Some more absolutely pant-shitting nonsense from the Brexit Bunch.
https://t.co/oro23zBvpt
Two columns from the ever excellent Ian Dunt, from whom I learnt about full diagonal cumulation.
First, on the practicalities of trade. This was written before the deal but as the article notes, everything in here applies to trade with the EU deal or no deal.
I want to issue a word of warning before we go any further: It’s a horror show. The level of tediousness here is off the scale. This is like someone came up with a super-powered serum for the concept of bureaucracy and then injected it directly into your bloodstream. But you didn’t turn into Chris Evans in Captain America, you turned into Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. The worst things are the acronyms. Everything has an acronym. But you need to get your head around it in order to understand what’s going to happen to us next month.
That bonfire of red tape? Yeah, no.
Second, on how Brexit is so not done. It will never be done.
Finally, the the Hansard Society, on the farce of allowing 5 hours to debate a 1,200 page trade agreement days before it comes into force.
In my own personal Brexit preparations, I’ve contacted my local Ausländerbehörde (Foreigners Office) and I‘m scanning in the list of documents they’ve asked for to prove I’ve been living in Germany, duly registered, employed and health-insured, for the last year and a half. Then there’ll be an interview (not sure why) and eventually -hopefully- the card that lets me demonstrate that I have the right to keep living and working here. I’ll still have to use the third-country passport lanes while Mrs StC swans through the EEA lane and waits with a faint look of pity on the other side.
Otherwise, I’ve been reading the news with a thorough sense of distance and unreality. It’s more obvious from outside the UK how simply not normal British politics is. I also have the feeling that British - well, Tory - politicians think that the EU doesn’t listen to British news, so they can say anything without fear of offence. Hence I was listening to the news on DLF and was treated to the words of the execrable Mark Francois going on about the war, presented and translated without comment. That was followed by the contemptible Matt Hancock going on about the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine being a British triumph. It’s embarrassing, the intellectual and moral pygmies of the British cabinet strutting around like they’ve won, apparently unencumbered by understanding or self-awareness.
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I also have the feeling that British - well, Tory - politicians think that the EU doesn’t listen to British news, so they can say anything without fear of offence
The Leave commentary in this respect has been unbelievable, as if people in the EU don’t have the internet. Or radio. Or newspapers.
Half the country needs its fucking head kicked in.
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“Well well well, if it isn’t the consequences of my actions.” - No-one in the UK, since Remainers didn’t vote for it and Leavers won’t admit to it.
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Food is currently being destroyed by the truckload.
On Twitter, I saw Mike Galsworthy and Ian Dunt agreeing that calling Brexiters morons pushes away possible recruits to the Rejoin cause.
… good point, definitely the moral high ground. Personally it’s been a grim 5 years, but after the long defeat, the battle begins again. This is definitely the adult, forward-looking position to take.
Then I see this:
What the actual fucking fuck is this shit? I cannot begin to understand the wilful ignorance and shitheadedness it takes to write this foetid sewage. There is no middle finger big enough.
Edit: just noticed 5.8k likes. All morons, every last one of the fuckers.
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On Twitter, I saw Mike Galsworthy and Ian Dunt agreeing that calling Brexiters morons pushes away possible recruits to the Rejoin cause.
Then they can fuck off as well, quite frankly. I’m not having years of tiptoeing around them waiting for them to maybe cop to having fucked up, but they ‘won’ so the cognitive dissonance would destroy them. I’m absolutely fine with tearing every Brexiteer a new arsehole, every single time.
Sorry, I stand corrected. This is genius.
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Outstanding article from Rafael Behr today
This is perfect:
What upset me as a remain voter was not the fact that Britain was leaving the EU, but the assertion that it was unpatriotic to oppose the idea. I hated the rhetoric of betrayal and treason that leavers used to denounce those of us who thought Brexit was a mistake. We were “citizens of nowhere” to Theresa May. When May called the 2017 election, the Daily Mail urged her to “crush the saboteurs”.
Denigration of remainer loyalty was a sequel to the xenophobic element in the 2016 referendum campaign – selling separation from the EU as protection from incoming migrant hordes. That was straight-up nationalism and it stirred a visceral anxiety about the character of Brexit, quite aside from any arguments about economics and trade. It clawed at the seam where I felt connected to the country I called home.
There can be no unity or reconciliation without acknowledgement of the hurt, and that’s not going to happen any time soon.
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“EU foreigner? Here’s £2,000 to piss off. Go on, we’ll even throw in an economy-class ticket to whatever garlic-infested hell-hole you call home.”
What a country. What a government.
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I have arranged a concert composed entirely of tiny violins, played extremely quietly.
Appropriately enough, it will sound terrible.
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Shaping up to be a very special time.
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As much as I appreciated reading this, it genuinely made me want to punch myself in the face for an hour.
Just no end to the stupidity.
One of those tells of a great 7 years in Spain, but now he’s on his way home, he told Global247news : “The Spanish dream is over for me, it’s time to go back to Cardiff, it’s been a blast but the new regulations have made it impossible to stay, I don’t have enough credentials to become a resident, it was so easy before, get your funds in from the UK, do a bit of cash in hand around the likes of Benidorm and bob was your uncle, but that’s all changed now.
Seriously, the “new regulations” were register as a resident and apply for your rights under the WA between 6 July 2020 and 31 December 2020. It does look like the Spanish rules are a bit of a faff compared to Germany- UK.gov summary - but nothing insurmountable. Credentials, bollocks. Anyone who’s lived in the country for 7 years and hasn’t registered can’t be surprised when the Spanish decide nope, we’d rather have people who follow the law on registration and are here legally and pay taxes rather than free-loading twats who voted Leave. You ignorant fuckers ruined it for the rest of us, now piss off back to the UK and don’t whine, arseholes, is my considered and moderate response.
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