BREXIT IS GETTING HILARIOUS
No matter what British Prime Minister Theresa May has tried in the past two years, she wasn’t able to unify the MP’s in the Lower House behind any of the versions of her Brexit Plan. And no matter how much pressure her political opponents put on her, she wouldn’t quit either. If May doesn’t come up with some miracle solution, Britain is going to crash out of the European Union on April 12, crash meaning no deal whatsoever. The British public can do nothing but wait and, in the meantime, does what it usually does: bear it all with a stiff upper lip, protest, or make fun of it.
As usual British born John Oliver puts his finger on the sore spot in a humorous way two weeks ago (for Brexit watch up to 2:10):
However, some protesters have had it with their government thrown in absolute disarray and spending all of its time debating Brexit, and Brexit only. (New York Times) Of course, they did it with some humor too: they stripped nearly naked in the public gallery, proclaiming that climate change, not the stalemate over Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, was the real emergency facing the country.
When PM May’s Brexit Plan was voted down for the third time (ABC news), opposition politicians declared the deal as good as dead. Labour Party legislator Ian Murray likened it to the dead parrot in a Monty Python comedy sketch.
“Her deal is no more,” he said. “It has ceased to exist. It is bereft of life. It rests in peace. It’s a deal that has been nailed to its perch. It’s an ex-parrot, it is an ex-deal.”
Even the iconic parliament buildings are straining under all this pressure. British Parliament is falling apart. No, literally (ABC News). For months, political pundits have questioned whether British Parliament is falling apart in the wake of months of Brexit chaos — and a leaky roof, it would seem, is doing little to quell those concerns.
The sheer lunacy of the Brexit process doesn’t escape the New York Times when it reports:
Politico reported the other day that the French European affairs minister, Nathalie Loiseau, had named her cat “Brexit.” Loiseau told the Journal du Dimanche that she chose the name because “he wakes me up every morning meowing to death because he wants to go out, and then when I open the door he stays in the middle, undecided, and then gives me evil looks when I put him out.”
If you can’t take a joke you shouldn’t have come to London right now, because there is political farce everywhere. In truth, though, it’s not very funny. It’s actually tragic. What we’re seeing is a country that’s determined to commit economic suicide but can’t even agree on how to kill itself. It is an epic failure of political leadership.
Well said, I’d say.
Cross-posted on Care2 HERE
11 Responses to “As Seen from Afar 04/05/2019”
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Too right – it is a tragedy, very stressful, and humour is an essential medicine to prevent total mental breakdown …
I think May has studied “The Art of the Deal” too carefully, and like its author himself, is entrapped in the lousy advice given in the book!
We laugh at Trump because his stupidity and dishonesty is so obviously ridiculous, but he is slowly destroying our institutions of government and our position of leadership in the world. It’s no laughing matter. Our houses of lawmakers (the House and the Senate) have been inept in doing the serious work of government while spending us into deeper, dangerous debt. When the jokes are gone and people like Maher have had their fun, we will be up the creek without any paddles.
Great Article Lona. Jerry makes an excellent point.
Is the difference between a Republican and a Torrie the letters BR? IDIOT and BRIDIOT!
OMG, that was cruel, when I have a pulled muscle in my side, to make me laugh so physically like that! “Is that a question?” OMG!! Never mind, you couldn’t have known.
And Monty Python. So iconic, probably every resident of the UK over the age of 30 can quote it word for word off the cuff. And so appropriate.
We laugh so we won’t cry. We laugh because laughter gives us energy, and crying deflates us. We laugh to give ourselves the energy to keep resisting. We also laugh because there is always the hope that sufficient, and sufficiently powerful, laughter may cause someone on the other side to re-evaluate his/her position, and any avenue to that, no matter how small, must be explored. There is definitely a place in the resistance for laughter. There is, of course, also a place for outrage. But it’s easy to burn ot on outrage. I’ve never heard of anyone burning out on laughter.
RESIST AND PERSIST !!!
Personally, I have the tendency to go to indignation, then outrage first, but the older I get the more I see that humour is much more beneficial, if only because it is better for my health. Outrage can only last so long; like stress it’s good for the system in short bursts, but harmful when it lasts too long. But humour has it’s downside too I hear
. I had myself in stitches after reading about the reasons the French minister called her cat Brexit. It gave me idea of making this a almost fully humorous article.
As I recall, David Cameron put the question to the people in the original referendum, but he was not in favour of Brexit. After the vote, Cameron stepped down and May inherited this dog’s breakfast.
I understand that a significant portion of the populace want to have another referendum because they feel they were either coerced the first time around by pro-Brexit persons (lied to by politicians and/or their lackeys) or just plain did not understand the scope of the question and its implications.
It would seem that with no acceptable agreed to exit plan and the continued political chaos in Britain, a second vote would be a decent plan. Of course the nationalists would decry that, but with so much turmoil, with so much at stake, it might be the only way to cool things and get on to other awaiting matters.
May didn’t just inherit Brexit from Cameron, she fought a very hard battle with other contestants to get it. Apparently the lady is extremely ambitious and extremely stubborn. She wants Brexit to go down in history under her name, no matter what the costs. She’s very like Drumpf in this respect; better to make history as the worst president/PM ever than not get mentioned at all.
I think we can all agree …
This will not end well!
I recall seeing the “Dead Parrot” skit, some 700 years ago, when it was first televised here, and loved it. Still do. Sadly, it is all to fitting. A 2nd vote is certainly needed, whatever rules need to be abrogated!