Category: Brexit

Don’t panic: The covid-19 outbreak has led to an outbreak of common sense. The cabinet is united, and wants to cancel Brexit immediately.

Pandemic panic aside, why the change of heart? Boris Johnson took to Twitter this morning to explain.

“The evidence of the last few weeks is enough for me,” he wrote. “The public cannot cope with ambiguous and frequently contradictory statements. So I’m really going to be clear now. No. More. Brexit. No more uncertainty. We will apply to rejoin the EU, no hard feelings old chap, and continue as part of a larger, united whole.”

Other cabinet members were equally forthright.

“I must say I’m delighted,” chirped an ecstatic Michael Gove. “It’s the outcome we always desired. We have always believed that we are stronger together. Vive la EU!”

“It’s such a good move for the economy,” claimed Chancellor Rishi Sunak. “We are going to put the entire population on furlough, with full pay, for the rest of the year. Even after the coronavirus issue has passed, this will give us an opportunity to rebuild society and fractured communities. Hurrah!”

“Germany has shown us the way to run a health service,” claimed Matt Hancock soberly. “We will absorb these lessons through our EU membership, and in future we promise to fund our precious NHS properly. What price a healthy nation?”

“It’s thoroughly splendid to welcome back free movement,” smirked Priti Patel. “This great country has always attracted the brightest and best from across the globe, the cross fertilisation of ideas and cultures on this beautiful island is what makes us world leaders. Open the borders, welcome people with open arms (once the current restrictions are lifted, ha ha). Open Britain is Global Britain!”

“I will never have to get mixed up over Dover and Calais ever again!” sighed Dominic Raab. “I can let the EU deal with the details and just deal with broad brush stuff myself. Phew!”

Chris Grayling was too busy failing to organise a piss-up in a long-closed brewery to celebrate his birthday to comment.

Happy April 1st everybody!

CAN YOU EAT IT : BRITONS ARE NO SLOUCHES when it comes to keeping themselves informed, as recent voting patterns and election results (criminal interference notwithstanding) have shown.

And today in this green and pleasant, if somewhat flooded land, is no different as analysis of Google search patterns demonstrates.

“People are searching for information about sovereignty,” head nerd at the world famous Institute of British Questions told LCD Views, “not specifically how it functions, how it is gained, harnessed, used, augmented or defended in a globalised world of increasing interconnections, lorded over by tax exile billionaires. Not any of that. Nor how the social media disinformation campaigns, twinned with electoral interference have been used to criminally skew important ballots. Not that either. But something just as important.”

Which is?

“When to start panic buying sovereignty,” the boffin boffinates, “clearly it will be after the panic buying of toilet paper, hand sanitiser and fried chicken. But it won’t be long after.”

This just demonstrates the pragmatic approach of the electorate faced with the task of navigating a difficult terrain potholed with fake news, boosted by sock puppets and bots.

“Exactly.”

So when do we need to start panic buying sovereignty?

“Soon,” the scientist nods, “about the time that we realise that other countries have sovereignty too and that pulling the UK out of all those long established supra-national organisations, formed to make administration of shared, cross border interests more efficient and equitable, is going to lead to other countries saying F U. And which point we will need to return to sacrifice small amounts of our sovereignty in order to just function and survive. That’s when the panic buying begins, at least so far as the politicians are concerned. It’s hoped everyone else will be watching Love Island.”

ARE YOU FEELING FROSTY : The report of what private citizen, David Frost, had for Brexit in Brussels, before getting to grips with old Barnier, have sent tremors through British society.

“The Telegraph sure flushed the ‘talking Britain down’ brigade out of the woodwork,” an aide working for the UK’s vanishing act prime minister, Mr Johnson, told LCD Views, “only a real British man can eat beans, eggs and sausages for Brexit. You won’t see the continentals do it. They’ve not the stomach for it.”

While no one is certain what Barnier had for breakfast, largely because the European press isn’t stupid enough to report on it as important, you can almost guarantee it wasn’t a full English.

Traitors might speculate he’ll declare he’s had that once he’s finished negotiating on behalf of half a billion people with an increasingly shambolic Johnson administration being run out of a fridge.

“Later this will The Telegraph will be publishing a list of unpatriotic breakfasts so all Brits can get behind the democratically unaccountable chin of Boris who’s been given the task of deciding everyone’s fate.”

You can be damn sure croissants will be high on the list.

“Basically it’ll be anything not containing a sausage. Eat that pork intestine wrapped feast and fell British!”

Some would say that by getting jingoistic over a breakfast of beans, sausages and eggs that The Telegraph has just made the UK seem that little bit smaller. In fact, that they couldn’t make the country appear smaller in the eyes of the world if they tried. But those people clearly aren’t patriots and probably had a fucking pain au chocolat for breakfast. That’ll never make a success of Brexit!

PART TIME PRIME MINISTER : Boris Johnson has issued a stiff warning today to the flaccid nobodies ruling Brussels over their plans to talk so endlessly he risks dying of boredom.

“There’s no time to lose,” a Downing Street source said, fleshing out the PM’s emperor’s new clothes approach, “there’s Easter holidays in a few weeks. The EU need to know they need to cave fast or face the consequences. Our new mega slogan, ‘Walk from Talks’ should hit them square in the short and curlies. They’ll see sense.”

Whether an additional slogan for the negotiations with the nerds in Brussels will be required to see out 2020 will be addressed mid-year.

“Basically if the EU hasn’t realised it will have a significant dry cleaning bill at the end of the year, if it fails to take the dark money setting the UK’s agenda of self harm seriously, then we may need a second slogan. We’ll assess this when the cliff edge is nearer.”

Some have suggested though that attempting to arrange the negotiations over the UK’s post Brexit relationship with the EU around Mr Johnson’s holiday schedule may cause some blowback.

“That’s because they can’t get their wooden heads around the reality of Brexit,” the source shrugged, “it’s a fascist leaning, dark money fuelled, feudalism fetishising project. It’s not the work of a responsible industrialised country governed by a sober representative democracy. Once they finally get it through their thick heads we mean business, we are prepared to starve our own population into submission, then maybe we’ll make progress. If they give us what we want the British people won’t suffer, too much, if they don’t? Well, we all know whose fault it is.”

We may have a part time prime minister, but the agenda is entirely sinister. Where will you be taking your summer holiday?

There still aren’t any certified Brexit benefits. So there is no list. Thank you for your attention.

OPERATOR HOW MAY I CONNECT YOUR CALL : THE UNITED KINGDOM has got Brexit done, apparently, without even getting it done and while still in the EU, virtue of the transition.

All that is needed now is for government, tasked with the important mission to protect the citizens of the country, deciding to do the opposite, end frictionless trade with the European Union countries, and throw millions of lives into hardship and turmoil. Just like that. As easy as having your head turned by a combination of Russian and US billionaire cash, and the associated neoliberal and libertarian ideologies.

“The country is ready,” a Michael Gove, as real as any other Gove you’ll see on your screens or in print, told LCD Views, “ready to lose frictionless trade with the EU. We’ve arrived at this readiness by installing extra lines for the emergency services. They’ll be ready to use by the 1st of January 2021. Or later, if we extend the transition. But they’ll definitely be ready and so will we.”

But why the need for extra lines to 999 if the country is ready?

“You saw what happened when KFC ran out of chicken a while back?”

Yes. People actually phoned the police like it was an emergency.

“And it will be an emergency. KFC may be one of the few outlets still serving, and I use this word advisedly, fresh food after we finish getting Brexit done. Any disruption in the supply of chicken parts will cause widespread panic. Motor parts are a lesser priority.”

Surely then you should be focused on ensuring the supply of chicken to KFC is robust, rather than mucking about negotiating with the EU?

“Well, it is hoped that simply by sacrificing our farming sector on the altar of big US corporate farm culture we can be certain there will be enough, and I use this word advisedly, chicken for everyone, even the vegetarians. They will have little choice but to consume meat after Brexit, as most of our fresh fruit and veg is grown by the Dutch. And what’s even better is that you will be confident the chicken that you will be eating, will have an extra secret herb and spice, after Brexit.”

Chlorine?

“The very same. So clean you could swim in the frying vats and lounge in the ovens after cooking it. Which, funnily enough, will be a lot like it feels to have done Brexit.”

TANGIBLE BENEFITS OF BREXIT : NEWLY ELECTED TORY MP for Brexit-on-Err, Toby Smythe-Willing-Crumpet-Holmes-Spruce, has hit out at the EU27 for their “clear and obvious meanness” and “lack of appreciation of what the UK has done for them”.

Speaking in a barely legible facsimile of pig Latin hybridised English, the Little England MP laid into what he sees as the apparent “embarrassment of Emperor Merkel” and her “sidekick in France”. At least that’s what Google translate says.

But it wasn’t just the usual suspects that the pro-Brexit member of parliament went after. Other nation states were also used to display his standard Brexiter grasp of history and modern tensions.

“The Spanish also should be put on notice” for what he perceives as a reluctance to acknowledge how clean Brits have kept the Rock since “the Hapsburg Empire abandoned it in the face of English military might”, claiming it “was in a barely habitable state consisting mostly of run down and neglected rice paddies on hill sides and empty tavernas by the sea”.

“Not to mention the recent boost to the financial districts of Frankfurt and its sister city Dublinfurt thanks to the expansion of the sectors there made possible by the obvious commercial incentives [of Brexit].”

But the red faced MP, bulging abdomen visible through a burst button on his powder pink office shirt, has a way for the EU27 to show their due appreciation.

“They can put it in the declaration when they concede to Mr Johnson’s demands for tariff free access to the German car market and French Prosecco sector,” the MP said, “a simple statement acknowledging what Brexit, and specifically English nationalists, have done to quell similar separatist movements within the EU27 would suffice. Junker should thank Boris personally.”

And people say Brexiters are crazy.

THOSE WHO FAIL TO PREPARE PREPARE TO…: The script is going to change in the Brexit debates, now that the UK’s star has finally been scraped off the flag of Europe by the busy hands of nostalgia freaks and kleptocrats.

Over now are the debates about just in time supply chains, Boris doesn’t need those (or respect the jobs of people involved in them), whether or not the EU can measure the curvature of a British banana (they can’t, we’ve taken back control of tropical fruits), or whether or not it’s democratic to use a cooked and crooked advisory referendum as a political mandate. It shouldn’t be, but thanks to FPTP and a curious alignment of Brexiters and Lexiters in positions of power, it has been.

Now the debate will focus on why life as we know it in Blighty has neither become an instant nirvana nor the entire show collapsed into the sea like a Yorkshire cliff.

“That’s because we’re in the transition,” our resident Brexit expert opines, already wearily, “we’ve legally left the EU, but nothing changes until the start of next year. It’s to give people and businesses the time they need to leave the UK before Brexit happens on the ground. Judging by some of the comments by Brexiters, laughing like drains over the failure of project fear to materialise, you’re going to spend a lot of time this year explaining this fundamental, obvious and easily accessible point of fact. Get over it.”

A battle was lost for want of a nail…

“A democracy was lost for want of enough people spending thirty seconds on Google finding out facts. Get over it. It was never about facts, it was about leveraging a wedge of the electorate’s uncertainty at a changing world to validate returning the UK to a feudal state.”

We’re in transition now, but transition to what?

“Hopefully a time when a debate can be won or lost on the participant’s grasp of the facts.”

That doesn’t sound very Brexit to me. Let’s do that.

CLOSE TO THE SEAT OF POWER : THE LAST PRIME MINISTER OF THE UK, BORIS ‘de PRATTLE’ JOHNSON is reported to be not too happy at being woken early today as removal vans arrived at 10 Downing Street to begin the process of transferring the UK’s sovereignty to the White House.

The process is expected to be completed by 11pm this evening, although there’s said to be some hitches already.

“That’s because the EU and China are taking possession of the family china and silverware during the move, only the EU wants to store their share in a storage facility until the 1st of January next year,” a Downing Street source said, “but for now the guts of the place are being shipped to the White House. Once there the yanks will keep the bits they want and sell the rest off to the highest bidder, who’ll probably end up being China. It’s a funny old world, once you start messing about with sovirintee.”

How Mr Johnson will feel settling in behind his desk in a much smaller room isn’t clear, although the source is prepared to guess.

“It’s not a desk now, that’s being taking to Japan, except the collection of toy cars that sat on it, they’ll be gifted to various EU27 states by the Japanese,” the source shrugged, “Boris will be put inside a grubby bit of porcelain and allowed up to breathe now and then, when Trump isn’t on top blowing trumpets. This is a moment of national renewal.”

To be honest, it sounds like a crap deal?

“It is, but take solace in knowing that Boris will eventually have to swallow all of it.”

DON’T SHINE ON YOU CRAZY CUBIC ZIRCONA : “However will we cope?” is reportedly the most commonly asked question in the European Parliament now that Nigel Farage and his band of plastic patriot, brain dead zombies, I mean, MEPs, have left the building for the last time.

At least that’s how the Tory press will report the end of British representation at one of the world’s foremost economic superpowers and its decision making bodies.

But our source at the EP is telling a different story as Auld Lang Syne fades in the chamber and the flag waving Little Englanders march out to celebrate Nigel Farage’s Euro currency pension.

“The EP officials are offering emergency counselling to help the remaining MEPs cope with the sudden loss of the Brexit MEPs,” our source reveals, “like immediate, emergency response.”

The quick reaction by authorities is believed to have been caused by a spate of broken ribs and swooning.

“One Belgian MEP from the town of Lumiere actually cracked a rib,” our source reports, “massive relief can take furious forms. Repressed irritation can become dangerous laugher. Some have lapsed into silence. They’re just enjoying the silence. But there’s concern it may become a vegetative state. Although I suspect they’re exaggerated. There’s many other things to get on with as the UK finally ends its empire.”

Yeah, they can feel relief now, but we’ll be back, once enough cotton onto the fact that a rainy island stuck on the outskirts of a union of 500m people is a pretty lonely island. Especially with Donald Trump calling the shots…