Be Excellent To Each Other

I cannot see any way that leaving would benefit anyone. So we shouldn't do it

This is something that's been bugging me these past few days. Will there be a single advantage for us leaving the EU? I'd been talking to a friend of mine and I had a feeling that he voted for Brexit and sure enough, he had. So, I figure that maybe he fell for all the slogan-on-a-bus and Boris bollocks and so I asked him if he'd still vote to leave now and he said yes. I didn't press him on why as I think it would have just annoyed me to find out his reasons.

'to get our country back'.

To which the correct response is "From whom?".

I'm guessing that the answer may have been something along the lines of 'taking back control' or 'to get our country back'.

To which the correct response is "From whom?".

I cannot see any way that leaving would benefit anyone.

The pound tanked when the result of the referendum became clear on 24 June and 12 months on the currency is still down 15% against the dollar at just above $1.26. It is also down 14% against the euro, at about €1.13.

Film-maker Patrick Forbes has been hanging about behind the scenes for the past year, making a documentary about the battle for the heart and soul of Britain. It’s called Brexit Means Brexit (BBC2).

Patrick’s not a political journalist; he mainly just watches, and listens. When he does ask a question, it’s almost embarrassingly deferential. “Forgive me for this, I have to ask a boring question,” he says to Boris Johnson, post the general election result, before just about managing to ask Boris if he is going to run against Theresa May. Not a boring question, and I don’t think Laura Kuenssberg needs to worry about her job. But the approach – more poodle puppy than rottweiler – does mean that they come and play with him, say things; a lot of things.

“The Daily Mail is an absolute disgrace, they should be ashamed of themselves,” shouts Anna Soubry, after Paul Dacre shouted ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE on his front page about the judges who ruled that parliament did have a right to debate Brexit.

Nicholas Soames agrees. “The most disgraceful, disgusting headline I have read in my life,” he splutters. The grandson of the bronze dude in the square with the pigeon shit on his head then calls Lord Pannick, who represented Gina Miller against the state, “as smooth as a vaselined otter”.

“Frankly, they’re just cowards,” Miller says of her critics. “I’m sorry, be a man – because most of them are men. Come and talk to me and find out my motivations. If you don’t have that courage, just shut up.”

Jacob Rees-Mogg, one of her critics, and a man, albeit a rather odd one, doesn’t shut up. “People have all sorts of hobbies, some people like yachts,” he says, plucking a random everyday hobby from his hobby bank. “Some people like being litigates. Mrs Miller likes being a litigate.”

I'm beginning to hope that, as time passes, the real effect of a Brexit will xtalise, and some form of sanity will prevail, and we'll stay. There's some light shining through the door, at least, as shambolic as it is.

I'd like to think that, but of the people I know who voted for Brexit, I'm not exactly seeing any changes of opinion - they all still seem to think it's a great idea. Although if and when it does actually happen, if they gloat about it on Facebook, then I'll be having a friend cull on there.

Crystallise. Soz. Old habit.

Perhaps I may first extend my sincere condolences to the Minister on her new appointment. The noble Baroness has an unenviable task. Brexit is a revolution that devours its children. It has consumed three Prime Ministers: Margaret Thatcher, John Major and David Cameron; it is now on to its fourth, Mrs May. In the past year alone, it has decapitated a Chancellor, neutered a Foreign Secretary, and two of the four Ministers in the Department for Exiting the European Union have already exited. I advise the Minister to join them as soon as possible and seek a less demanding job, like Secretary- General of the United Nations.

So, the EU has done a free trade deal with Japan. That's good news for Sunderland and Swindon, isn't it?

Got to. As soon as the reality of the folly hits home.

Ok, so odds of us never leaving now must be shortening right? Or is that wishful thinking?

Got to. As soon as the reality of the folly hits home.

So, the EU has done a free trade deal with Japan. That's good news for Sunderland and Swindon, isn't it?

Boris Johnson has suggested European leaders can “go whistle” if they expect Britain to pay a divorce bill for withdrawing from the European Union.

Speaking in the House of Commons, the foreign secretary also told MPs that the government had “no plan for no deal” because of its confidence in securing a strong Brexit settlement with the bloc.

He went on to say the sums demanded by Brussels as a price for a deal were “extortionate” and signalled that the UK would refuse to pay.

Britain has for the first time explicitly acknowledged it has financial obligations to the EU after Brexit, a move that is likely to avert a full-scale clash over the exit bill in talks next week.

In a written statement to parliament touching on a “financial settlement”, the government recognised on Thursday “that the UK has obligations to the EU . . . that will survive the UK’s withdrawal — and that these need to be resolved”.

The text, released by Joyce Anelay, a Brexit minister, was immediately seen by Brussels as a potentially important development. EU diplomats say the wording “goes further” than Theresa May’s previous reference to Britain being willing to reach a “fair settlement” of unspecified obligations.

It's glorious. A glorious shitshow. I love it.

It's all fun and games until Sunderland's car workers are lining up on the dole.

I don't think it'll get that far. It's becoming too ludicrous of an escapade now to reach that stage.

follow through

Yeah, I'm now seeing a glimmer of hope that it is becoming too visibly and publically disastrous to actually follow through with - which I didn't expect.

The only possible silver lining here is that a massively fucked Brexit might swell appetite for Scottish independence then you can all come and live in our glorious socialist utopia.

I'm mostly joking there of course. Mostly.

There are however two other elements of democracy worth mentioning – and they are related. One is the role of truth. The other is the right of people to change their mind. And partly because the public now has a clear sense not only that they were lied to during the referendum, but that they are now being fed a different set of lies about how pain-free Brexit will be, they are beginning to doubt the good sense of exiting the EU, and moving to the idea that the country may need to take another look at this.