BREXIT! BREXIT! BREXIT!

[Seabass]

Sounds like all hell is breaking loose over there. Y'all know 'Murica's always got room for another star on our flag. Let uncle Trump fix everything for you, lickety split...

[JimC]

Are the Spitfire squadrons at full readiness?

[Rum]

Well it’s general election time folks. Government defeated this evening so Boris is throwing the dice. I can’t believe how crazy this has all become.

Brexit: No-deal opponents defeat government https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49573555

[Brian Peacock]

The Tories have just removed the whip (membership of the party in Parliament) from the MPs who voted against the government to block a no-deal exit. One MP 'crossed the floor of the house' from the government benches to the opposition benches this afternoon. Now Johnson has just thrown 21 Tory MPs across the chamber after him. We now have a minority government. Johnson is now in a race to get his motion to call a general election completed and ascented into law ahead of the bill which would make him seek a new deal and then ask for an article 50 extension if he didn't get it by mid October - and yet he can only achieve this is if he can wrestle control of Parliamentary business off Parliament tomorrow. Some kind of significant national emergency would probably do it, like an alien Mothership suddenly hanging over St James park in a way that skyscrapers don't.

The only deal on the table is Mrs May's deal. Wouldn't it be ironic if that was the deal that we left with?

[laklak]

This is some riviting shit, y'all. BoJo trying to play a Trump card. I love a gambler, I must admit. What odds are the bookies giving?

[Rum]

...and of course by booting the ‘rebels’ out he can get pro ‘no deal’ Candidates into those constituencies where he has probably calculated (with the increasingly alarming influence of that Dominic Cummings fellow) many stand to win.

Too soon to say Lak. And it would be thrilling stuff if the stakes weren’t so high.

[laklak]

It's more fun from this side, like y'all watchng Trump.

I'm glad I'm old.

[rainbow]

...and of course by booting the ‘rebels’ out he can get pro ‘no deal’ Candidates into those constituencies where he has probably calculated (with the increasingly alarming influence of that Dominic Cummings fellow) many stand to win.

Too soon to say Lak. And it would be thrilling stuff if the stakes weren’t so high.

Boris' objective is to make parliament the cause of his failure to come up with anything new. The problem he faces is that there will now be an extension that has to be long enough to cover an election and/or referendum. This may give time for a Labour/LibDem/SNP/IND pact to be formed that could beat the Tory rump.

The Pound will be the best indicator of which way it will go.

[Brian Peacock]

By telling 21 moderate Tory MPs that they're not welcome Boris has simply showed that nobody likes a centrist.

[NineBerry]

Night of the long knives. English style.

[JimC]

By telling 21 moderate Tory MPs that they're not welcome Boris has simply showed that nobody likes a centrist.

[Scot Dutchy]

Boris has failed (who thought there would be any other result) and now he is creating an exit. Corbyn would be mad to support the GE bill. Let him stew.

[Brian Peacock]

The priority is to stop a cliff-edge leap of faith, once that's sorted an election is unavoidable - Boris would just like things to happen the other way around. We have a minority government - we need an election.

If the Tories win then, and because no parliament is bound by a previous parliament (meaning the next government could make laws to overturn the no-deal blocking law if it has the votes), we could still crash out. However, if that happened and they didn't account for their share of the vote, and particularly the number of people who voted explicitly for a Remain party and/or a party that promised a second referendum with Remain on the ballot, then serious trouble awaits them. In that situation the government might be able to claim a mandate for a no-deal Brexit in a technical sense - by virtue of having more seats in Parliament - but they couldn't really claim to have a mandate in the moral or political sense - to be authorised and empowered to express the infamous 'will of the people'. It wouldn't stop them try though.

If the Tories win a general election and the UK crashes out of the EU then when the economic shit hits the fan, as it surely must, people are bound to become frustrated and angry - and that is bound to be directed at that coterie of over-privileged millionaires who wore top hats as part of their school uniform and who told the nation a no-deal Brexit would be better than sex with an oiled and compliant Chris Hemsworth and/or Scarlett Johansen. This is why the Right consider it vital to generate and boost the general level of cynicism about politic and politicians: they can only get away with this shit if it seems like run-or-the-mill, par-for-the-course. The Tories 'Peoplve vs Parliament' narrative has to be seen in that context.

What we need now are political parties that focus on the material conditions of citizens, on improving those conditions, and that doesn't think political success is determined by getting away with being more of a arrogant shithead than the other guy - and then we need people to believe in those parties and vote to vote for them. I'm not holding my breath.

[Rum]

We have that person In the form of Jeremy Corbyn, the most upright and dare I say honest leading politician to be on the scene for a decade or more. Unfortunately he comes over as a procrastinator, with poor leadership skills and I don’t think anyone much sees him as PM material.

[rainbow]

By telling 21 moderate Tory MPs that they're not welcome Boris has simply showed that nobody likes a centrist.

Complete twat, now he's guaranteed their disloyalty.
Was he really convinced that they would be cowed into voting his way under the threat of expulsion?