I'm full of coffee, so let's try to figure out the state of the UK, shall we?
I don't know if you've been paying attention to UK politics lately, but it basically goes a little something like this:
Our Prime Minister is somehow Boris Johnson.
Because we apparently haven't suffered enough yet.
BoJo wants to prorogue parliament - which sounds like it should be a move in support of rapscallions and pirates, but isn't.
What it actually means is that BoJo will suspend parliament to push through a No-Deal Brexit so that they can't stop him.
A No-Deal Brexit means we leave the EU with no trade agreements, border agreements, legal agreements, citizenship agreements, or extradition agreements.
It's a sh** idea. And will f**k us over more than we already are. (Because apparently that's possible.)
Unfortunately, our constitution is a combination of pieces of law that were written on napkins and stuck together with chewing gum over a period of many centuries.
One piece of constitutional law usually ends up contradicting another, and the courts end up taking months to figure out these paradoxes and contradictions whenever necessary - thing is, we don't have months.
We have until Halloween.
Which is a f**king nightmare - not least because you can sense the cheap puns that the tabloid newspapers will come up with are already in the works.
(And they'll make my nightmare pun look positively eloquent.)
Our only written constitution - aside from the Magna Carta which is about Kings and Barons and sh** - is the Bill of Rights of 1689.
- Which we tend not to pay attention to any more because it was hugely anti-Catholic, and gave Protestants the right to bear arms in order to shoot said Catholics.
And giving people the right to bear arms is something we've since over-turned because it's dangerous and irresponsible (hear that, USA?)
Also, it doesn't count in around half of the UK (Scotland, and possibly Northern Ireland, to say nothing of the smaller islands and territories,) because that would've meant less ridiculous spaghetti-tangles of law.
...Which we seem to be cr*p at avoiding.
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See, the problem is that most of our constitutional law is about stopping the monarch from doing sh**.
Historically, it was the royal people you had to watch in terms of despot-like behaviour.
If the prime minister acted like a douche, the King or Queen just got rid of them.
But we don't do that any more because the monarchy is really more of a poorly-defined figurehead these days than an actual political power.
Why can't we come to a deal with the EU?
Firstly, because Boris thinks he can swan in and make everything magically happen, after Theresa May worked her a** off for years to get a deal that parliament wasn't happy with.
But the real problem is that we have precisely one land-border between one of the 4 Nations (Scotland, Wales, England, Northern Ireland), and a country outside the UK.
And we don't know what to do with it.
There's a border between the Republic of Ireland, and Northern Ireland - which is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Hence the name.
Historically, this has been An Issue.
But it was agreed when the Good Friday Agreement came about that there would be no hard border - because given the free movement within the EU, and the fact that both sides of the conflict agreed to disarm, why would we need one?
The Good Friday Agreement brought a (sometimes slightly tenuous) peace to Northern Ireland, where there's been conflict since lord knows when.
Messing with terms in the Good Friday Agreement during a time when NI politics seem (from where I'm sitting in my Welsh living-room,) to be on-edge, would be bad.
Because that would make the agreement's terms up for discussion. And no-one needs that.
The other option is to have something called 'the backstop' otherwise known as 'the Irish backstop' - essentially, Northern Ireland would still have to abide by EU regulations in order to avoid a hard border.
Only for a variety of reasons - one of which is the view that this would essentially mean losing Northern Ireland from the Union, and it slowly becoming a part of the Republic of Ireland - people don't like that.
But no-one can come up with anything else.
Which leaves the UK stuck between two decisions we don't want.
Because we made a poor decision answer to a vague goddamn question about three years ago, and now we're f**ked.
The question should have been: Do you want to leave the EU or do you want to name a boat Boaty McBoatface?
We'd still be in the EU. I guarantee it.
So, that's the situation.
And what are parliament, our so-called sovereign, doing right now?
Well, this week the Prime Minister called the leader of the opposition a 'big girl's blouse' in the middle of Parliament.
...We have children running the country.
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| Via Giphy |
Meanwhile, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Leader of the House (no, we don't know what he does either,) and member of the Ministry of Silly Walks, slumped in the corner looking like he'd rather be doing anything else.
...I mean, most of us wouldn't wanna be there, but we weren't responsible for wrecking this sh**.
BoJo's brother, JoJo (I sh** you not,) has resigned as both a minister and an MP, citing a conflict of interest between loyalty and national interest.
Inspires you with confidence, don't it?
BoJo claims he would rather 'die in a ditch' than delay Brexit again. Which, y'know, a lot of people wouldn't object to right now.
Oh, and if there's a No-Deal Brexit, Scotland are likely to leave the Union.
(Scottish folks - if you leave, please take Wales with you! A Celtic Union would be so much better than leaving us with England! You know they treat us like sh**.)
So, just the crumbling of the country. No biggie.
And, believe it or not, this is the simplified version of what's going on right now.
International people, you are lucky I'm full of caffeine right now! Otherwise this would be a f**k-tonne more long-winded, and ridiculously complex.
...We never make things easy on ourselves.
It could be worse - we could have a leader that tries to buy Greenland on Twitter, declares himself the Second Coming of God, and thinks that nuking hurricanes would make the least bit of difference.
...frighteningly, none of that was a joke.
What do you think?
Are things going better in your country, or are we in a global dumpster fire?
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Last updated: 11th Nov 2019
I love how you call him BoJo because it sounds like you’re saying Bozo, which I’m sure he is! Anyways, I think things in my country are going better, however we do have an election coming up that could drive out Justin Trudeau which I am pretty stressed over. The leader of the Conservative party running against JT is slimy and homophobic af, but there’s a pretty good change he’ll win :( I always considered Canada to be a very liberal country, but slowly the conservatives are taking over.
ReplyDeleteHa, BoJo is what the newspapers call him - it has resulted in many, many clown jokes over the years!
DeleteArgh! Good luck to all you Canadian folks with the election - things aren't great in a lot of places, but keep going; hope is a powerful, powerful thing!