A return to parliamentary form in Brexistential Breakdowns

Throwing myself back into Brexit and even given it its own book now because fuck it, the world’s going to shit around me and keeping a running record of maelstrom of madness is (apparently) the only thing that’s keeping me sane right now.

Truly, I am this generation’s Samuel Pepys.

Anyway, by the end of my last entry the tally of MPs who’d stepped down was at, what, seven?

By the end of today, it was 46, a combination of Shadow Cabinet Members, elected Labour MPs, and a Lord or two. The vote of no confidence is going to take place, and if it passes Corbyn will have to step down and there’ll be another Labour leadership election.

There is no way I can possibly stress how much of an utter clusterfuck this whole situation is. I actually mistyped that as “shituation”, which seems even more appropriate. At a Parliamentary Labour Party (hope you like the acronym PLP, because you’ll be seeing it a lot…) meeting after today’s session of Parliament, Labour MPs queued up to scream, cry, beg and plead with Jeremy to go, step down, resign, please for the love of god just fuck off and die.

Corbyn’s response was to go address a crowd of thousands of Labour party members gathered outside in support of him.

Look at that shit! All of those people turned up, at less than 24 hours notice, at the same time the England football squad were playing losing to Iceland in Euro 2016. Because the thing is, Corbyn was elected by these people, the members of the Labour Party, and he’s made it clear that if there’s a leadership contest, he’ll be standing again, and he’ll probably fucking win it again - if there’s any justice in the world it’ll be by an even bigger majority than last time, and the Blairites in the PLP will finally get the message.

Because the PLP fucking hates that Corbyn is so popular, as he’s a staunch socialist, instead of that British blend of neoliberal we call Blairite, and he was elected by the masses instead of by them. They didn’t want him as their leader, they wanted Andy Burnham, or Yvette Cooper, or Liz Kendall - the most Blairite of the candidates, who finished dead fucking last with just 4.5% of the vote. The party members disagreed, and overwhelmingly voted for Corbyn, his leftist views resonating with the membership that had seen its party shifting increasingly centre-right as it played catch-up with the Conservatives. Let’s not forget, this was after Labour had lost two successive elections and around the time when acting-leader Harriet Harman recommended Labour MPs to not oppose Tory-proposed cuts. The members were fed up, the PLP still thought what the country wanted from the Labour party was Tory-lite. Right from the off, Jeremy Corbyn had his work cut out from him.

And the PLP have been fucking merciless, carrying themselves with the attitude of a child who, instead of accepting their fate and letting their parent take their toy away, chooses instead to smash their toy into pieces. It’s not the most creative metaphor, but it’s the most appropriate; rather than unite behind their leader and offer an effective opposition to one of the worst governments in living memory, they have instead chosen to impede him at every turn and call for his resignation as a man crawling through the desert calls for water. Their obstinate refusal to listen to the majority of the party members has brought the Labour party here, a place it didn’t need to be at. The PLP has turned “deflecting attention from the latest Tory scandal” into a fucking artform.

Jeremy hasn’t gone it alone, though, there’s been some support; from long-time allies Tom McDonnell and Diane Abbott along with a bunch of other MPs who suddenly found themselves promoted to vacant Shadow Cabinet slots, the backing of the heads of all the trade unions, the thousands who turned up to hear him speak outside parliament, fuck it, even Andy Burnham - the man Jeremy beat in the leadership election - gets it and stands with him. Today was also the day Dennis Skinner redeemed himself (in my eyes) for being pro-Brexit, in the way only he can.

Seriously, click that link. Or better yet, click this one, which has video. It’s fucking amazing.

The whole event has utterly dominated the news, relegating stories like Tory party leadership battles, the continuing economic shitstorm caused by the result, the UK splitting further among national lines, or the frankly more reprehensible fact that the Leave campaign are increasingly refusing to accept fucking responsibility for the fact that they lied through their fucking teeth throughout the referendum to lower billings, so let’s take a look at what else has been going on today…

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The Murdoch-owned yet pro-Remain (seriously, we should’ve been called “Remainians”) The Times did its best to provide some spark of relief to an increasingly-nervous nation by reporting that Theresa May is now the favourite to become Tory leader, pushing Boris Johnson into second place. Whilst this is undoubtedly the literal best of a bad situation, May will have her work cut out for her as she was pro-Remain, and thus unlikely to be able to control the party that was so divided by this difference of opinion that it forced Cameron to propose the fucking referendum in the first place, a political gamble that’ll likely go down in history as the single biggest fuck up of all time. Human shitstain Iain Duncan Smith is insisting the next PM should come from the Exit camp, and whilst pro-Remain Jeremy Hunt (and it’s the worst fucking feeling in the world to find yourself agreeing with Jeremy cHunt) and Ruth Davidson are also rumoured for leadership bids, they’ll likely fail and my money’s seriously on Johnson. Stephen Crabb and Sajid Javid have also formed a tag-team and are challenging for the belts, but Javid was also pro-Remain, so that’ll likely fuck them over as well.

Also, George Osborne was finally found, and he promptly ruled himself out of the leadership race, so there are little consolatory nuggets of sweetcorn hidden in this river of shit, you just have to pan really hard to find them.

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Back to “fuck me, as if I didn’t want to shoot myself already” news, and instances of hate crimes continue to rise higher than me on my 21st birthday. The National Police Chiefs’ Council said reports to its official website had increased by 57% between Thursday and Sunday, compared to the same period four weeks earlier. Police are now on heightened alert for hate crimes in response to an incident where xenophobic graffiti was found on a Polish cultural centre in London. Post-referendum hate crimes continue to be documented online on both Facebook and Twitter - and probably all the other social networks I don’t use because I’m a miserable old git - and it’s truly staggering to see.

And that is undoubtedly the most terrifying and depressing paragraph I’ve ever written.

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The rest of the EU takes time out of telling the UK to hurry up and get on with it to laugh at Boris Johnson and remind him that nope, you don’t get access to the single market without following the rules, making this claim the most recent of several the Leave campaign has been unable to keep in the aftermath of the result. Perhaps more than others, this was a fairly significant claim to not deliver on, maybe moreso than increased funding for the NHS, as though the NHS claim was by far the lead point of the campaign, it’s becoming apparent thanks to the aforementioned rises in hate crimes that a significant number of people doubtless voted Leave based on their immigration claims. As their major claims continue to be proven impossible, impractical, or just flat-out lies, the Vote Leave campaign has wiped them from its website, though (naturally) they’re still archived thanks to the wayback machine.

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A feeling of “Bregret”, or “Regrexit” if you prefer, sweeps the country as more and more people realise they may have fucked up, in somewhat voluminous numbers. Following the Daily Mail’s example, the Sun has also put Brexit in terms its readers fully understand and, following the Daily Mail’s readers, the Sun’s readers are also a bit upset about it. For fuck’s sake, even the former editor of the Sun regrets voting leave. Kelvin fucking MacKenzie regrets voting leave, how utterly fucked up is that? The petition calling for a second referendum reached over three million signatures before David Cameron, in one of his last acts of spite, utterly dismissed it, as literally everybody knew he would. Nobody in parliament gives a shit about petitions.

Probably the biggest case of buyer’s remorse is being felt by Wales, which is now also looking at independence from the UK in order to remain in the EU, despite voting to leave. Wales’ heavy reliance on EU funding and fear of becoming nothing more than a forgotten corner of England (which, tbh, is pretty fair: we give so few fucks about Wales that they’re not even on our fucking flag) has prompted Plaid Cymru to change their independence goals from “long-term vision” to “get this shit sorted ASAP”, and thus they join every other country in the fucking UK in considering this approach.

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Speaking of which, Scotland looks to claim custody of Gibraltar in the upcoming custody battle with England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Gibraltar voted overwhelmingly in favour of Remaining in the EU, and I fucking mean overwhelmingly, but little attention has been paid by the mainland to the fate of the self-governing overseas territory, so it’s fucking cool to see Nicola Sturgeon stepping up and speaking for them. Honestly, if every other country in the union can manage to remain in the EU whilst England burns, I’ll be happy to go down with the ship like a violinist on the Titanic.

Granted, I’d rather we not, but short of either a second referendum that ends up in a definitive Remain vote or Parliament simply refusing to push forward with Leaving, neither of which is likely to happen, and we’re stuck on this course now: we steered into the iceberg and now some of us are shocked that we’re taking on water.

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Ex-pat and credit to the Nation John Oliver gets it bang on:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Those videos are worth the eight minutes of your life you’ll spend watching them.

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And that’s all for today - well, yesterday - but doubtless I’ll be back in twenty hours or so for another. Cameron’s heading to his first meeting with European Leaders in Brussels today, so look forward to today’s news naturally being dominated by coverage of the Labour coup attempt again.

I wish I was joking about that.

Last updated June 28, 2016