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

wtf at the brigadoon reference - are they suggesting that britain becoming a mysterious isolated isle, forever stuck a couple of hundred years in the past and only very occasionally appearing from the mist to contact the outside world, is a good thing?

(i know the answer to this already obv)

GOHOMEWITHBONNIEJEAN!!!

think they must have meant LAPUTA

https://shortstorylongblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/gulliver-laputa.jpg

"Laputans are… so lost in thought that they cannot function in everyday life unless constantly struck by a bladder full of pebbles or dry peas"

(same tbh)

meanwhile the remoaner massive (source: cafc messageboard) is rapidly coming around to the theory that corbyn is another version of trump. how can i deal with these motherfuckers

So the serious answer is - mention that they're both symptoms of the same problem, low pay, low job secrurity, low sense of life opportunity and poor access to decent education at the bottom, and the decline of the lower-middle class in both economies. Mention that unless these issues are addressed then it'll become harder and harder to preserve the legitimacy of liberal democracy. Stopping Brexit *alongside all this* would probably help (and I'm very sceptical of the Corbyn/Mason line here anyway), but stopping Brexit in and of itself isn't a magic bullet. In fact it just rewinds the clock back to to 2013, except the conditions that created the Leave vote are even more febrile - in effect you'd just be postponing Brexit, rather than cancelling it.

And unless these things are addressed than a real British Trump is almost certain to emerge.

it's gonna be piers morgan isn't it

(booming matt dc post btw)

The Welsh voted for Brexit so I don't know why they're bracketed along with Scotland and 'Ulster' (nice touch that) as "voices counter to our cause". I suppose they're not English, as good as though.

dude mae ganddynt eu hiaith go iawn eu hunain

cheers Matt

I think SW&U are being addressed by the previous line - it may just not be put together very well.

'Ulster' exists for rugby purposes only but then CofE hymns so

this made me laugh even tho i'm not sure who that is and if he's pleased or cross:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Di0XCkcXoAIBkjd.jpg

thats nobody mark, never u mind

he didnt want ye knowing what he looked like anyways

lol ok i worked out who it is

It's Liam Neeson.

look the books i read don't have pictures

xxxp I’m so glad we clearly went to the same primary school! My other weird “fact” about him as learned in school had to do with him sharing beds with other men when he was on the run.

"arr, they'll never find me in here!"

I am listening to radio 4 and the moral maze today is about "diversity" - think this could be the worst thing on the radio this year, not going to listen, but just wanted somewhere to say fuck that programme and fuck Michael Buerk, think this sort of thing is the pseudo - intellectual underpinning of a lot of what I can't stand about this country

it's fucking terrible and Claire Fox is another one for the list.

Cards on the table time.

https://news.sky.com/story/jewish-papers-unite-against-jeremy-corbyn-threat-11448848

Darren "Grimey" Grimes refuses to leave us all alone
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/darrengrimes/?utm_campaign=darrengrimes&utm_source=backer_social&utm_medium=Twitter&utm_reference=b1287feba1136268e7d63e1244601fb5&utm_content=post_pledge_page

gahhhhhh

Donald Trump’s former chief adviser Steve Bannon has been in direct communication with former UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson, as both men plot new moves that could have a significant impact on European politics, multiple sources told BuzzFeed News.

During a visit to London this month, which overlapped with Trump’s working visit to the UK, Bannon spoke glowingly of Johnson in several interviews and urged him to challenge Prime Minister Theresa May for the leadership of the Conservative Party.

A source who spent time with Bannon during the trip said Bannon was in private contact with Johnson while he was in Britain.

It is unclear exactly what the two men discussed, but the source said, “I’m sure they weren’t discussing the cricket scores.”

A former UK government source told BuzzFeed News that Bannon and Johnson have known each other for some time, and exchanged text messages as far back as when Johnson was foreign secretary and Bannon worked in the White House.

When contacted, Bannon would not comment on the record.

Asked to comment on whether Johnson has been seeking advice and guidance from Bannon, or whether Bannon had been encouraging him to launch a campaign for a hard Brexit or challenge May, Johnson’s spokesperson declined to comment.

News of the two men being in direct contact so recently will surprise people in the UK, and it suggests that Bannon’s relationships are deepening with senior politicians in the ruling Conservative Party. Bannon has previously met Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who leads an influential caucus of Conservative MPs who want a hard break from the European Union.

http://images.mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/styles/mf_image_16x9/public/istock-118415991.jpg?itok=GJz7k82b&resize=1100x619

FIzzles posted this excellent article on Twitter btw: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jul/26/the-free-speech-panic-censorship-how-the-right-concocted-a-crisis

oy vey. what a fucking mess. dunno what's worse, the insulting hysteria of claiming a Corbyn-led government would pose an "existential threat to Jewish life" or a flood of fucking dickhead Corbyn supporters as usual replying to the tweet proving casual antisemitism exists there. https://t.co/Eu89NmYFHk

— michael (@Sisyphusa) July 26, 2018

Boom. (Whole thread is worth reading).

opening tweet neatly sums up where we are and why it's so fucking depressing. my main questions are about how much play this is getting in the public consciousness and whether the answer to that is damaging or at least disheartening for UK Jews.

there are double standards, and some disingenuous bullshit going on here. But people trying to tell Jews how they should feel about Corbyn are total fucking dickheads.

I mean given the escalating far right rhetoric right across the UK at the moment the answer to that is going to be damaging for pretty much any minority.

My suspicion (from the last election) is that there is an election-swinging electoral group (perhaps even a majority now) who vote predominantly on social issues rather than economic ones, which is why this is all potentially so damaging for Labour. No one has managed to win a majority in over 25 years without the support of the socially liberal, as the Tories found out last year.

(Obviously this doesn't take into account self-identifying liberals who as a result never feel the need to acknowledge and confront their own prejudices, and antisemitism is one of the most prominent unacknowledged prejudices).

One thing Labour could do to get this under control would be to expel an absolute fuckton of antisemites, which is the one thing Corbyn seems relucantant to actually do. It's the one thing I can see actually bringing him down at this stage.

i've all but given up pointing out the double standards and hidden agendas because i can't bear to stand anywhere near the fuckwit antisemite SWP allies who are making this shit continue. just expel every fucking shithead who can't distinguish between Israel and Israeli governments and let's move on.

so obv yes Matt otm

lol we're all gonna die

Anyone knowing the very basics of food production – frankly, anyone who has watched an episode of Inside the Factory on the BBC – would know just how difficult it would be for industry to stockpile food. Most UK factories rely on multiple daily deliveries to keep production, which usually runs 24 hours a day, flowing. Within just 18 to 36 hours without deliveries of ingredients, production in almost all of the UK’s food sector (the country’s largest manufacturing sector) would stop.

Factories couldn’t just step up production before the Brexit date and store the surplus, either. They no longer have much space to store their product: the UK’s highly efficient supply chains work on a “just in time” basis – factories have just enough storage space to manage about a day’s worth of deliveries, as do supermarket depots and the warehouses in the back of stores.

Stockpiling more food would mean industry having to buy or lease vast amounts of extra space, at short notice, and probably at great cost. In practical terms, it would ideally have needed to start spending that money months ago – and it would be serious money. Part of the reason people keep less inventory is that it reduces the amount of money you need to operate. If you increase the amount of stock kept in reserve from a few days’ worth to a few weeks’ worth, businesses across the sector would need five to 10 times the working capital they do now.

Who’s going to pay that? Are we going to require an industry that operates on famously thin margins to prepare for this contingency out of its own pocket? What if it refuses? What if it makes these stockpiles, then we cut a deal?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/26/stockpile-food-no-deal-brexit-dream-on

One thing Labour could do to get this under control would be to expel an absolute fuckton of antisemites, which is the one thing Corbyn seems relucantant to actually do. It's the one thing I can see actually bringing him down at this stage

Expelling members isn't within Corbyn's remit but he has a large part to play in setting the culture of the party and his broad commitment to implementing the IHRA guidelines more or less in full is probably a step in the right direction.

The optics of hedging around whether references to 'Israeli apartheid' or 'constitutional racism', for example, are antisemitic and grounds for expulsion might be poor but idk how they could practically be balanced with the freedom to critique current Israeli government policy that seems hell-bent on proving them right.

Of the three papers who linked up, how many would keep up the editorial line if he were critical of Israel in any substantive way

(Assuming other efforts had been made - guidelines adhered to etc)

oh good, that buzzfeed boris-bannon article notes:

Bannon, who left his role in the White House in August 2017, is eyeing Europe as a new political battleground. He is planning to start a new organization, based in Brussels, to help far-right parties seize control of the parliament of the European Union.

also, dear chumps, don't fund Darren "Dib from Invader Zim" Grimes' charges from the Electoral Commission, surely his billionaire chums who started off rich and are midway through getting a lot richer off Brexit will be paying that anyway, and the rest of us might need all the rapidly devaluing money we can shove under our mattresses next April anyway

(I mean, they could just have left him in the lurch seeing as they are clearly not v nice people, but since he's still banging the Leave drum everywhere and they got him a sweet job at one of those right wing "think tanks" that all share an address and are all on the BBC every 5 minutes, I assume he's sorted)

everything is kind of depressing today

Factories couldn’t just step up production before the Brexit date and store the surplus, either. They no longer have much space to store their product

perhaps Brexit pensioners could Make A Success Of It by giving up their numerous spare bedrooms for communal canned good storage

(I bought a couple of extra 4-packs of tinned staples last week but suspect there is no way I could actually fit more than about 2 weeks' worth of extra food and bottled water in my flat - a bit more if walls of bean cans and rice sacks throughout the living area is the House Beautiful look for next spring

the bf already called me a paranoid lunatic so you don't have to, ta)

brb going to replace my bedframe with tins

brb gonna replace my mattress with hardtack

i for one am looking forward to finding out what it's like to have scurvy

pemmican't moar laik

(I bought a couple of extra 4-packs of tinned staples

Tin staples? Tinned tacks?

i for one am looking forward to finding out what it's like to have scurvy

― a Stupendous Leg of Granite (bizarro gazzara), Thursday, July 26, 2018 2:07 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

blackberries. they're everywhere. they freeze

i for one am looking forward to finding out what it's like to kill someone over who gets the last three blackberries left on the bush

we'll send ye over a few bits lars shall we say....four ships a day?

anybody fancy a sweep on how many years into the Thunderdome we'll be before the last gammon stops blaming Europe for the state of everything?