I don't usually do political on this blog but recent events and being laid up in bed set off a kind of stream of consciousness outpouring...
It’s Brexit Day, not.
We’re fracturing before our eyes. I listened ill in bed, while they popped up like meerkats in parliament, here’s Liz Kendall, shrill, the never ending Tory psychodrama, something like that, she says, and earlier in the week, parliament taking over, shall it be EFTA or Norway with knobs on or Canada without bells and whistles, and I’m getting confused, and I consider myself with enough brain cells left still, and maybe a confirmatory vote, because we’re not sure now quite what the will of the people is or was, because let’s face it all the crap about the billions of pounds for the nhs on the side of the Boris leave bus was a lie, and there was big fraud on that side, but we must respect the will of the people, even though we don’t know what the will of the people is, not now, the will isn’t static, there are 16 year olds now who weren’t old enough then but it is their future, and I’m sick of hearing about the will of the people because half the people voted against leaving, so what about their will? But the hard line Brexiteers or Brexiters want us to crash out of the EU without a deal and let’s have WTO, even though Kenneth Clarke says people really don’t know what WTO means and that this is only a default undesired option for countries who’ve not set up better deals or something like that, but there are the people outside waving their purple flags, Nigel’s UKIP flags or Brexit Party flags because they have been betrayed by parliament they say and worse, Tommy Robinson is across the square with his brand of populism and not in a very long time has parliament been on the precipice, as Theresa May tries to get her Withdrawal Agreement through for a third time, division, clear the lobby, John Bercow bellows and the numbers come back and the PMs deal has been defeated again, though with narrower margins even though she agreed to sacrifice her leadership if she could just get it through and even Jacob Rhys Mogg would backtrack on his previous stance if the DUP will too but the DUP say not on your Nellie or they may as well have said that because of the Irish backstop and the fears of a permanent customs union but they don’t want to be treated any different from the mainland UK, are you following so far, and the joke is that Theresa May fell on her own sword and missed, and very few Labour MPs were persuaded across to vote for the deal and they are right when they say the Prime Minister should have reached across the house at the start not at five to midnight to start discussions and so parliament have had to have indicative votes to suggest where to go next because none of the ideas got an overall majority although a people’s vote came close, and people keep asking about Corbyn and Labour’s stance and they are between a rock and a hard place because their membership - of which I am one - are divided as much as the country and those in the deindustrialised areas felt left behind and neglected by successive governments and Westminster and you can’t blame them and there were those Leavers who marched all the way from Sunderland and many in parliament square converged there on this day to celebrate but now they say how they feel betrayed and will never vote ever again, and it was all David Cameron’s fault for running scared of UKIP and putting party interests before what was best for the country and being complacent about the result, or thinking it through and making a huge miscalculation that cost him dearly and left everyone else to clean up his mess, but there’s been no clean up, just a bitter divisive country, which Theresa May inflamed by putting herself with the people against parliament on the steps of number 10 in an unprecedented statement and my MP left the Tory party to become a tigger, that is one of the independent group, who changed their name to Change.org initially without realising that this is a big campaigning organisation and so now have changed to change.uk so more fragments and even more likelihood of a hung parliament next time round, which may be sooner than we think because of talk of a general election which Jeremy Corbyn would like, and I’ve not even started in Scotland yet who feel they’ve been sidelined, and if they don’t get a deal which keeps us close to Europe then they would be justified in having another independence referendum because they are outward looking and they welcome and rely on migrants, and the people who don’t want May’s deal are united against it for very different reasons, the hard line leavers say it’s worse than staying in the EU, and outside parliament all week it was the Pro Remainers with their blue starry European flags and roaring Stop Brexit and there was the petition to revoke article 50 which got 6 million votes or was that the call for a final people’s vote and businesses say we just want certainty and foods and valuable medicines from Europe may be in short supply or unobtainable altogether and the stockpiling has started
And slow forward a few days, well April fools day when there are more debates and I am still ill in bed listening and one MP is saying if people could look his way rather than elsewhere and there are titters and its quite clear that something’s going on in the balcony area, a demonstration has been referred to, and acknowledgement of the rights of people to demonstrate but they have to get on with the important business of the house but I can hear the cacophony in the house and crane up to see my iPad and see Ed Miliband glancing up every now and then to what must be the out of sight balcony, but it’s not until later when I google and see not the titters but the bums, looks like some sort of porno picture but no it’s extinction rebellion, they’ve superglued their arses to the glassed off area in the balcony in protest about the neglect of environmental issues being debated in parliament and slow forward again and the cabinet are locked in discussions for 7 hours or more and the upshot is OMG Theresa May has at last decided to reach across the house and have talks with Jeremy Corbyn and this is the final straw for the ERGers who thinks she’s committed treason for cavorting with the enemy even though she lost her majority and this is what civil countries do - ironically European countries! - where there are hung parliaments or more precisely coalitions, this is the way modern politics works, and isn’t this the whole point? We need to change the way we do things here if democracy is to survive and get up to date and be fit for the twenty first century, but people are saying it’s a trap for Corbyn, and he should keep his hands off Brexit because he could be blamed if it all goes belly up, and then there was the sewage leak onto the chamber where MPs were debating, you could hear the gush of water and you could not make it up
Kate Jay R © April 2019
