Everything is currently in a state that you could fairly and accurately describe as “divided”. We’re talking “the media describing Margaret Thatcher’s death”-levels of the word “divided”. The nation is divided almost neatly down the middle, 52% - 48% is not a comfortable majority by any stretch. Two of the four nations wanted to leave, the other two wanted to stay. Europe risks division, as emboldened nationalists throughout the continent call for their own referendums. With Cameron counting down the days and getting a start on the packing, the Conservative party is even more divided than during the referendum as potential replacements start to stake their claims.
Also, it’s suddenly occurred to us that nobody’s seen George Osborne since before the referendum, which is a bit of a worry because he’s the bloke in charge of our money. Personally I think he’s holed up in a cottage somewhere in Cumbria with only a mountain of cocaine and a shotgun for company.
In this time of great division, what’s needed most is a statement of unity; a symbol, a sign, anything to give this dazed and slightly senile nation hope and focus and purpose, whilst all around us is snapping in half and shattering into roughly-equal but exactly opposite pieces. This is a strange new world we find ourselves in, because so much is unknown and we’re in no fit state to plan ahead, we’re becoming more fractious and panicky the longer we go without a voice of clarity. And in this climate, at this moment, what does the one political party capable of even coming close to providing anything resembling direction or stability do?
Why, it tries to launch a coup against its leader. Obviously.
There’s some history with this sort of thing - literally everything that’s happened in the UK since he was elected leader of the Labour party (in a fucking landslide) has been used as a platform to call for Jeremy Corbyn to step down: his performance on PMQs, the way he interacts with the press, his call for Cameron to face questions over the Panama Papers, you fucking name it and someone will have called for Corbyn to step down over it. In the midst of the vote of no confidence that two MPs called for after the Leave result, literal embodiment of the term “disgrace to the name” Hilary Benn started encouraging other ministers to resign in protest should Corbyn ignore the no confidence vote.
His reasoning? Well, one of the most likely Things That Could Happen is that we have to hold another General Election at some point in the next few months, and there are many people in what’s called the Parliamentary Labour Party - the elected Labour MPs sitting in Parliament - who feel that Jeremy Corbyn is incapable of securing a win should another Election happen now. There are many reasons many of them feel this way, but it’s mostly because Parliament is basically fifty shades of neoliberal and Corbyn’s the closest thing to pioneering socialist icon Clement Attlee the Labour party’s had since, well, Clement Attlee. Knowing this, you might find yourself wondering “well, if so many Labour MPs hate him, how did he end up in charge?” it’s simple: he was elected by the majority of the Labour Party itself, basically every member of the Labour party who’s not an MP. Anyone can be a member of the Labour party, you just pay a small membership fee and you get a vote in the leadership elections. A groundswell of grass-roots support saw a surge of membership applications to the Labour party that swept Corbyn into power, with 59% of the vote he easily beat the other three candidates, and the PLP absolutely fucking hates it.
So he’s not had the easiest of rides in the months since, and evidently something inside him snapped last night, as in response to his traitorous machinations Jeremy Corbyn fired Hilary Benn from his Shadow Cabinet position. Briefly, for those curious, the Shadow Cabinet is simply the opposition party’s cabinet ministers; chosen by the party leader, their purpose is to “shadow” their respective government positions and provide criticism of claims and statistics, offer alternative policy, and would theoretically be the party’s cabinet in the event of an election win. For example, should the Minister for Work and Pensions say “our new scheme has resulted in 7,000 jobs created” the Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions is the dude going “your figures are bullshit and your scheme doesn’t work”.
Except in more parliamentary language, obviously.
Hours after Hilary Benn was handed his P45, Shadow Health secretary Heidi Alexander tweeted her letter of resignation (a letter she’d either prepared a year in advance, or hadn’t proof-read before screenshotting it for Twitter), opening the floodgates as she was soon followed by Shadow Scottish secretary Ian Murray, then Shadow Environment secretary Kerry McCarthy, then Shadow Education secretary Lucy Powell, then Shadow Minister for Young People Gloria de Piero, then Shadow Transport secretary Lillian Greenwood, and then - just as I started writing this entry - Shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Seema Malhotra.
Heidi Alexander sent out her tweet at 8:22 AM, Seema Malhotra resigned at 13:51 PM - seven resignations in five and a half hours. Right now it’s ten past three and we’re overdue a resignation, there’ll probably be another one before I’ve finished this entry so in the mean time we might as well have a round-up of some other things that’ve gone on over the weekend.
BONG!
The “£350 Million a week” claim is now more toxic than the crumbling remnants of the Chernobyl reactor, and is being disowned by anyone associated with it, the same with the claim that we’d be able to cap/control immigration, both claims central to the argument the Leave campaign was putting forward. Added to that the fact that absolutely nobody seems to be in any rush to get the actual leaving process underway, nor has anyone proposed any actual plan for leaving - which, if you’re campaigning to leave, you’d think you’d have - beyond pre-referendum bluster, and it’s starting to look like nobody from Leave’s got a decent idea of how we should actually leave at all. Which is a little bit downright fucking terrifying if you think about it.
BONG!
The rise of Nationalism continues unabated in the nation that ground its world-spanning empire to dust in order to halt the rise of Nationalism in Germany. Who knew that constantly telling the population that the cause of their problems was immigrants and the EU would result in the population becoming hostile to immigrants and the EU? The good news is that there are still some good people in this country and efforts are underway to combat it, the bad news is they’ve probably got their work cut out for them…
BONG!
People who thought you could have a protest vote on a binary ballot continue to realise they’ve royally fucked up. If only someone had told them about the economic risks and the £350 million claim being bollocks before they’d voted…
BONG!
Social media news now, and a petition to hold a second referendum posted to the House of Commons website has done the rounds and has so far acquired over three million signatures. In the past 24 hours it’s crashed the HoC website and garnered more signatures than the Lib Dems got votes in the last Election. In a glorious irony, it was originally created by a pro-Brexiter before the referendum, in case of a Remain win, and he’s now bitching that his petition has been hijacked. Of course, it’s only a petition and as such absolutely nothing will come of this either way, but at least it’s passed the 100,000 signature threshold and thus will be mentioned in Parliament.
BONG!
A comment left on a Guardian article has also been spreading like wildfire through the social media forest, mainly as it recasts Cameron’s decision to pass on doing “the heavy shit”. Basically, Cameron has dodged a bullet and it’s whoever’s next to lead the party that’s stuck in a lose-lose situation. It’s brilliantly written and quite thought provoking, but ultimately still just a comment on a guardian article, so you may want to take it with a pinch of salt.
I’m fucking sold on it, though.
BONG!
And that’s all the news for today, somewhat disappointed nobody else resigned whilst I was writing this but the day is young, so there’ll probably still be more neoliberal blood shed. I can’t see much else major happening today because it’s Sunday, but then again all this happened this morning, and it’ll probably kick off even more tomorrow so either way I’ll probably find myself compulsively logging the madness daily.
Also I’m never coming up with a better title than “Division of Labour”. I have fucking peaked there, people!
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