinds of negotiations his government is undertaking with the EU (truthful answer: none). From my limited knowledge of British politics, Corbyn is in a weak position because there are Labour MPs who are pro-Brexit, and because Corbyn himself isn’t really that hot on the EU. (His position seems similar to Pelosi’s on impeachment – not too keen on it, even if his rank-and-file were.) Also, for whatever reason, some who should be his natural ally hate Corbyn’s guts.
But Boris has been so obvious about his desire for a no-deal Brexit catastrophe that Corbyn has been able to put together a coalition opposing “no deal”, the one thing that they can all agree upon. So instead of a horrible no deal Brexit, the UK is just going to suffer and slowly bleed while parliament votes itself more time to faff around.
Raven
What means “faff “?
Wapiti
Easy for me to say this from the cheap seats, but they should set aside Brexit until they have a plan for the entire thing. If they never can develop a complete and coherent plan that covers Brexit’s impacts on their society (all of it!), then it’s just as well that the EU nanny keeps pushing them around in the pram.
NotMax
On tonight’s episode of No, Prime Minister….
//
JaySinWA
@Raven: onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-of/faff-about
Baud
@Raven:
You’re a free man now. Look it up! :-)
jl
@JaySinWA: So, they’re going to comment here for a while? Quite an honor for America’s premier almost top 10,000 blog.
JaySinWA
JaySinWA
@jl: If by they you mean pretentious twats that affect British expressions, then yes, guilty as charged.
jl
@Wapiti: Seems increasingly clear that a complete and coherent plan for a non-disastrous Brexit for the UK is a fatal obstacle for the Brexit leaders’ plans for their personal money.
If they can’t get their no deal Brexit wrapped up by the end of the year, they may have to battle on from another country without an extradition treaty with the mother country.
kindness
Why do I get the impression that if all Boris’ finances were opened up there would be large ‘gifts’ there coming from Russia?
JaySinWA
@kindness: Surely Boris would be clever enough to launder those gifts be for wearing them in public.//
trollhattan
Stop me if you’ve heard this one somewhere else.
jl
@Wapiti: Seems to be becoming increasingly clear that developing “a complete and coherent plan that covers Brexit’s impacts on their society (all of it!)” seriously interferes with the Brexit leaders’ plans for their own money.
If they can’t wrap their no deal Brexit by the end of the year, they might have to battle on from a foreign country with no extradition treaty.
Yarrow
Hilarious:
Can’t even follow through on a threat.
mrmoshpotato
@Wapiti:
Fixed.
Roger Moore
@Wapiti:
That won’t work because it would require EU cooperation, and the EU doesn’t want to leave the situation hanging indefinitely. The basic problem, as I understand it, is that actual Brexit is much less appealing than the rainbow pooping unicorn Brexit voters were promised. Unfortunately, nobody seems to be willing to stand up and say forthrightly that the people who bought Brexit were sold a bill of goods, and the fantasy Brexit they imagined isn’t going to happen.
Yarrow
@kindness: Since we’re following the money, reminder of this tweet I posted earlier today:
The rich guys don’t want anyone to see where they’ve hidden their money. Desperate to get out of the EU before the end of the year.
NobodySpecial
@Roger Moore: No, that’s been said. Enough people are racist enough, poor enough, and bamboozled enough not to give a damn. They want out and out they go, and sparrows and fire barrels for all good Englishmen. (Of course, we know who they’re talking about)
Jae Kennedy
Dave Brockington at Lawyers Guns and Money really hates Brexit and Corbyn – see lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2019/06/the-labour-party-and-brexit. I read his entries fairly regularly, and as best I can tell, the analogy is less Pelosi and more Sanders – not exactly feckless, but an ideologue with a rabid fan base.
If Warren doesn’t win the Democratic primary, maybe we can trade her to the Labour Party.
Jeffro
I guess some idjits just want to watch the UK burn, and if it won’t burn, then Brexit will just have to do.
Tarring and feathering would be a really good start for Johnson and trumpov. It’s what any civilized society would do.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Christ Almighty, I don’t understand how British politics or government work at all.
Chief Oshkosh
@kindness: Of course. I mean, the guy’s fucking name is BORIS! C’mon, they’re not even mailin’ it in! ;)
mrmoshpotato
@NobodySpecial: What’re they going to use for curtain rods? Boris’s and Nigel’s bones?
jl
@Yarrow: Any reason for the Tory rebels to take up that deal? Why should they trust Johnson not to get rid of them as soon as they are no longer useful? Certainly for the next election. Better they take their chances with the Lib Dems?
Honest question. I don’t know anything about local electoral politics in the UK.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): That’s my reaction too. I read Tony’s posts and it all sounds like a tangle.
mrmoshpotato
@Jeffro: I’ve been quite the proponent of Dump and the rest of these shitbags being hanged in NYC’s Central Park.
Tarring and feathering probably would be shot down as cruel and unusual.
Steve in the ATL
That’s great news!
Oh, you meant figuratively, not pine. Never mind.
chopper
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
it’s not meant to be understood.
Sloane Ranger
It’s not a done deal but there’s a good chance the Benn Bill will pass the Commons tomorrow. It may stall in the Lords though. If it passes, Corbyn will support a No Confidence vote taking us into a General election. If it doesn’t there are still the legal challenges and the Rebel Alliance will spend the 5 weeks of the proroguation thinking up something else.
At this point I don’t think anyone has any idea of what to do. There will, to mix two famous quotes, “Keep buggering on.” in the hope “Something will turn up ”
Personally, I think the EU has had enough of us and unless something substantive changes before 31st October, we’ll be out without a deal. Not the EU’s preferred option but the sight of fights over the last punnet of strawberries and the issue of ration books for various imported goods being reported in their media will be an object lesson to other nationalist movements.
TS (the original)
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Used to work quite well – then the conservatives saw what trump is doing to democracy & thought “We could do that too”. ALWAYS the RW political parties that consider themselves immune to failure.
Yarrow
@jl: Well, they’re in the party unless they’re kicked out or decide to leave. The list of the 22 Tories who voted against the government is mostly senior members, many of them former Ministers. It’s really shocking of Boris to kick them out for this vote, which is why you see the backtracking. It would come back to hurt Boris because many of these people are well respected.
Many of them have been in the party for a long time and have held leadership positions. They don’t necessarily want to leave. They sort of called Boris’s bluff and he folded.
NotMax
@Sloane Ranger
Wilkins Micawber on line 1. Calling collect.
;)
Fair Economist
@Sloane Ranger:
An understandable emotional reaction but the best policy choice for the EU is to drag it out as long as possible. Time is on the side of good here, with old Brexiteer coots dying and being replaced with young Europhiles, and with new EU laws to expose money laundering on the Brexit side coming into force.
Yarrow
Winning!
Ksmiami
@jl: I’m beginning to see Brexit as Britain’s own great filter- a calamitous boundary event so profound it can never be breached- like contact with alien life
Sloane Ranger
@jl: None whatsoever. The Tory rebels don’t trust Boris any further than they can throw him. This is a last desperate attempt to stave off another defeat. The Ken Clarke’s, Nicholas Soames and Oliver Letwin’s will probably be ignored but I expect the Whips to be swarming the lesser lights with job offers in one hand and illustrations of Year Zero under a Corbyn government in the other but, like I said, I don’t think it will work, especially after JMR’s performance this evening.
Anonymous At Work
EU might not allow UK more time unless it becomes clear that a new vote or total abrogation of Article 50 will happen. They don’t want UK to leave but they want any such leaving to be as painful, awkward and damaging to the country as possible. “This is a warning lesson,” to those trying to leave in the future.
mozzerb
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): At the moment, they don’t.
Sloane Ranger
So, just reported on the BBC, the Tory rebels have had the Whip withdrawn.
Sm*t Cl*de
@Yarrow:
The party has backed down on backing down. Or more likely, Johnston fecked up: even while Leadsom was making that statement, the Chief Whip was ringing dissidents to tell them that their services would not be required at the next election. The position now is that Andrea Leadsom was not authorised to make the statement. Andrea, meet bus.
We apologise again for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, have been sacked.
Michael Cain
…but they should set aside Brexit until they have a plan for the entire thing.
Someone should correct me if I’m wrong, but the EU27’s interpretation of Article 50 is that the negotiations have two separate parts. The first settles the relationship that will apply the day the UK (or other country) departs, and establishes a framework for the long-term relationship. May’s WA establishes a framework: the “divorce settlement”, protections for EU citizens residing in the UK when the exit occurs, and no hard border in Ireland ever. The detailed second part occurs after the departing country is gone.
That’s the way I read Article 50 as well. YMMV.
debbie
@Sloane Ranger:
Wait, they were, then they weren’t, now they will?
Yarrow
@Sm*t Cl*de: Even more hilarious. Not going to go well for Johnson’s government.
John Revolta
@Yarrow: This opened my eyes. Brexit was obviously Astroturfed by the ££
guys and pushed along by a big helping of “Get the Woggies out”. (Sounds pretty familiar actually.)
Also there’s been talk that this Banks guy might be getting his money from certain Russian interests………..
Kent
@Anonymous At Work:
I’m a long ways from the action. But I wonder how much all the French customs agencies are gearing up for a hard Brexit. I can imagine a couple thousand sanguine French inspectors watching with repressed glee as the 10 mile long truck lines pile up and they continue to work at their own leisurely pace slowing down the entry of every single truck and train from the UK as they slowly and deliberately go over the paperwork, do their inspections, and watch the Brits scream. The French are VERY good at that sort of shit.
Tony Jay
Not to toot my own trumpet (ignore that tooting sound) but I’ve been telling everyone here for about a year, maybe longer, that the only important question is how many non-Brextremist Tory MPs are willing to vote against their own Party to stop Brexit happening.
We’ve had a long period under May where the bulk of Tory MPs voted for her shitty deal while the minority of Brextremists voted against it. Then Johnson took over and the calculus shifted to how many Tory MPs who voted for May’s Brexit deal would vote against the No Deal disaster preferred by the Brextremists.
Where we are now is that 21 Tory MPs have voted with the almost entirely united opposition to vote on a motion that would force Johnson to go back to the EU and request an extension until January 20th, or as long as the EU itself offers. Johnson has responded by saying he’s going to table a motion for a snap Election, but the majority in Parliament distrust him so much that even the MPs who desperately want an Election are willing to say no until the anti-No Deal legislation has passed. The anti-No Deal legislation should get through Parliament pretty quickly, at which point an Election becomes inevitable.
The Tories and the Brexit Party win, we are fucked.
Labour wins, or has to negotiate a semi-coalition with the Lib-Dems. They go to the EU with completely different terms to May’s Government and see what kind of Brexit deal they can get. Then their deal goes to a Public Vote against an option to Remain. I’m a Labour Party member and I’m going to be voting Remain, even as some Labour Party members vote for Labour’s negotiated deal. I really don’t think the current opinions of most Labour members and voters are going to change between now and then, it’s just that if a majority of the country does vote Leave again they’ll know exactly what Leave means and it’ll be less destructive than any Tory Brexit.
Those are our options. Broken glass, etc.
VOR
@Kent: I suspect it is worse than that. Right now it is an open border, free flow of goods. Adding customs inspections means you need customs inspectors. I doubt either the EU side or the UK side have enough to handle the increase. And you need buffer space – warehouses, cold storage, and the like to put the goods while they are being inspected. And that infrastructure doesn’t exist. It will be ugly.
The whole idea that they will get a great trade deal with the US boggles my mind. Why would the UK by itself have more leverage than the EU as a whole? And your plan revolves around relying on Trump to follow through on something?
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: In 1984, I was on a train from Munich to Amsterdam and a guy with a Soviet passport and a suitcase tied shut with what appeared to be several meters of twine was seated in the same car. As we hit the German-Dutch border, the German customs guys made him untie every bit of twine and then they poked around inside. When they finished, they told hit he could close it up again. The train moved on a bit and stopped for the Dutch customs guys. The poor Soviet guy had just put the finishing touches on his knots when the Dutch got to him. I think we all know what happened next.
The customs people for both countries just glanced at the cover of my US passport. I wonder if that will ever happen again.
Michael Cain
@VOR:
The UK would be less likely to fine Google 1.5 billion euros, or tell Apple that they have to use a micro-USB port for charging rather than a proprietary connector?
Tony Jay
Oh, the BBC is asking for International opinions on the Brexit shenanigans.
Please send any front pages, comment pieces and editorial approaches that you feel are of note to
If I’ve screwed that link up, here’s his Twitter address twitter.com/G_J_Russell
Have at it, Juicers.
J R in WV
@jl:
They don’t have until the end of the year — they have until Halloween, end of October. Pretty appropriate, isn’t it??
Uncle Cosmo
@mrmoshpotato:
Whereas I have been holding out for a metal girder above a service station in the Piazzale Loreto in suburban Milano…
Yarrow
@J R in WV: The end of the year refers to the new anti tax evasion laws that go into place in the EU starting in January. See the tweet I quoted above. If they can’t get Brexit done by the end of the year they could need to move out of the EU–just like they’ve been moving their money.
Brachiator
The Rebel Alliance heeded John Major’s warning and avoided the elephant trap. Johnson wanted a general election, but the opposition, which earlier seemed ready to agree, now want to make sure they get an extension and a guarantee that the government will pursue something other than a no deal option.
Michael Gove previously hinted that the government might ignore Parliament’s instructions, but Johnson ain’t that bold. I’m sure that Jacobs Rees-Mogg is consulting dusty archives to see if there is a way for Johnson to get out of the hole he has dug for himself.
mrmoshpotato
@Michael Cain: But Apple really wants to change their charging ports by 1/16″ (1.5875mm) in either direction so you have to buy yet another charger for your iPhone v347 5H17.
Michael Allen
@Raven: faff (plural faffs) (Britain, slang) An overcomplicated task, especially one perceived as a waste of time. Adjusting this television is a bit of a faff. (typically in the phrase ‘in a faff’) a state of confused or frantic activity; a flap.
mrmoshpotato
@Uncle Cosmo: Fair enough. I’d rather the sentence be carried out in the country Dump has so massively screwed over.
Sm*t Cl*de
@JaySinWA:
Johnston is also fond of the expression “spaffed up the wall”. The double-ff comes easily to the lips of Oxonians when they pretend to be common-folk yobbos. Like in “ffolkes”.
Fair Economist
@Michael Cain: That is exactly right, and what May’s mess of a deal says, and what any deal would have to be like in view of the enormous amount of work. Any Brexit, including NoDeal, will require years or even decades of complex negotiations afterwards. The only way to avoid a decade of pain is to Remain.
Yarrow
Huh. Just saw this. “NI” in the tweet is Northern Ireland.
Nancy SMASH has already said there would be no trade agreement with the UK without respecting the Good Friday Agreement.
sm*t cl*de
@Yarrow:
Boris and his merry Brexiteers don’t really care whether a trade agreement with the US materialises. All they want is a list of Trumpian prerequisites for trade negotiations, giving them an excuse to dismantle the National Health service and sell the spare parts.
burnspbesq
@Chief Oshkosh:
So? About four seasons ago, the starting centers on the Florida State men’s and women’s basketball teams were named Boris and Natasha.
catclub
@John Revolta:
So Mary Poppins is gettingmoney to Michael Banks? And she is Russian?
vhh
@kindness: you mean GRIFTS, comrade.
RaflW
@Roger Moore: Do you want to be the person who tells 17M Brits that the Aston Martin Rapide that they thought they’d get for a song turns out to be a clapped out Skoda Citigo with 36 payments outstanding?
I didn’t think so.
Ken
@VOR:
Can the UK buy 58 million tons of soybeans?
Jay
@Anonymous At Work:
The moment that Britain and May triggered Article 50, they caused the EU to not really give a shit about the leavers, but indtead the EU Countries that remained.
It’s a divorce.
Still the EU bent over backwards, put up with their insults, tried to explain to the Bozo’s what the EU is, what the Rules are, what has to be done, over and over and over.
Ususally when a dog shits the rug, you can train them to stop in a few days, but 2 years later, the Brits were still shitting on the rug.
Two days ago, the British Minister for Trade and Transportation was asked about what plans had be made for the Dover-Calais crossing in the event of a hard Brexit.
He said, “what’s that?”
The reporter then informed him that it was the UK’s most important trade route, amounting to roughly 90% of imports and exports.
His response, “I guess we should look into that”.
That’s what happens when your Upper Class Twits of the Year Eton Pony Boys either never go to Europe because of the French, or only travel by Private Jet.
Msb
@ Tony Jay
Good summary.
I’m glad you can and will vote. I have UK friends who live in the EU, who weren’t allowed to vote in the referendum and can’t vote now, on an issue that will determine their fate and their families’.
ET
Boris wants BREXIT.
He doesn’t believe things will be as bad as people say with no deal and thinks they are scare mongering.
Hence he wants the no-deal BREXIT.
He also is not as clever or as smart as he thinks he is.