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goobster  ·  1834 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: March 20, 2019

Taking to the streets... for what?

I'm not being snarky. I am deeply involved in Brexit, with friends on both sides of the issue, including journalists for The Economist, EU ministers, British ex-pats, ex-pats of many stripes living in Britain, etc. There isn't a position unrepresented in my friend circle of friends.

So, the UK has voted to exit, the EU said, OK, and the UK set a date. Then did fuckall for 3 years, acted like entitled children, and now are reduced to asking for clemency from the EU, who has absolutely ZERO motivation or inclination to do so, because it would just weaken the EU without providing any benefits to the member states.

Ok. So May is voted out either today or tomorrow. Either way, by Monday there will be some pasty twit with no plan, sitting at the wheel of a bus with no steering wheel, gas pedal mashed to the floor, and already 3/4 the way over a cliff.

And this new PM is supposed to ... what? Devise a new plan? Get an extension from the EU? Hold a new Referendum vote? Start erecting fences along the soon-to-exist border between Ireland and Northern Ireland?

Before the 29th?

NONE of that is even possible. It takes a MINIMUM of six weeks to put ANYTHING to a vote.

Even negotiating a revocation of Article 50 - much less an extension - would take more than a week. Nobody even knows what that would entail, much less how it would be enacted, or what verbiage needed to be in the document to make it legally binding.

So why go march now?

Take your wife and go to Inverness. Or Islay. Get a BnB and stay for a week. Don't read the news. Make some meals. Drink some tea. Read a book or three. Take walks. Visit distilleries and sample their wares. Stay out of pubs and away from the news.

Then, pop your head up out of your cozy hole, and see what's left.

I can't imagine what it's going to be like in two weeks...