So the UK votes to leaves the European Union

[Skyquake87]

Hmm.

Boris would have made a better international trade minister. That's a really odd choice. Maybe she's hoping some diplomacy on the international stage will stop Boris being such a tit. Some hope.

Nice to see David Davis back - he's a sensible chap, but again, an odd role for him.

My eyebrows have been raised so much that I look even more bald than normal. Whilst the choices do seem risible, they do seem to be aimed at mixing things up and designed to stretch peoples abilities. Interesting.

And at least f***ing Osborne's gone.

[Patapsco]

No, Boris should have absolutely nothing to do with anything outside the UK's borders. After all, this is the man who claimed the President of Turkey had sex with a goat in a poem two months ago amongst other eye-rolling casual racism. And now he's in charge of MI6

[Skyquake87]

Yep, and I think it'll probably teach him to buck his ideas up, becasue he can#'t keep trolling around saying sh*t like that.

Overall, I'm quite impressed with May's cabinet and who she's moved where. I do like that she's put the Brexiters in charge of sorting out, well, Brexit.

I've started to feel a bit more positive about how things might progress. Lets just hope they don't f**k it all up.

[inflatable dalek]

If he could get away with being like that as Mayor of London I don't think this will change him.

Plus it's a senior cabinet position isn't really a "Learn how to be a ****ing human being" kind of job. He's had more than enough chances to change, and this is really only going to give him the chance to try for PM after May has dealt/failed to deal with the mess he created. He needs to get in the ****ing sea, not be rewarded with a promotion.

[Denyer]

Best move so far has been sidelining Osbourne. Probably wise move on education but health worrying.

[Skyquake87]

Health is a basket case no matter who gets it, its under-funded, has massive staffing issues, a culture of intimidation and bullying with whistle-blowers hung out dry. The best successive governments have thought to do since New Labour is open the NHS up for competition, as if that's going to help. Oh, and lumbered the NHS with crippling debts thanks to all those PFI contracts. Hunt was pretty well respected, if not universally exhalted, by healthcare professionals until the debacle with the Junior Doctors contract. Its disappointing he's had tunnel vision on that one.

[Denyer]

Yeah. Was talking to someone in the profession a while back and the fact this even has to be a thing is terrifying --

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/u ... -15-16.pdf

[Knightdramon]

Only saving grace from this is May appointing Andrea Leadsom as the environment minister.

[Tetsuro]

If EU still lets Turkey in after the recent events, I'm gonna say that UK will probably be better off out of it.

[Cliffjumper]

Yep, and I think it'll probably teach him to buck his ideas up, becasue he can#'t keep trolling around saying sh*t like that.

Overall, I'm quite impressed with May's cabinet and who she's moved where. I do like that she's put the Brexiters in charge of sorting out, well, Brexit.

I've started to feel a bit more positive about how things might progress. Lets just hope they don't f**k it all up.

Boris is being filed out of May's way in a job he can't handle to neuter him as a threat. Plus it's going to be a godsend for distractions, think of the stuff the government can put out while the tweeters are spamming everyone about him asking a Chinese minister what type of dog he's eating.

The referendum itself is a brutal lesson in the danger of cultural elitism and the insularity of social media. It's a shame that no-one's learnt the lesson.

[Denyer]

Think Boris'll be very quiet, precisely because he's not just the buffoon persona.

Semi-agree on the rest, although potted terms are the same kind of simplification. Mainstream media is as much a feedback loop as social media, publishes what sells and is owned by money that benefits either way.

Several decades of negative reporting and scapegoating is an even harder sell against in an economic downturn that leaves huge numbers of people behind.

[Cliffjumper]

Certainly an interesting battle between old and new media with the former not being as dead as thought; the Sun is still ridiculously powerful and no amount of sneering retweets about accuracy have helped. There's been far too much of a willingness to tar all leave voters as frothing xenophobic rather than listening to genuine-seeming concerns with an open mind.

The referendum itself is probably the worst thing to happen to this country in a long time. There's a reason we pay MPs an indecent amount of money to do this site for us.

[Brendocon 2.0]

And an update for foreigners/people under rocks...

So some lawyers noticed that the nation's laws state that shit like this actually does have to go through a parliamentary vote before it can be passed, and the PM doesn't have the authority to just act on behalf of the entire country. Because if referendums are legally binding then it defeats the entire point of actually having a sovereign parliament in the first place.

So they took the government to court. And the judges looked at it and basically said yeah, that's actually correct.

So now the right wing media/leading Brexit politicians are up in arms because actual UK legal procedure needs to be followed. The judges who passed the ruling are being labelled traitors to the will of the people and absolutely nobody on that side of the argument seems to have noticed that putting power back in the hands of UK judges/parliament was one of their main arguments for leaving the EU in the first place.

Will it still go through? Who the **** knows. Depends how many MPs are going to toe Theresa May's party line. But at least now whatever happens will be done legally and not solely off the back of a marginal opinion poll.

Of course if Parliament block it then that'll cause another absolute shitstorm come the next general election, but we'll fall off that bridge when we come to it.

[inflatable dalek]

The reaction has been ludicrous considering this does nothing to stop Brexit happening, indeed it doesn't offer an opinion on it either way. As Brend says, t's just about the due process of law to let it happen. They've lost nothing yet, and coming after weeks of "You lost, get over it" they're hypocrisy in reaction to this loss is borderline nuts.

And I think it's very unlikely this will do anything to stop Brexit (who's going to lead any opposition?), I'm not sure it'd even be worth stopping it, the real damage has been done. But it could at least lead to a more sensible post EU situation than May's scorched Earth plans.

Also for foreign Archives, the right wing press, in their efforts to deomonise the three judges responsible ("Enemies of the people", lucky we don't have any recent political assassinations caused by the sort of fevour that type of language creates), has tried to make them all look as scummy as possible. So in 2016 "Openly gay former Olypmic fencer" is being used as an insult.

[Warcry]

Of ****ing course Parliament needs to pass a bill in order for something to become law. How do these people think their government works?

Of course if Parliament block it then that'll cause another absolute shitstorm come the next general election, but we'll fall off that bridge when we come to it.

I think you'd better hope that doesn't happen. If getting rid of the EU is such a big deal to so many Tory and Labour voters that they'd set their own bank accounts on fire while voting against the will of their own parties, then Parliament blocking Brexit sounds like a good recipe to wind up with Prime Minister Nigel Farage in a couple years' time. Which isn't quite as frightening as the spectre of having President Trump next week, but doesn't sound like a very good idea either.

[Brendocon 2.0]

Of ****ing course Parliament needs to pass a bill in order for something to become law. How do these people think their government works?

A worrying amount of people seem to operate under the belief that "we had a vote, so it's decided" is how it works. Because we're a democracy. We're not. We're a parliamentary democracy, and a lot of people are suddenly getting a reality check on exactly what that means.

Most of the referendum campaigns were built around misinformation and empty promises anyway, so it's hardly a surprise that folks don't know how it works.

I think you'd better hope that doesn't happen. If getting rid of the EU is such a big deal to so many Tory and Labour voters that they'd set their own bank accounts on fire while voting against the will of their own parties, then Parliament blocking Brexit sounds like a good recipe to wind up with Prime Minister Nigel Farage in a couple years' time. Which isn't quite as frightening as the spectre of having President Trump next week, but doesn't sound like a very good idea either.

Pretty much. Farage isn't going away just because he got his referendum and resigned as party leader twice. We've burnt enough bridges with the EU since the vote that going back now would make us a laughing stock.

We've gotten ourselves into this mess so it's probably best in the long-term to to just ride it out rather than antagonise everyone further.

[inflatable dalek]

I think either way we're screwed. After all, it was as close to being a 50/50 split as makes no odds. Throw in the fact that there are three or four different ways of doing Brexit and it's basically impossible to come up with something that will make a majority happy. Whether we are in 2020 there's going to be lots of ****ed off people.

[Denyer]

Reasonable odds at least one more politician's going to get murdered and the pattern become a bit more obvious even to Mail and Express readerships.

If getting rid of the EU is such a big deal to so many Tory and Labour voters that they'd set their own bank accounts on fire

Hasn't really hit yet -- hedging of commodity prices is still protecting markets.

A lot of people at either end of the financial curve don't feel they've got much to lose. A proportion of those in the middle or that do will buy into racist claptrap or that it's someone else's fault.

[Skyquake87]

Most of the referendum campaigns were built around misinformation and empty promises anyway, so it's hardly a surprise that folks don't know how it works.

Was entertaining watching Have I Got News For You last night, with MP Tim Loughton moaning about the judges' decision, with Ian Hislop saying to him "But this is what you wanted! British judges making british decsions!"

...I dunno, its like everything else. No one sweats the small stuff these days and those small oversights then become a massive problem down the line.

And now the news is reporting death threats against the judges and shrieking headlines from our idiotic press. Brilliant.