Seizing back control: The ILX lol brexit is how we're all gonna die thread.

May says this deal will set the groundwork for life outside the EU.

But in future, Britain will be able to choose how it develops. Some will want it to move closer to the EU. Others will want it to move further away.

Future governments will be able to decide, she says.

https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2F25.media.tumblr.com%2Ftumblr_meddouhgyB1rsuxuyo6_250.gif&f=1

lol

_UK will protect jobs by seeking as close to frictionless trade in goods with the EU as possible white outside the single market and ending freedom of movement_


🖼

lol bg

So do I have this right: May is offering people who want a second referendum, and who now has leverage because she needs their votes on the withdrawal agreement, not a second referendum in return for them giving up their leverage, but a parliamental vote for a second referendum, which they have no chance of winning without leverage? So she just think that they're idiots or what?

Good to see Theresa is perfectly calm and PMing as she always does.

It's now her standard playbook of "I'm appearing to give you the thing you want but AHA if you can see through my cunning ruse there is a sting in the tail"

parliamental indeed

a vote on having a vote, which they have already had without asking her, and didn't win last time

of course if it does scrape through this time round, hope someone has a plan for stopping the usual warmongers, austerity enthusiasts and the brain geniuses who've made CUK's publicity so persuasive declaring themselves The Voice of Remain, again

Speaking as an outsider, but with what just happened in Austria, couldn't it hurt Farage quite a lot?

I'm going for "no" bcz British people imagine their politics happen entirely in a vacuum and what some foreigners did in foreignland can't possibly be related to our good ol' British patriots, no matter how many connections you can draw (and most of the press won't draw any, and anyone who does will only hear "lol paranoid much" or "but Soros")

it'd be nice to be wrong, of course

haven't checked in in a while, sounds like the plan is to continue holding votes on Brexit for the next thousand years?

Y'know when you miss the old "I like where this government is going" jpegs?

xp next thousand years or until fascists take over / the EU have finally had enough of our bullshit and we crash out, yeah

of course there'll be more negotiations and more protracted parliamentary stalemate and more deja vu after that, whatever the next stage is

Also spacecadet v otm re anybody in the UK giving a shit about corruption but i can't keep up today

Anyhoo i thought there was a right-thinking parliamentary majority for ref 2 who's been lying to me?

Milkshake for May

Let's have a meaningful vote on it.

Talking of which, she's outdid herself with this latest cunning plan, the rats who rejoined her sinking ship last time round are deserting.

From the parliament that brought you stink evacuation during a cholera outbreak

And...from looking at the milkshake discussion I'm just gonna leave this here as the way to win:

[Extremely Christopher Stalford voice] Today, milkshakes.... Tomorrow...... pic.twitter.com/b3y9TCzJRH

— Dawn Foster (@DawnHFoster) May 21, 2019

can’t believe mr seumas milne got to windmill jolyon’s big brown chicken

Dawn foster going for nihilist lols without rly bringing lols if we're honest

Imaginary McDonnell otm

respect to dawn foster for crafting a tweet that is at once bad not good and also good not bad

my work is done

I've been giggling away at this

But it will not do that if it remains stuck in the Brexit impasse, she says.

Sunderland have some good young players coming through.

She says, with the right Brexit deal, she can end this debate.

Also good and good:

Er, Vaclav Havel died in 2011. Who the hell is this guy? pic.twitter.com/sqNKPdrcsK

— Alex Cruikshanks (@alexcruik) May 21, 2019

(it'a vaclav klaus)

farage being a necromancer would explain a lot tbh

If only the ppl @ the guardian knew their way around wiki

Look, not ridiculing our enemies is the old politics

Look, having enemies is the old politics

Look, politics is the old politics

Look, having a functional spell check is the old politics

Look, wanting to live is the old politics

Look at the moment and see if we can get the problem to work it out as soon as I am ooh

Samuel Beckett's play Catastrophe, which he dedicated to Václav Havel, can at last be read as the prescient exhortation to leave the EU it was all along.

a packed Olympic Conference Centre in London

Maximum Capacity (seated): 600

Samuel Beckett's play /Catastrophe/, which he dedicated to Václav Havel, can at last be read as the prescient exhortation to leave the EU it was all along.

Samuel Beckett's play /Catastrophe/, which he dedicated to Václav Havel, can at last be read as the prescient exhortation to leave the EU it was all along

tbfttl he always argued the case for the status quo too

Some interesting conversations with work colleagues this evening about the European election. One Italian and one Spanish, both very left wing, and one English, er, not very political. He (Italian) pumped me for information about the Lib Dems, what they stand for, what their ideology is, what their history is. Actually, first of all, he was asking me about the SNP because apparently there's an SNP candidate who's been endorsed by Yanis Varoufakis. When I told him SNP stood for the Scottish National Party, he was confused because nationalist parties are supposed to be right wing, aren't they? It seems he and my Spanish colleague had been talking about voting for this guy, I had to disappoint them by pointing out the SNP don't field any candidates in England! So, then she (Spanish) asked me who I thought she should vote for instead because, obviously, she can't vote Labour because they're not Remain, she knew the Lib Dems were Remain but also knew enough about them not to vote for them. For both, the most important thing is that whoever they vote for be Remain. My English colleague didn't know what the election was about and had no idea there was such a thing as the European Parliament.

The Italian guy was also quizzing me on the history of the Labour Party, "Where they ever Marxist?". "Er, not really". I should point out that this guy is from a family with a famous Marxist/Anarchist lineage, like his great (great?) grandfather was a friend of Gramsci's etc.

This ridiculous footage of a Brexiteer being called a traitory snowflake for not quite being brexity enough is an amazing summary of where Brexit is right nowpic.twitter.com/D9YhUSwZSg

— James Felton (@JimMFelton) May 21, 2019

Somebody chuck my phone into the sea

All I’m getting from my friends is that they’re not voting for CUKTIG under any circumstances and they’d normally vote Labour, so I’m spending a lot of time rubbishing the Lib Dems, being much nicer about the Greens and saying that ‘message’ votes away from Labour aren’t simple because the Labour MEPs are all Remainers and the bloc system in the EU Parliament puts Labour in with the Socialist bloc. Had I a vote, it would be for Labour on the basis that I’d want Labour MEPs serving five-year terms. And Seb Dance is fantastic, so there’s also that.

My university lecturer friend who came over to watch Years and Years last night (and whose university is being decimated by cuts thanks to Coalition policies only now taking hold) initially said he was going for Lib Dems (me: “whaaaaaat the ever-loving FUCK?”) but after a comprehensive chat it’s either Greens or Labour (he likes Corbyn).

The system of voting for a list of candidates is fucking madness, and typical of the kind of overly party-centric politics in this country. Where's the accountability when you're asked to vote for eight candidates at once or whatever, and one could be Mary Poppins while the next one is Captain Hook? Also just the implication that because I vote Labour I'm therefore happy enough to vote for all candidates simultaneously, are all of them going to canvas together? Obviously not, again, more disdain for actual electoral politics.

None of this can have helped the attitude towards the EU and EU politics.

And like, despite extensive googling there doesn't seem to be anything online that says who these candidates are, what their background is, their qualifications or beliefs, even Labour's own website is just a list of their names. Not even a photo.

I'm not singling out Labour, I assume it's similar for other parties, just using them as an example since they're the party I investigated for this info.

xxp
There is an LSE lecturer who is a remainer I follow on twitter who I assumed would be a natural CUK/LibDem supporter in the current state of affairs, so it was very gratifying reading her ripping into them both and especially the CUK's who she described as "an affront to democracy".

FH you have to carefully study all the shit that comes through your letterbox, it’s the only way

I’ve sorted through the pile and singled out “best kebab” as the party for me

(xps) I tried explaining this electoral process to my Italian and Spanish colleagues last night and had to stop because it sounded so ridiculous I wasn't sure if I was getting right - and I was, more or less.

I actually did get a leaflet through the door which began "dear curry lover" recently and I had words with the guy who delivered it as I don't know how he got in to the building.

Are you serious in any way on that point wins? The leaflets just seem big brand advertisements, like as if mentioning candidates or policies is less effective than just telling me to vote Labour.

I just think it's a major indictment of democracy. Surely, for lots of people, elections and canvassing are how they come to know who their local politicians are and what they believe. I can think of lots of Irish MEPs from the past based on strong canvassing and presence in the media after getting elected.

I dunno if it's another symptom of Ireland thinking of the EU as a big entity from which we can get things, money, decisions which you negotiate for or fight for, versus here where it's like a subsidiary election for your party's branding.