Be Excellent To Each Other

Wait... does this mean we'll be less sovereign from Brussels once we've gained our sovereignty from Brussels?

Giphy "paradox":
https://media1.giphy.com/media/nn06cbC1potfW/giphy-loop.mp4

EDIT: Not quite what I was expecting, Giphy, but once again you've summed things up perfectly.

They could call them the Ukgo

Apparently Theresa May’s grand plan is to basically obey all EU rules without being a part of the EU, which is surely just a shit idea.

The Brexiteers are obviously up in arms about this, with cries of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘vassal state’, but they’re also massively pissed off that they can’t just destroy all rules, standards and regulations on stuff like food safety, which was their wet dream all along.

Bloody children. The lot of them

Please, please tell me they're not going to put Michael Fucking Gove in charge of Brexit!

Please, please tell me they're not going to put Michael Fucking Gove in charge of Brexit!

There are few projects a lifelong eurosceptic could treasure more than managing Britain's withdrawal from the EU. David Davis was given the most coveted role in the history of his ideology and he flunked it, at every stage, with a series of unforced errors based on his own ignorance of the thing he ostensibly cared about.

His errors were so consistent and severe the opposition had started copying and pasting his own Commons statements as attack mechanisms.

Yougov have Reese-Mogg as the frontrunner to take over from May, rather than Johnson...

Yougov have Reese-Mogg as the frontrunner to take over from May, rather than Johnson...

he's someone who's spent years crafting an image to distract us from his real character and ambitions.

Please let JRM be PM, please. It’d be ace.

Please let JRM be PM, please. It’d be ace.

https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1016350766288789504

Off with her head.

Meh. He’s going to do less damage there than as health secretary.

Jeremy Hunt is the new foreign secretary.

In the absence of the logjam being broken, of course, there will be an outcome simply by virtue of the Article 50 process: no deal. Which is, indeed, the outcome that some of the Ultras want. For almost everyone else this would be a disaster on an unprecedented scale: massive economic and social dislocation leading to goodness knows what political calamity. This now seems more likely than it ever has done before, simply because it is the default if all other outcomes are rendered impossible (and the prospect of it is what increases the chances of an extension to the Article 50 period).

For the second time in three years, Boris Johnson, a politician whose ambition and superficial charm far outstrip his ability, judgment or principles, is destabilizing the British government and threatening the country’s future.

On Monday, Mr. Johnson, in protest against Prime Minister Theresa May’s plans for Brexit, resigned from his post as foreign secretary. Now Mrs. May’s authority, longevity and ability to deliver a Brexit without causing an economic crisis are in question. But further political paralysis seems certain.

Britain is in this mess principally because the Brexiteers — led largely by Mr. Johnson — sold the country a series of lies in the lead up to the June 2016 referendum on leaving the European Union. They did so because neither Mr. Johnson nor his fellow leader of the Leave campaign, Michael Gove, intended, wanted or expected to win.

At the start of 2016, Mr. Johnson was perhaps the most popular politician in Britain. Supporters and fans mobbed him at train stations and traffic lights; pollsters and pundits thought he could reach the parts of the country that other Conservatives could never touch. But he was also driven and insecure, so desperate to guarantee he would be the next prime minister that he cynically abandoned his own previous positions on the European Union in order to try to secure support from his party’s Euroskeptic right wing.

Because Mr. Johnson and Mr. Gove were confident that the Leave campaign was a hopeless cause, they were free to make ridiculous claims that they had no expectation of ever having to fulfill. They said that Brexit would make Britain both richer and more independent, with more money for the National Health Service, much greater control of immigration and continued friction-free trade with Europe.

Every earnest warning from the other side — about how any Brexit would damage trade, business and jobs — was dismissed airily by the Brexiteers. There were no costs or downsides in this vision of the future.

This casual dishonesty has had devastating consequences.

In the two years since the Leave campaign unexpectedly won, nobody, from the prime minister to Mr. Johnson to the Labour Party, has been able to come up with a plan for exiting the European Union that can satisfy both a majority in Parliament and the expectant public. Why? Because fulfilling the false promises peddled by Mr. Johnson during the campaign is impossible.

The gulf between the easy, prosperous, productive Brexit that its voters are impatiently expecting, and the grim, complicated cost of disentangling economies that have been intertwined for decades has poisoned and paralyzed British politics.

The Conservatives’ leaders cannot admit to the electorate that they were deceived without splitting the party. And instead of apologizing for misleading voters, Mr. Johnson and the other Brexiteers have doubled down, taking refuge in optimistic slogans and vapid promises, refusing to believe the increasingly agitated evidence from hospitals, airlines, farmers, supermarkets and factories that a hard Brexit will damage them all.