A tour of the May-nland in Brexistential Breakdowns

So, there was something I forgot to include in my last entry…

Who? Jeremy “Huh-, not Cuh-” Hunt

MP for? South West Surrey
Voting Record Here
Previous position? Secretary of State for Health
New position? Secretary of State for Health
Leave or Remain? In like a junior doctor working consecutive shifts over the weekend.
Gimme dirt! Though it found itself overshadowed by the appointment of our new Foreign Secretary, the announcement that Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt would continue to be Health Secretary was not received well, and that’s mostly because just a few moments before there had been a rumour going round that he’d been sacked from his position that had been accepted with great cheer in hospitals up and down the country. The man is not well liked by NHS staff, for a wide variety of reasons, including but not limited to his support for providing homeopathic treatments on the NHS, being in favour of reducing the time limit on abortions from 24 weeks to 12, and that time he co-authored a book that called for the privatisation of the NHS because he’s a fucking Tory of course he wants to privatise the NHS!

But by far the biggest reason for the hatred and vitriol that NHS staff have for this man is the recent contract disputes. You see, after seeing a paper reviewing mortality rates related to weekend hospital admissions before it was published, Hunt had stated he’d impose a new contract on doctors, one which removed their ability to opt-out of having to provide non-emergency care over the weekends, something he claimed would save 6,000 lives (though this later jumped to 11,000 lives after publication of the paper) - he went on to hideously misrepresent the paper by claiming this was due to understaffing, a conclusion the paper itself doesn’t make. This prompted criticism from the British Medical Journal, as well as leading to the British Medical Association - the doctor’s union - balloting its members for strike action. Union members voted overwhelmingly in favour of striking, and thus began months of talks between the BMA and the Health department, and strikes when those talks broke down. Strikes occurred once a month from January to May, whereupon the government stated it would suspend the imposition of the new contract for further talks, talks which resulted in a new contract endorsed by both Hunt and the BMA itself. The BMA members, however, voted to reject the new deal, so Hunt defaulted to “fuck you, I’m imposing it anyway”, blaming Brexit-related uncertainties as his reasoning for doing so. This has been an incredibly acrimonious and bitter dispute, dragged out for months by the obstinate nature of the Health Secretary and his constant attacks on the NHS staff throughout, eroding their trust in him and making it that much harder to make progress through the talks, him remaining as Health Secretary was not news that was accepted well, nor is it something that bodes well for the future of our NHS.

The one, possibly only, positive thing you can say about Jeremy Hunt is that we all get to play a wonderful game of “was that deliberate” every time someone mispronounces his name:

I’m kicking myself that I missed Jeremy Hunt; like I’d said I wasn’t actually going to bother with most of them, though I could’ve just CTRL+C, CTRL+V’d the sentence “homophobic libertarian that wants to sell off the NHS” twenty-two times and had done with it, but Hunt was a big one, and he really should’ve been in there. I did have that “I’m sure I’m forgetting something” feeling by the end of the entry, but I was still a bit drunk after Mum’s 50th birthday party the full weight of what I wrote about Boris Johnson had sunk in and I couldn’t think straight, so I didn’t give it as much thought as I should’ve.

But anyway, since I’ve so far dedicated an entire entry - and a bit of this one - to the Conservative party, in the interests of unbiased reporting let us now take a look at what’s been going on in the Labour camp, where Owen Smith has now officially announced his leadership bid, joining Angela Eagle to star alongside Jeremy Corbyn in the worst modern-day reboot of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar the world has ever seen. Eagle’s banking on her “working class woman from t’north” appeal winning over the party members, which is a fair enough angle to pursue in light of some of the gloating “ha ha we’ve now had two women as PM, suck it red nerds!” comments from the Tories following May’s appointment, whilst Smith’s probably going to paint himself as a progressive compromise between the two factions, already promising a second “look, seriously, this time it’s for real so choose wisely” referendum if he’s in before The Big Red Brexit Button is pressed, a move I really can’t complain about because I want that so fucking much it’s untrue. It’s like the first sign of sanity I’ve seen through all of this, and I need so much for others to respond to it, even if it’s only to clarify further their own opposition to it.

Their hustings won’t be easy, though, as Labour party members are now furious after the changes made to the party’s voting rules. You may remember this being mentioned in an earlier entry - if you joined later than January 12th then hand over twenty five quid - but it turns out that if you’re willing to pay the £25 supporter’s fee, you actually only have a period of three days to do so, from today until Wednesday the 20th. You can no longer avoid this fee by joining an affiliated union in order to vote, as the NEC has also subjected union affiliates to the same rules (so that’ll be twenty five quid, please), and if you felt like airing your grievances with these issues at your local CLP meetings then you’re also shit out of luck as the NEC has suspended those until after the election as well. This is ostensibly because of fears of intimidation and harassment of Labour MPs, but it also has the suspiciously useful side effect of stopping literally all potential motions of support of Corbyn and votes of no confidence in other MPs.

Since we’re hovering around the issue I may as well mention that allegations of homophobic abuse directed towards Ms. Eagle have been disputed by members of her CLP, and also the window that was smashed wasn’t her office’s but was actually on a communal stairwell, as the building her office is in is shared with five other companies. I kind of wish a couple of the more mainstream news sources would look into this one so we don’t all have to rely on some bloke wandering round the side of the building to have a look for the one window with a Labour party poster in it, but you don’t need academics at the London School of Economics analysing months of newspaper articles to work out that Corbyn is frequently misrepresented by the press, so it probably doesn’t serve their interests to look too deeply into that one. Whatever the case, with literally everybody receiving abuse and death threats in the past week or two, this grinding rumour mill isn’t slowing down any time before September.

Another issue that is to rumours what lures dropped at Pokestops are to people with smartphones is Brexit itself, and though much of the past week has been dominated by leadership debacles - along with horrifying news from the rest of the world, of course - the shockwave from the result continues to reverberate around the country, especially now we know who’s going to be responsible for it in the new government. Theresa May recently hopped over Hadrian’s Wall to have a quick chat with the neighbours in Holyrood, and see how Nicola Sturgeon felt about the gathering storm. Keen to prevent the dissolution of the union, May promised that the dread rite of Ar’tikhal Fiff-tee will not be invoked without “a UK-wide approach”, which pleased the First Minister of Scotland, though she did go on to say a second referendum was likely if it were in the best interests of Scotland to hold one. The agreement of May to consider the interests of Scotland before going nuclear technically gives Sturgeon a veto over the whole Brexit process which (again, technically) makes her the most powerful woman in politics, though equally technically May could just not let Scotland have a referendum in the first place, something she thinks they shouldn’t bother with because they had one in 2014 and we all remember how it went.

It’s worth pointing out, however, that during the campaigning leading up to that referendum, all three party leaders from Westminster headed up to Scotland to beg and plead with them to vote to stay in the union, and in amongst that talk was much discussion about Scotland’s EU status in the wake of a majority “Yes” vote. I’m not saying that Scotland voted to remain part of the UK because it also meant remaining part of the EU, but we should consider when Theresa May points out Scotland has already had its referendum, that said referendum took place a year and a half before Nigel and Boris’ family friendly fascist frenzy fun time happened, and some minds may have changed now that eviction from the EU is being forced upon Scotland against its will.

Wales, on the other hand, is still totally fucked: being such a massive beneficiary from EU funding means that their majority vote to leave has utterly fucked over the very people who voted to free themselves from, well, the thing that had tangibly improved their lives by maintaining roads and motor ways, regenerating town centres, and creating jobs. There’s no guarantee from the government that Wales will continue to receive the funding it would normally get from the EU, a situation you may remember the county of Cornwall also found itself in post-referendum, though Theresa May has also been across the valleys to reassure First Minister Carwyn Jones that they, too, will have a role to play in the “UK-wide approach” to Brexit she’s taking. Either way, enthusiasm for leaving the EU appears to have cooled ever so slightly in Wales, with Welsh independence party Plaid Cymru considering having their own “if Scotland can do it, we can too” referendum, though they’ve still got some way to go to convince the Welsh population.

May’s whistle-stop tour of the UK hasn’t yet taken her over to Northern Ireland, where First Minister Arlene Foster remains committed to the referendum result as a whole, yet Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness remains committed to the Northern Ireland result, where 56% voted to stay in the EU. The Brexit result has a serious effect on Northern Ireland, not least because the continued success of the Good Friday Agreement hinges on the free movement between countries, and a return to border controls is something both nations would rather avoid. Along with battering the Irish economy - which is heavily reliant on exports to the UK via the currently very open border with Northern Ireland - the possibility of leaving the EU has also prompted much discussion about the reunification of Northern Ireland with Eire, with calls notably coming from the leader of the opposition party in Ireland, Michael Martin. Of the four nations in the UK, Northern Ireland is by far the one that will experience the most changes as a result of the Leave vote, and yet it’s also the one that will be covered least by the British media. The fact that an ocean separates us has meant we’ve slipped easily into the habit of not considering Northern Irish interests, a habit we really need to break (and soon) because the lives of UK citizens are being seriously impacted by the hubris of England and Wales.

Finally, we’ll take a look at another oft-forgotten corner of our sarcastic, tea-dependent nation, namely Gibraltar. With Spain eyeing it up ever since the result of the referendum, the 30,000-strong overseas territory that voted 96% to remain has been looking to remain in the EU at any cost, as like Northern Ireland it relies heavily on an open border with an EU neighbour. Unlike Northern Ireland, however, reunification isn’t an option here; in 2002 Gibraltar voted overwhelmingly against shared sovereignty with Spain, and though the mainland’s not forgotten that, the desire of Gibraltarians to remain in the EU has seen Chief Minister Fabian Picardo in talks with both Nicola Sturgeon and London Mayor Sadiq Khan to explore the possibilities of remaining in the EU, as well as calling for a second referendum after the Brexit deal has been negotiated.

And if you’re suddenly finding yourself thinking “hang on, I can understand Scotland teaming up with Gibraltar, but what the hell’s London doing joining up as well” then there’s one final thing we’ve got to mention: “London” and “the City of London” are two separate things. “London” is the larger metropolitan area around the original “City of London”, of which Sadiq Khan is Mayor. The City is also the main financial hub for the country, and a shit-ton of businesses and financial institutions conduct their business there. Consequently, it’s seriously felt the economic impact of the Brexit referendum, and unsurprisingly Khan has been making repeated calls for increased autonomy and even devolution of power from Westminster, which will probably eventually evolve into full-on independence given that the City, contrary to most of England, voted to remain.

British politics is complicated at the best of times; antiquated legislation built on laws devolving powers from royalty along with the lack of a codified constitution means that issues like the status of the Good Friday agreement, the relationship between Gibraltar and Spain, and the economic output of the City of London will only serve to delay proceedings on negotiations and the activation of article 50 further, dragging this whole shitfight out for far longer than it should’ve been. Granted, things are so unpredictable that we’ve ended up with a new Prime Minister three months earlier than we thought we would, but I still can’t see anything happening that’ll seriously affect the drawn-out death-rattle of our post-referendum plans either way. We’re still Thelma and Louise-ing it off the edge of a cliff, but unlike them we can’t really justify the motivation behind our final scene, it’s just happened because some people lied and other people are mad (in every sense of the word).

Shit’s seriously fucked up, yo.

BONG!

Hands up who remembers this?

That’s the Sun’s call for racial unity and national harmony just shy of three weeks ago, whilst we were experiencing a pretty sharp spike in reported hate crime incidents. Why do I bring it up now?

Well, you may have noticed something horrible happened over in France recently, and whilst Jon Snow (yes, really) was reporting from the area, hosting duties back in the studio were left in the capable hands of Fatima Manji. You may have already guessed that she also happens to be a Muslim, and if you’ve guessed that then you’ve probably already guessed where I’m going with this…

Yep.

That tweet was promptly deleted, and soon enough the Sun tweeted this instead:

Ugh.

Just… Ugh.

Fuck the Sun.

Bunch of Jeremy Hunts…

BONG!

Jeremy Corbyn went for a casual stroll around Finsbury Park with BBC reporter Adam Fleming, and had a brief chat with him about the changes to the membership rules, the progress of his allotment (good crop of broad beans), and inevitably even gave Pokemon Go a, errr… go, overseeing the capture of a Krabby. It’s a wonderful video because as softly-spoken and genuinely approachable as Jeremy Corbyn is, there’s something that’s just so adorably sweet about him talking about the wonderful bean soup he had, and watching him get slightly narked with Seumas Milne getting in the way of Pokemon Go. For a brief moment, he’s just some old man, slightly bemused by this newfangled game all the youngsters are playing, and it’s so easy to forget that he’s currently in the middle of the worst and most protracted party leadership dispute in British political history.

BONG!

Twitter madness now, as Louise Mensch responds to a tweet from a Father waiting with his son for an operation, describing the ward around him reacting to the rumour that Jeremy Hunt had been sacked, with all the grace and aplomb you’d expect from, well, Louise Mensch:

And just like every mention of Liz Truss has to be followed by the pork markets clip…

…every mention of Louise Mensch has to be followed by menshn (ha!) mention of the fact that she doesn’t really know how Twitter searches work. Would it surprise you to learn that she’s a former Tory MP who stepped down from her position after just two years in office? Unusually (for the Tory party), she didn’t step down due to any major scandal, rather just your run-of-the-mill “spend more time with my family” reasons, which is fair enough, but it still doesn’t detract from the fact that she’s a reprehensible Tory shit.

Also her husband is Metallica’s manager. That one should surprise you…

Mensch isn’t the only one making waves in the Twitterverse (ugh, I feel dirty for saying that). Cher, whose Twitter feed is probably the closest you’ll ever come to understanding schizophrenia, was asked by a few fans her opinions on the political developments in the UK, and she didn’t hold back. Seeing Cher call Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage “DEFINITE TOSSERS” was an experience I never knew I’d wanted, but my life is richer for having.

BONG!

Petitions! Anyone up for some hot name-signing action this week has an utterly delectable mass appeal to Parliament to slide their John Hancocks in on to: this masterful piece of art calling for the delectable desert “Eton Mess” to be renamed “Brexit”. This one gets mad props because it also includes a clip of Nigella Lawson in the petition’s description, and I’m a red-blooded male, so…

She says “I want the cream to be a softly aerated mass. I don’t want it beaten until it’s stiff” and everything!

If crowd-funding’s more your thing then this effort to crowdfund legal attempts to prosecute “dishonest Brexit politicians” may be deserving of your hard-earned cash (if it’s not going towards Labour Party membership fees, that is). Some of the more serious charges they’re hoping to bring against people like Boris Johnson include Misconduct in Public Office (which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment), Undue Influence (IE lying to score votes), and Fraud (because something about a bus, I dunno), along with seeking legal assurance that Article 50 won’t be triggered without the passage of an act of Parliament, and other such generally nice things we’re probably not going to get. It would be cool if they could hold someone to account though; fuck it, I’ll accept Gove copping a conviction for Fraud, it’s better than nowt!

BONG!

Richard from Pembrokeshire takes trolling to unprecedented levels by expertly tricking Nigel Farage on LBC. I don’t want to say any more, you just need to click that link, watch the video, and enjoy every single moment of it.

BONG!

And finally, whilst not quite a burn in the traditional sense, I have to give some sort of recognition to the Daily Mirror for this wonderfully self-effacing front page last week. It’s rare that a newspaper can completely sum up the mood I feel, with such startling accuracy, using just three words, and yet here it is:

It’s just perfect.

BONG!

I still miss you, Davey-Boy Smith!

Last updated July 18, 2016