Westminstenders: 30 days to save us all!

[RedToothBrush]

It's quite remarkable to watch the British press atm.

It's like it doesn't understand English. Well only if its English spoken by foreigners.

Merkel made the observation that the UK had spent two years looking at the Irish border but had failed to come up with a workable solution, and now Johnson has waltzed in and made statements about how the backstop must go, and only has 30 days in which this can be achieved.

The British press writes this up as Merkel giving the UK a deadline to come up with a new solution.

Which is nonsense. The UK have a deadline to save itself, from itself and that's 31st October. This is a self imposed deadline.

Meanwhile comes out with the Brexiteer smack down that he didn't think the UK wS leaving the EU to regain its sovereignty only to become a vassalage or junior partner to the US.

Both these ideas being the result of leaving the EU have long been key issues. From before the ref. Both have been the UK's to solve in order to get the terms the UK wants from a deal.

The referendum was about choosing to align with the EU or to ditch that and rights and align closely with the US. Then Trump happened and the sell on this got harder, but still essentially the same. And it continues.

And then there was the Irish border. The magic solution to Brexit that doesn't break the GFA. I personally think there isn't one as long as the DUP have their red lines about the Irish sea.

So here we are. More than 3 years after the ref.

Leavers still have no plan. Apart for charge headlong over the cliff. Remains still have their heads wedged up their own backsides and also, after spending months criticising every one else on social media anyway who makes a stand again this bull shit.

Yet the newspapers fail to report what Merkel said or why the UK has this issue in the first place. Its an ongoing exercise in national delusion and self denial.

Oh thanks! What’s wrong with the good old ‘ . ‘? I actually googled it before asking which was no help...

This post from a British journalist in Cork will be interesting to those applying for FBR.

www.echolive.ie/opinion/Amid-Brexit-chaos-Ive-been-told-I-face-a-YEAR-LONG-wait-to-be-an-Irish-citizen-e4d0594c-4e89-4cc4-b678-0b24a6c536e6-ds

He "moved to Cork in 2001 and I didn’t have a vote in the 2016 referendum" but has only applied for FBR in 2019.

"I didn’t apply to be an Irish citizen on a whim. I wrestled with the ethics of my decision. Did applying to be an Irish citizen, while being anti-EU and hoping Brexit is a success, make me a traitor to the Irish cause? Was I a hypocrite?"

I don’t like the ever-increasing power grabs by the EU over sovereign nations, I don’t think it’s a very democratic organisation, and I don’t like the fact Germany runs the entire show, with a little help from France.

I can't believe the Echo published such shite tbh. Saoirse and Mick at the water cooler indeed.

I feel no guilt - as a Remainer - that I have tried to escape Brexshit woes by emigrating to German

However, a Leaver - and one who still supports Brexit and thinks it of for other people to pay the price,
while he's escped to Ireland ....

Hypocrite, CF, .... many Anglo-Saxon nouns too

Did applying to be an Irish citizen, while being anti-EU and hoping Brexit is a success, make me a traitor to the Irish cause? Was I a hypocrite

I can answer that one: yes

And I hope that there is a special place in hell - alongside those who promoted brexit without a sketch of a plan - for anybody who voted for or supports brexit whilst having access or the right to another EU passport.
Anyone who voted for or supported the removal of EU citizenship from sole British citizens whilst knowing either they could apply for/ already held another EU passport OR could retain EU benefits and rights via their EU citizen spouse there are not enough bad words in the English language to describe what a scumbag shitarse you are.

Very clearly Germany does not "run the whole show" 😂

28 countries, soon to be 27, discuss and vote on issues

In fact, when it comes to Brexit, it is his host Ireland who is mainly determining EU policy !

English / British Nationalists always claim Germany is running the EU, because they assume that any bloc of countries is run by the most powerful one

and they know - and hate the fact - that Britain isn't running the EU ....
so by their logic it must be the #1 power, Germany, aided by the #2 France

This kind of Brexiter only understands heirarchical structures, not democratic ones
Classic sign of an authoritarian

Fintan O'Toole: the madness of Boris the 'clown' and Brexit

Sado-populism as an explanation

https://amp.smh.com.au/world/europe/irish-author-dives-deep-into-the-madness-of-boris-the-clown-and-brexit-20190812-p52g6t.html?

Brexit is a zombie cult that arose out of England’s “two great neuroses”:

losing the Empire
and winning the Second World War.

And the country’s new leader Boris Johnson is a reckless, psychologically damaged clown with an insatiable, desperate hunger to be loved.
....
"But the question that occurred to me was
how does this privileged, modern, Western European country imagine itself to be intolerably oppressed?

How do you get to that stage?
What kind of mechanisms might be at work – psychologically, I mean.”

So he put England on the couch and psychoanalysed it.
What he found was a patient in the throes of a nervous breakdown.

“I’m not dismissing the economic and social factors, which are obviously huge,” he says.
“But you know you have to feed in these broader psychological, cultural factors into it.”
.....
Take his extended argument that Brexit is punk reborn.

Brexiteers “want to sever the last restraints on the very market forces that have caused the pain.

They offer a jagged razor of incoherent English nationalism to distressed and excluded communities and say:
‘Go on, cut yourself, it feels good.’

It does feel good. It is exhilarating and empowering. It makes English hearts beat faster and the blood flow more quickly – even if it’s their own blood that’s flowing.

“Brexit is often explained as populism,” O’Toole wrote, but it is better understood as

“sadopopulism, in which people are willing to inflict pain on themselves ^
so long as they can believe that, in the same moment, they are making their enemies hurt more”.

“Brexit is a strange hybrid – a genuine national revolution against a phony oppressor.

It has the form of a moment of liberation without the content.

I think I'll write to the echo and ask why they're publishing this type of shite. I found it offensive on so many levels. The UK tabloids wouldn't publish an article like this in the Irish editions.

Interesting article by Fintan O’Toole, Prettybird, I’m so sorry about your MumMine had dementia too, hence why I think that about Trump as I too witnessed it in action.

BCF I’ve never actually lived in Germany and it’s DH who needs the insulin so I kind of assumed it would be complicated to get it. Thank you all for the sympathy about my Dad. He’s not an unintelligent man. Came from a very poor working class background and got a scholarship to a private school and then went to university, married my German Mother in the 60’s.

I’ve already said about the ‘my parents generation did not fight the war to end up being ruled by the Germans’. Last month he wanted me to send his best wishes to my German family on my trip over and tell them he loves Germany but hates the EU. I told him I wouldn’t know how to which was not true but I wanted to shut that down. A few days later he emailed me a translation he’d obviously got from Google translate.

He really does appear to have lost all reason when it comes to the EU . He’s been like it for years but it’s reached a whole new level. I’ve noticed he is starting to slow down cognitively which I guess doesn’t help. But this is a man who got married in Germany 20 years after the war finished, he’s seen the huge amount of stress it is causing for his family with DH and insulin worries and DD’s partner but he’s becoming more and more entrenched .

My Brother lives abroad , nicely isolated from it all. He didn’t vote in the Referendum but said in a call ‘do me a favou, vote leave in the Referendum. He is a dual National too but also bangs on about Germany flouting the rules on something. I noticed despite all this he has put in his business Facebook page that his company is under German management- as he knows damn well the UK is pretty toxic in that respect currently.

Sorry to bang on but it all makes me quite sad if I think about it too much. DH’s family are pretty rabid Leavers too so we are surrounded on the family front. I find these threads invaluable, a huge thank you to you all.

I presume you are not fluent in German and usually would read a lot of misinformation in the Brexit- leaning UK press

@MotherOf3Dragons oh yes, that Brexit-leaning paper that is the Guardian

www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/aug/21/merkel-gives-johnson-30-days-to-find-solution-to-avoid-no-deal-brexit

It was BicChoc who posted the Fintan O'Toole article

The "blessing" with my mum is that it was an early onset dementia, triggered by the head injury 2 years before), so her death was mercifully swift after she was diagnosed ("only" 3 years : 5 years after her accident ). The other positive is that her brain will have helped progress the research about dementia because it was well documented with scans from the initial accident and then at intervals afterwards, plus my dad allowed a (sort of) PM on her by the people doing some of the leading research. They think they'll be able to work out a way of stopping the protein that results in (some forms of) dementia - which ironically is also the healing one which doesn't switch off when it should.

A lot of the research has also come from boxers, American footballers and rugby players.

Ds plays rugby (positively encouraged by us) - but is very sensible about coming off with even suspected concussion, and then taking the appropriate time away from contact (minimum of 2 weeks). The SRU, to give it its due, has very good protocols, especially with regard to youth players.

Taking it back to Brexit and the current idea from IDS to increase retirement age to 75 . My mum had her accident while cycling in India (so very active) when she was 66. My dad had to fight to get get into the Rehab unit, because she was over 65 - which was (still is?) the usual cut-off date.

Steven Swinford@steven_swinford
Exclusive:

Dom Cummings today said Cameron and May were ‘idiots’ for thinking Angela Merkel would be their ‘saviour’

‘For 10 years this building under Cameron & May has looked to Angela Merkel as the saviour

‘She is not. She didn’t help them out, she won’t help here’

Dom Cummings highlighted a tweet from @itvpeston earlier saying it will all come down to the wire at the October 17 European Council

He said that by then it would be too late for Grieve et al to stop Britain leaving without a deal on October 31

I thought its was leavers who said Germany and its cars would save us?

@Dongdingdong I don’t read UK newspapers for that exact reason. The journalists just take the government statements and run with it without checking if they are true or not.

Corbyn is not really getting the Tory rebels on board with his cross party initiative. In a letter, Nick Boles declines, and explains what he thinks is the only route to stopping No Deal.

mobile.twitter.com/NickBoles/status/1164501233970896897

@Dongdingdong I don’t read UK newspapers for that exact reason. The journalists just take the government statements and run with it without checking if they are true or not.

Personally I trust the Guardian as a quality news source.

....another example of Meatloaf Remainers

...another example of Meatloaf Remainers

Have we reached the point that the MR's have secured a No Deal for the loons?

That letter is impossible to read on my phone!

The Liberal Democrats: the EU Referendum’s invisible party

www.referendumanalysis.eu/eu-referendum-analysis-2016/section-6-parties/the-liberal-democrats-the-eu-referendums-invisible-party/

Viebienremplie the good old '.' is welcome too but we feel the need on occasion to redress our mental balance with less sombre stuff. Hence cat pictures, or whatever else floats your boat

If the meatloaf remainers won't accept Corbyn as a temporary PM with his proposal for another referendum who/what do they actually prefer ? Ken Clarke and a soft brexit with no referendum ? They seem to have gone very quiet on who/what they would accept in a unity government.

Meant to say proposal to stop no deal.

.

Nick Boles wants to extend Article 50. But then what? How long does he want to keep kicking the can down the road?