From: martin@address-in-sig.invalid   
      
   On Tue, 28 Jun 2016 09:42:35 -0700, The old geezer wrote:   
      
   > On the other hand, I Love "Goblin Girl"!   
   >   
   +1   
      
   > P.S. Martin: I hear (Over here in the U.S.A.) that all of Great Britain   
   > is aflame with mass riots, strikes, shootings, general mayhem {you know,   
   > just like Detroit} because of Brexit.  Is that true???   
   >   
   No, its not got that far, but both the main parties, Conservative and   
   Labour, are imploding fairly nicely. Conservatives, because they have two   
   factions that hate each other and Labour, because the PLP (elected   
   members of Parliament) hate Jeremy Corbin, who was made leader by popular   
   vote of the rest of the party - rather like the situation with Trump and   
   the GOP from what I can tell.   
      
   Here's my take on what seems to have happened here:   
      
   Before the last election our Prime Minister, 'Call Me Dave' Cameroon, was   
   having trouble keeping his right wing loonies under control and generally   
   preventing them from wrecking his campaign, so he offered the referendum   
   as a way of shutting them up in the expectation that there would be   
   another coalition so he wouldn't have to deliver on it. Unfortunately,   
   the LibDems got no credit for the Tory cock-ups they'd seen off but   
   somehow got all the blame for the thinks they couldn't prevent, e.g.   
   vastly increased University fees. The result was almost total LibDem   
   eclipse and a Tory shoo-in. Cameroon was then stuck with having the   
   referendum in his manifesto and failed to use the obvious way out,   
   pioneered by the odious Tony Bliar, of saying that manifesto promises can   
   be ignored and kicking the referendum results into the long grass.   
      
   Things were not helped by the extraordinarily inept Remain campaign run   
   by Osbo, the Chancellor. This was almost as bad as his last mistake-   
   filled Budget. Jeremy Corbin sat on his arse and twiddled his thumbs   
   instead of getting out the Labour Remain vote. And, of course, the Leave   
   bastards lied their heads off about the costs of staying in the EU, that   
   leaving wouldn't interfere with free trade with the EU or affect the   
   economy here and, of course, that suddenly all immigrants would vanish.   
   As a result, all the Little Englanders and ignorant hangers on voted to   
   leave, with the result you see now.   
      
   In the aftermath:   
      
   - Cameroon walked away from the mess with indecent haste.   
      
   - Osbo thinks he'd make a good replacement PM despite his recent record.   
      
   - Corbin is probably about to be dumped. This will be interesting since   
     the PLP don't want him but Labour party members don't want them.   
      
   - All the Leavers are in denial about the exchange rate, the threatened   
     move of car makers and banks to Europe and the EU's absolute refusal   
     to have free trade without free movement of people.   
      
   - The EU is demanding that Article 50 is exercised to start the exit NOW   
     and not in a year or two's time like the Cameroon thinks possible.   
     He is actually right: there is no time limit for the submission of   
     Article 50, just one saying that exit should be completed within 2   
     years of presentation which is, of course, impossible. Since it takes   
     4-9 years to join the EU why would anybody thing leaving would be   
     any quicker?   
      
   - There has been no planning whatsoever for either referendum result   
     so everyone is running round like headless chickens rather than   
     sitting down to work out how to get out of this mess.   
      
   Meanwhile, contrary to popular superstition, Britain hasn't left the EU   
   yet and won't start that process until Article 50 is activated, so   
   Cameroon could in theory say Yar,Boo,Sucks to the referendum result and   
   refuse to invoke Article 50.   
      
   There's a petition up and running to demand another referendum and which   
   currently stands at just under  million signatures. This one says that,   
   for the result to be valid, the Remain or Leave vote must have at least   
   60% of the votes cast and that not less than 75% or the electorate must   
   have voted. Last week's referendum fails on both points.   
      
   On Sunday I heard some parliamentary jobsworth saying that they'd   
   ignore it no matter what, but I think doing that may well cause the   
   current Labour stand-off between its MPs and members to spread to other   
   parties.   
      
   Farrage and the other Brexiters don't seem to realise that by joining the   
   EEC in 1973, the UK pissed off the whole Commonwealth and as a result   
   lost a huge amount of its global presence and market which, by necessity   
   was replaced by being part of Europe. Now they've drop-kicked Europe, the   
   other EU member states are reacting in pretty much the same way the   
   Commonwealth did in 1973. Quel surprise!   
      
      
   --   
   martin@   | Martin Gregorie   
   gregorie. | Essex, UK   
   org       |   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)