Post by jasonward on Nov 8, 2016 18:26:26 GMT
So 18 months after voting to leave the EU, not only have we not left the EU but were not even clear who we are now.
Scotland has voted for independence, but can’t leave the UK for the same reason as the UK can’t leave the EU, there is no UK government to talk to. Sure we have Jeremy Corbyn as PM and he has a cabinet of sorts, but with political parties, parliament, and the UK coming apart at the seams no one has the moral authority and more importantly the ability to agree anything.
So how on earth did we get here? Well if it was a play it would be a farce, David Cameron thought he could heal the rifts in the Conservative and Unionist Party, stop the infighting and backbiting by holding a referendum on EU membership. A bit conceited really, the expense, the turmoil and angst it would inevitably create all just to make a few colleagues shut up. But hey ho, everyone was sure the nation would vote to remain in EU, so “what the hell” it would seem he thought.
Yeah… so the nation voted to leave, and in the immediate aftermath the government collapsed, the pound collapsed and somehow Theresa May arose from the shock as our new Prime Minister, somehow. Lets not forget that The Labour Party and UKIP both managed to implode too at that time.
Then just before Christmas 2016 the courts dealt a body blow to Theresa’s government by ruling that parliament had to enact leaving the EU, not her government, and the appeal went even worse, with Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish Government securing an additional ruling that the Scottish Parliament, and all the devolved national governments, would also need to vote on the matter.
But if that body blow wasn’t enough, in January 2017 the Crown Prosecution Service announced they would be pursuing criminal proceeding against the two leave campaigns for electoral fraud and Boris Johnson resigned from the government having voluntarily attending an interview with police.
And then it just got silly, and dangerous and dark.
Whilst pro remain and pro exit protesters fought pitched battles in which 2 people were killed and many injured, the government tried to get the UK parliament to agree to Brexit, the protests, and the fighting, both inside and outside parliament continued for several days until Theresa introduced her own motion of no confidence and to everyone's surprise she lost.
There was a 30 day period before an election would be held, but in those 30 days the country sometimes seemed on the brink of civil war, clashes between the various protestors now sporadically broke out across the country and it seemed clear that the election would be a twisted rerun of the referendum, some tried to campaign on other issues and many called for the violence to end, but no one listened and come March, the time when we were supposed to formally start to leave the EU we had a new parliament and everything changed again, the party whips couldn’t hold anyone to the party line, MP’s had secured their seats campaigning either for or against leaving the EU, fringe parties had made strong gains and after 3 months of trying to form a government we were off to the polls again.
Oh, and as an emergency measure, the Scottish parliament unilaterally brought forward a vote to leave the UK and Scotland voted to leave the UK.
The police reported that they are being overwhelmed dealing with hate crimes, and many people stop saying whether they supported Brexit or not, after a number of high profile assaults and the stabbings in Manchester.
Then we had a 3rd general election and a 4th, and whilst the violence on the streets started to calm down somewhat, or least no longer large groups of protesters, the fringe parties gained more seats. The Conservative Party having effectively split into pro and anti brexit camps, the Labour party losing more seats with each election it looked like we were in for a 5th election that autumn, but somehow Jeremy Corbyn took hold of what was left of the Labour Party and got the agreement of what was left of the Conservative groups and Liberal Democrats that he would form a government so long as his government didn’t introduce any legislation or take any stance on Brexit. The old guard had at the 11th hour group together in an attempt to keep the fringe parties out of power.
So here we are 4 months later, Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister heading up a minority coalition government that is powerless to act or negotiate with either the EU or the Scottish Government. For now both the EU and Scottish Governments seem prepared to wait, or really, are not willing to push an important partner into yet more chaos, but it can’t wait forever, we can’t wait forever, our country, whatever that it is now, can’t wait, we have to deal with the violence we now see everyday and we have to work towards healing the wounds.
Scotland has voted for independence, but can’t leave the UK for the same reason as the UK can’t leave the EU, there is no UK government to talk to. Sure we have Jeremy Corbyn as PM and he has a cabinet of sorts, but with political parties, parliament, and the UK coming apart at the seams no one has the moral authority and more importantly the ability to agree anything.
So how on earth did we get here? Well if it was a play it would be a farce, David Cameron thought he could heal the rifts in the Conservative and Unionist Party, stop the infighting and backbiting by holding a referendum on EU membership. A bit conceited really, the expense, the turmoil and angst it would inevitably create all just to make a few colleagues shut up. But hey ho, everyone was sure the nation would vote to remain in EU, so “what the hell” it would seem he thought.
Yeah… so the nation voted to leave, and in the immediate aftermath the government collapsed, the pound collapsed and somehow Theresa May arose from the shock as our new Prime Minister, somehow. Lets not forget that The Labour Party and UKIP both managed to implode too at that time.
Then just before Christmas 2016 the courts dealt a body blow to Theresa’s government by ruling that parliament had to enact leaving the EU, not her government, and the appeal went even worse, with Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish Government securing an additional ruling that the Scottish Parliament, and all the devolved national governments, would also need to vote on the matter.
But if that body blow wasn’t enough, in January 2017 the Crown Prosecution Service announced they would be pursuing criminal proceeding against the two leave campaigns for electoral fraud and Boris Johnson resigned from the government having voluntarily attending an interview with police.
And then it just got silly, and dangerous and dark.
Whilst pro remain and pro exit protesters fought pitched battles in which 2 people were killed and many injured, the government tried to get the UK parliament to agree to Brexit, the protests, and the fighting, both inside and outside parliament continued for several days until Theresa introduced her own motion of no confidence and to everyone's surprise she lost.
There was a 30 day period before an election would be held, but in those 30 days the country sometimes seemed on the brink of civil war, clashes between the various protestors now sporadically broke out across the country and it seemed clear that the election would be a twisted rerun of the referendum, some tried to campaign on other issues and many called for the violence to end, but no one listened and come March, the time when we were supposed to formally start to leave the EU we had a new parliament and everything changed again, the party whips couldn’t hold anyone to the party line, MP’s had secured their seats campaigning either for or against leaving the EU, fringe parties had made strong gains and after 3 months of trying to form a government we were off to the polls again.
Oh, and as an emergency measure, the Scottish parliament unilaterally brought forward a vote to leave the UK and Scotland voted to leave the UK.
The police reported that they are being overwhelmed dealing with hate crimes, and many people stop saying whether they supported Brexit or not, after a number of high profile assaults and the stabbings in Manchester.
Then we had a 3rd general election and a 4th, and whilst the violence on the streets started to calm down somewhat, or least no longer large groups of protesters, the fringe parties gained more seats. The Conservative Party having effectively split into pro and anti brexit camps, the Labour party losing more seats with each election it looked like we were in for a 5th election that autumn, but somehow Jeremy Corbyn took hold of what was left of the Labour Party and got the agreement of what was left of the Conservative groups and Liberal Democrats that he would form a government so long as his government didn’t introduce any legislation or take any stance on Brexit. The old guard had at the 11th hour group together in an attempt to keep the fringe parties out of power.
So here we are 4 months later, Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister heading up a minority coalition government that is powerless to act or negotiate with either the EU or the Scottish Government. For now both the EU and Scottish Governments seem prepared to wait, or really, are not willing to push an important partner into yet more chaos, but it can’t wait forever, we can’t wait forever, our country, whatever that it is now, can’t wait, we have to deal with the violence we now see everyday and we have to work towards healing the wounds.
. 
