the day after the deadline: can the union survive brexit and other deep questions

a penalty which has been levied on half of the beatles already tbf

NO LONGER A DEBATE

Britain’s foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has warned there is a risk of the UK leaving the EU in March 2019 without a deal because of stalling by the bloc’s negotiators, and that British views of Europe would sour as a result.

Speaking in Berlin on his first overseas trip since being appointed to the role earlier in July, Hunt told his German counterpart, Heiko Maas, that “there is now a very real threat of a Brexit no deal by accident, and this is because many people in the EU are thinking that they just have to wait long enough and Britain will blink”.

In comments directed over the head of Germany’s social democrat foreign minister towards Brussels, Hunt said: “Without a real change in approach from the EU negotiators we do now face a real risk of a no deal by accident, and that would be incredibly challenging economically.

“Britain would find that challenging, but in the end we would find a way not just to survive but to thrive economically. But my real concern is that it would change British public attitudes to Europe for a generation.”

oh noes, wouldn't it be terrible if people in the uk start ('start') hating the eu after a no-deal brexit but actually we'd be fine after an no-deal brexit anyway and anyway it'd be the eu's fault but i'd hate for that to happen will this do subs pls fix

meanwhile in more things to ry not to think abt at all: recent severe absence of rain means crops yields are down and there’s not enough grass to make hay for the winter; farm animals can't be properly watered and so are being culled i guess early?

lol we're all gonna starve ;_;

Yeah I work in a lab quality testing crops & my manager is a sheep farmer, this is what we call an “atypical year” (maybe to become less so as the planet cooks)

the good thing is that this ruinous summer definitely won't be followed by a catastrophic winter like the one we just had which will further compound our agriculture problems because climate change is a fiction ha ha oh god help us

I was thinking about crop yields the other day, whilst out walking through the most parched looking fields I've seen in donkies years. It is easy to forget how much we depend on domestic farming + agriculture, we can't just press the chlorinated chicken aid button when the crops fail! Some fucking eejit in Ossett had their sprayer on right next to the hedge, so half the pavement and road was being sprayed as well. I mean it was a nice cooling spray - but what a waste of water.

don't worry there'll be utterly ruinous floods come november

maybe january at the latets

suggested cheery summer reading: Jisheng Yang's Tombstone or Frank Dikotter's Mao's Great Famine!

Also on another cheery lol famine matter, I recall a doctor noting during the Povolzhye Famine that once you've broken the taboo of eating human flesh, it gets quite moreish.

Aren't most crops in Britain irrigated?

where I live some of them definitely are, cause they stand out like a sore thumb amongst the arid, wasted ones.

xp bloody furious mate

only if there's enough water in the system in the first place, one would imagine.

I love the sounds of the countryside, dragonflies buzzing about, irritated wheat moaning to the barley about freedom of movement and fucking foreign bassas!

in other 'approaching the event horizon' news

🏆 NEW: @Jacob_Rees_Mogg launches the Richard Koch Breakthrough Prize, an essay competition which looks for free-market solutions to the housing crisis.

💷 £50,000 top prize! Details here → https://t.co/RFzU9sPsac pic.twitter.com/iGbwu2WS3w

— IEA (@iealondon) July 23, 2018

luv2have rees-mogg slip me a huge dick koch prize

I'm guessing they will be more of a "killing the poor" theme than building more "Labour voter petri-dishes" as Cameron called council estates.

Arable farming is still kind of a mystery to me tbh, I’m only now starting to learn the basics - I think there are always a ton of factors but irrigation will def alleviate drought conditions but maybe not totally? & the plants will ripen & senesce more quickly? There’s also the thing where the farmers don’t apply desiccant if they don’t have to as it’s better for quality, but you don’t get even drying out if you just leave it to the sun & this leads to stuff like pod shatter in oilseed rape, reducing overall yield

well DUH

i did read something about British lettuce being a total write-off now because no matter how much water you've got lettuce just dies in this kind of heat (my own garden can testify to that)

I have been getting some really shitty batches of onions recently, from the supermarkets and my local small business merchant. I'm not sure if that is drought related, but it is starting to annoy me.

Many farmers have rainwater tanks which were well-filled over March/April and have those RTG for this weather.

I think the use of water harvesting tanks will become much more widespread amongst industrial/commercial premises, as summers like this become the new normal.

Except, per mark & my colleague, animal farmers whose water reserves are p much spent & are paying through the nose to be able to water their animals xp

Being a farmer sounds like a fucking nightmare tbh. Driving a tractor seems fun but that’s about it

it seems lonely and insecure

http://interagro.co.uk/backup/images/stories/articles/features/pod_shattered.png

I bet if you told Mogg that some amazing british agri-science head has just discovered that deep ploughing and close planting increases crop yields by 90 %, he'd totally believe you.

Why would you need to give someone a cash prize to come up with a free market solution to the housing crisis? Surely the financial incentive is already built into the system?

maybe Kate Andrews birthday is coming up, and she only managed a paltry 28 tv appearances this month.

Aren't most crops in Britain irrigated?

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 24 July 2018 1:19 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not a lot of irrigation, traditionally we are a rainy island and irrigation is expensive - even if you have water you have to pump it which costs.

Farming would be a nightmare but my sympathy for those doing it here in Australia is limited by the fact that farming communities here consistently vote for the right wing anti environmentalist pro coal fuckwits accelerating all the climate problems.

Right wing farmers, who'd've thought it?

https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/planning-transport/britain-needs-more-slums

We finally made it, guys.

https://austrian.economicblogs.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Theo-Clifford_avatar.JPG

Theo Cliffard, is this fucking sub-britpop fetus?

Slum-Mogg Millionaire

that article, though egregious, is from 2015, meaning that its author is now 12 years old

Slum-Mogg Millionaire

LOL

please tell me that's a modest proposal-style satire

please god

Slum-Mogg Millionaire

LOL

― Father Ted in Forkhandles (Tom D.), Tuesday, 24 July 2018 11:07 (thirty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Pressing the virtual like button.

30 days suspension/holiday for Ian Paisley Jr. over undeclared corruption. Be good to get the by-election.

he should have declared his corruption, he'd have been fine

Dominic Raab has some advice for us

https://i.imgur.com/XGETndz.png

i'm way ahead of him on that one

This seems promising:

BREAKING: Raab promises government will "make sure there is adequate food" in Britain in the event of no Brexit deal. But says it is wrong to say government itself is stockpiling.

— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) July 24, 2018

finally, some adequate food here in Britain

lol we're all gonna die

i don't believe the rest of the world will let ol' Wrink GB slump to the status of Bongo-Bongo Land

I do like the one-two of sending him out to promise great and glorious things ahead at the same time that they move the actual negotiations to Olly Robbins in the PM's office.