PMs change and lol we're all gonna die (but brexit will never end)

anyone willing to guess how BJ will obey the law but not request an extension on 19/10?
― prorogue mahone (||||||||), Monday, 16 September 2019 19:09 (one hour ago)

there was this piece by everyone's favourite Windmill Jolyon (a square asks: why is he so nicknamed?)

https://waitingfortax.com/2019/09/15/the-flaw-in-the-benn-act/

(tl;dr: insincerely offer and hope to pass the Withdrawal Agreement, thus fulfilling the obligations of the Benn act, but then deliberately impede the WA ratification processes required and bomb out with No Deal - that's just my probably not 100% accurate summary there)

not sure if I think that's true btw but who the hell knows any more, not me anyway

Even Polly gets it, holy shit

This has been unjustly mocked: what, renegotiate and then vote against your own deal? But that is entirely rational. Make the deal as good as it can be – if leave wins again, it would be implemented. But no Brexit is a good Brexit, and Labour would this time lead the progressive parties’ fight to persuade the country to remain, advocating EU reforms if we stay. Some Labour MPs would take the leave side: the party should be tolerant, as Harold Wilson was in the 1975 referendum, with no need for a Johnsonian expulsion of dissidents.

I don't think there was ever really a chance of the Guardian (as opposed to individual Guardian writers) flag waving for Swinson's LibDems and I'm surprised anyone thought they would.

But MI6…

I don't think there was ever really a chance of the Guardian (as opposed to individual Guardian writers) flag waving for Swinson's LibDems and I'm surprised anyone thought they would.

― Matt DC, Monday, September 16, 2019 9:28 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

the median guardian columnist is a sensiblecentrist people's voter who is scared of corbyn, nostalgic for the london olympics, and is "against populism". so i thought they'd lap swinson up tbh

Swinson has all of that in theory, but has been so shit at it that they can't get behind her.

btw I'm glad that after the conflict itt we can all be brought together again in hating ben elton

i see the guardian wrote another editorial today

i opened it and read it,
it said they were suckers

Even now I doubt that's an accurate representation of the median Guardian columnist and even if it were I don't think that would have enough bearing on their leader writers to have them repping for someone who was literally a member of the coalition government and has never seen fit to repudiate it.

In any case she's put herself in a position where the LibDems are going to get attacked from both sides during the campaign, which under different circumstances might actually benefit them, but these flimsy policy decisions are going to get torn apart. She doesn't strike me as someone who's going to perform well in the TV debates either.

And they will actually bother to attack her, unlike Tim Farron who was transparently so little of a threat that May and Corbyn could get away with ignoring him altogether.

Tim Farron was the leader of a party who couldn’t say gay sex isn’t a sin and who was cagey about abortion. You don’t have to do much when they were alienating swathes of prospective voters.

lib dem leaders in the late 2010s are going to be killer pub quiz questions in a few years

Farron made me LOL at the debates with that 'where's May? maybe outside your front door measuring the cost of your social care' quip. Tough act to follow for The Overton Swindow.

lot of pro-Swinsonites annoyed by Polly's column in the comments, mainly with variations on "oh but revoking isn't extreme!"

well, I mean, if you find a nice way to position it I might agree, it's not really extreme as in outlandishly radical, though in another sense it is, y'know, a literal extreme of the currently viable-ish spectrum

(nicer positioning as in try to make it less "fuck the 17 million" and more "everyone tried to do what the Leave campaign promised but sadly it turns out that it isn't as simple as some people said it was so let's stop the timer, go away and think through our real options" or even "everyone's tired of Brexit so how about we just don't")

but "we're for revoke now so we won't work with anyone with more support and more realistic plans", that's extreme in the face of an imminent No Deal

and "we'll revoke if we win an outright majority, which we are never going to in a million years, so instead we'll just split the vote and then who knows what we'll do, probably sign up for a coalition with Boris doing whatever kind of Brexit and whatever else he wants as long as we get an unwinnable referendum on a watered-down version of one of our less interesting policies" is fuckin' dangerous, stop that shit, please

what are their other policies tho

Nobody cares.

well, yeah

having policies is the old politics

Also I rudely didn’t respond to the question about windmill Jolyon - he owns literally two windmills and he is called windmill Jolyon to distinguish him from the lesser Jolyons like Jolyon Green and the other one who matters even less.

The shitposting left calls him a windmill fucker, which was why there was much mirth at the guardian calling him a “windmill enthusiast” recently.

thank you!

windmills are cool tbh

I don't want to own one though

which is good, because I can't afford to

ilx should co-own an oast house

Rural Kent though....

Lighthouse or nothing.

Expectation vs reality. https://t.co/lN5V0iV2eq pic.twitter.com/eUx1y2h3q4

— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) September 16, 2019

I mean, of all EU countries. Luxembourg. Can you even name a famous person from there? How many people are even citizens?

andy schleck!!

(also fränk schleck)

Can you even name a famous person from there?

I mean, 'famous' is a relative term but Pierre Joris is an incredible poet and translator.

I liked Luxembourg when I visited around 10 years ago, lots of art and nice food. Not exactly someplace to go clubbing, though, and all the older men were sockless Sven Goran Ericsson types.

I have been abandoned in Luxembourg before. I do not care for it

nice food

Sounds like you lucked out.

Oh balls, Juncker is Luxembourgish, right? I think it’s better a small country did this. But different than Macron or Merkel.

Prefer Joris to Juncker

*we got bollocked by the smallest EU country* is a bad look anyone, let alone for the Graun et al. Andy and Frank Schleck as mentioned above, Kim Kirchen, Bob Jungels... The cyclist massive alone. And Juncker. Never emphasize on the size of your opponent.

Late again but kids if you don't think the Graun will pull for the LDs come the election you high

I have been abandoned in Luxembourg before. I do not care for it

― imago, Monday, September 16, 2019 10:46 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/524c3206e4b030f83803d779/1475585871558-4A5AFUB646K7JB2LBVBJ/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kJnKaRcBMMpNx5VGIKFm7ZpZw-zPPgdn4jUwVcJE1ZvWQUxwkmyExglNqGp0IvTJZamWLI2zvYWH8K3-s_4yszcp2ryTI0HqTOaaUohrI8PIJQ5KhlZK5Rpsxgj5oHv8ihxWxnbyLI4IgSPTiVLUFs4/image-asset.png

I reckon the food was nice because it was a fab European City of Culture press trip so we were taken to really lovely places (and staying in a hotel that had the most OTT breakfast buffet I had ever seen).

I thought Ben Elton had lived in Australia for years? That's even further away than Denmark.

Even more so, he lives in Perth, the second most distant city on the planet after Honolulu (which is 1/6 Perth's size*), and closer to eg East Timor, Bali and Jakarta than even to other Australian population centres.

*(NB: the OG Perth is 1/46 the size of the .au Perth. I know it's confusing but it's the English's fault)

that guy isn't english

oh mate

She’s a liability truly pic.twitter.com/OwzSpHM6fg

— No One (@judeinlondon2) September 16, 2019

Fucking hell, the sheer effort and time and weight crushing David Cameron's brain and soul in the mad, terrified effort to avoid saying "I absolutely fucking stacked it." YOU WOULD FEEL BETTER AND ACTUALLY DO SOME GOOD IF YOU ADMITTED YOU WERE WRONG.

— Caitlin Moran (@caitlinmoran) September 16, 2019

David Cameron says his mistake with austerity was not doing it harder and fasterhttps://t.co/n11bJdim1J pic.twitter.com/hg9uqS2mLg

— Mirror Politics (@MirrorPolitics) September 16, 2019

grave spit imo

(Luxembourg was the scene of the most dramatic part of my marriage breakup lol. Luxembourg! I had to buy my own plane ticket!)

No no, ~window of permission~ is the name of my dog

xp Fuck LJ, had no idea. That sounds like a 'Before Sunset' sequel

Our daily/nightly radio show on actualities has this song as an intro on all things EU/Brexit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEIMHntHwgg

I've been hearing it nearly every night for a year and a half now, thanks to the UK voters. And it is perfect.

That's rough, LJ. Surrounded by papier mâché buildings, to boot.

that guy isn't english

(annotation specifically provided as caveat/context; I pin the colonial empire on the English more than Britain per se)

I thought Ben Elton had lived in Australia for years? That's even further away than Denmark.

Even more so, he lives in Perth, the second most distant city on the planet after Honolulu (which is 1/6 Perth's size*), and closer to eg East Timor, Bali and Jakarta than even to other Australian population centres.

*(NB: the OG Perth is 1/46 the size of the .au Perth. I know it's confusing but it's the English's fault)

― now let's play big lunch take little lunch (sic), Tuesday, 17 September 2019 7:19 AM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The intersection between the general Western Australia way of doing politics and the massive pinkie migration (WA Timezone means the football isn’t on too late) probably makes Perth WA the most Brexity city on earth.

Less Before Sunset, more Before Some Kids Throw A Bottle Near You And Because You Berate Them In Bad French Instead Of Try To Beat Them Up You Are Unmanly And I'm Driving To Calais And Taking The Dog And You're Not Coming

good times great memories etc