My personal - and that doubtless of many U K 'brexiteers' - hope and ideal? A clean break from Europe...no ifs, buts or maybes considered. Fulfil the sacredly-entrusted mandate bequeathed by the people of the United Kingdom...and get on with it - like yesterday, i.e. two years, eight-and-two-thirds months ago now... Nuff said!
For the British to unilaterally leave the European Union without any deal whatsoever...which, with the ever-prescient benefit of hindsight, some (such as Yours Truly - and the 'hard Brexiteers') had not only fervently wished and even hoped against hope they'd do, but moreover believed they ought to have done...at the very outset...i.e. immediately post-referendum 2016...
I.e. as - quite arguably - the British/United Kingdom public, 'declared' (as per the June 23rd referendum result they delivered their politicians)...thus leaving the EU with absolutely no strings attached...
*But she don't look like happening anytime soon...least of all today, more's the pity...- and thus and so, as Prime Minister Teresa May (and others) have well said, **''without [TM's) deal there may well [ultimately] be no deal and no Brexit whatsoever"... -but more upon that (sorry, sad and supremely sordid) state of affairs shortly...
Nevertheless, as I blogged on December 13th last...precisely three months ago (and may well also have done two months ago as well - sorry, I've simply lost count (of the sheer number much less timing of all such posts), but that seems a reasonable enough likelihood)...one cannot but admire Ms May for her dogged determination, come what may - be that hell, high water or ye proverbial tsunami even - to see this through to (what increasingly appears) the bitter end...to secure some/a/any sort of deal...with the ever-irascible, eminently unreasonable and downright intransigent leaders of the European Union - in particular Messrs Juncker and Tusk (and their assorted 'negotiating' team) ...
Yes, P. M. May has been making an ****all-out, Herculean effort - of Olympian proportions - a marathon endurance feat even, up to the very last week, day, hour, minute and even moment, quite literally down to the very wire - to get it over the line... Returning "croaky" from more last-minute EU negotiations - as fellow Conservative M.P. Nigel Evans puts it - and thereby showing she's at wit's and strength's end (even her husband is evidently in the parliamentary gallery at Westminster this very day) she's 'determined to *****get the - some - deal over the line, damn it!
As British (TV/radio?) "producer" Stuart/Stewart Hughes has just now (9.10ff NZ-time) shared with Newstalk ZB talkback host Kerre-Woodham-McIvor, Prime Minister May had [hoped - and (being a ******vicar's daughter) doubtless prayed!] "it'd reach the crunch point where people would have become so heartily sick and tired (of the whole shemozzle) that they'd simply agree to her deal." But [alas], that hasn't happened." And a later emailer"It'll never happen because it (i.e. the Brexit agreed upon at the referendum) will never happen because it'll never be allowed to happen...
For a brief (minorly diversionary) interlude upon selfsame subject - though right up to the minute, in terms of being immediately following the renewed voting down of Teresa May's 'new deal' by the British Parliament - the U K's High Commissioner to New Zealand, Laura Clark, talking with RNZ National's Suzie Ferguson, admitted "It looks *******messy, but it's a very big sovereignty and constitutional issue that the British are dealing with here."
Personally I - and I can well imagine a sizable and not inconsiderable proportion of leave voters - would have hoped that Boris Johnson, among others, would have risen to the occasion, seeing the all-too-graphic and evident writing on the wall for the utter demise of Brexit come very much more pushing and shoving, delay and delay and delay, negotiation and renegotiation seemingly ad nauseum - of the whole stinking, sordid mass and mess - and become the statesman the one-time justly named Great Britain ever seems to see rise to the surface when the occasion demands...
And accept Teresa May's admittedly extremely flawed deal...rather than hold out indefinitely, in a Custer's Last Stand sort of stance, for a 'hard', no strings attached Brexit...realizing that the ideal is ever the enemy of the real[istic]...the opposite side of the coin to the equally valid idea that the good is oftentimes the enemy of the best... And thus and so, ever holding out - doggedly and determinedly - for dear life and for all-or-nothing, come no matter what...so that ultimately the very thing you so desired never ever even happens at all...
So what do the (other, continental) Europeans make of the whole sorry saga? According to reporters checking in with the BBC World Radio's OS Show this morning (NZ time), they're as equally ********confused by this unedifying and unprecedented spectacle (my paraphrase, even original wording)..."The technical aspects now also of interest?" asked an incredulous Nuala McGovern of the reporter there. "Indeed - yes! That's the level of interest with which Italians are following it."
'In her own words,' as a concurrent news bulletin declares, "My Government/Parliament is committed to delivering the referendum result the British people voted for...and I believe the deal I've achieved with the European Union is the best way of securing that." But this having now again been soundly rejected (by U K parliamentarians), "What's indeed the point," intoned Richard Quest with Mike Hosking around 7.10 a.m., "then of going back to the EU...and asking in reference to that [i.e. yet another additional extension, were it even approved by the UK Parliament tomorrow]? What indeed?!
Perhaps the final words should go to a tackback host whom I seldom listen in to, the aforementioned Kerre Woodham-McIvor, who, summing up the entire sorry scenario, commentated (around 10.08 a.m.), that there's "no consensus [whatsoever] between the main (U K political) parties...everybody's apparently fighting (for) their own corner...(&) there's no real way of knowing what's happening next." "Cometh the hour, cometh the (wo)man?" Apparently not, there's no-one even in sight...
But moving on from that relevant summary of the complete drama, perhaps the very last words ought to be given to a former British statesman, who - unlike his, in many respects, indomitable female carbon copy, Margaret Thatcher, approximately a half-century later - was inclined to support the 'European Project' after WW11 came to its rather ghastly, blood-soaked conclusion...yet ever opposed, incidentally, and quite significantly, the European-uniting and global designs of that aptly-designated master of Machiavellianism, or *********'Third World Antichrist', German Chancellor/ Fuhrer Adolf Hitler himself...
*And as of 6.45ish NZ-time apparently, according to Nigel Evans, himself a (now dissenting) member of the hard brexiteers' 'European Research Project', both they and the Northern Irish D(emocratic) U(nion) P(arty) have just announced against the deal...thus ensuring/guaranteeing its failure in just over an hour's time...as has, of course, now transpired... Yes, as Mr Evans well recognizes - and his fellow Brexiteers seem to have completely forgotten - the much-coveted Brexit may now not only not occur, as - successively - one after another of P M May's parliamentary proposals are roundly voted down (today and tomorrow)...her deal, leaving without a deal, any more extension...
...and even, horror of horrors (to those who cherish participatory democracy - however much it goes against one's personal wishes/preferences; hey, it's called 'democracy, folks! - another election and/or referendum is henceforth likely to be triggered...but hey, why should that one be binding (cf to the present one)? Oh, I understand...because it'll deliver the result that suits your particular views!
Some, and I'm among them, would call that a matter of anti-democratic tendencies reigning supreme
- not only leaving a vast swathe of Britons ultimately unhappy...who actually do believe in real-deal participatory democracy, that is... Which, as that great statesman of Great Britain's yesteryear just referred to well said...as a system of government is really awful...except for all the others. Indeed!
**Indeed, as ***Rod Little - talking with Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking just now (8.30ish, 13/3) has just declared, today's (just announced) vote (rejecting May's deal) has "effectively seen the (entire) end of Brexit altogether"...tonight's "the last nail in the coffin"...and so the U K is "now moving closer and closer to a second referendum...in which the question(s) asked will be gerrymandered" (i.e. towards a 'no brexit' result)... And as a later emailer expressed things on the Kerre McIvor show, "It (i.e. the Brexit agreed upon at the referendum)'ll never happen because it'll never be allowed to happen...the British [elites] will ensure it won't...and will [so word things] - i.e. in the oft-proposed '2nd referendum' - that it won't...
***As Mr Little so well puts it - on such matters as not only the Brexit but LGBT issues - it's not necessarily a sure/done thing (my own paraphrase) that a second referendum - properly worded (i.e. vis-a-vis leaving without any deal whatsoever etc) - would necessarily lose...but on this/these issue/s "the U K Parliament/elites has/have shown it/they is/are well out of [sync] with the British public." And as Mr Little was subsequently quoted on ZB's 10 a.m. bulletin as saying, "There's a very real possibility that it'll never even happen now...(essentially) because the British Parliament and even Government never wanted it anyway."
****Indeed, as an emailer/texter to the Mike Hosking programme just (8.30 a.m.ff NZtime) Ms May has effectively gone to the nth degree and beyond (to secure and ensure some sort of deal)...
*****To - unwittingly - paraphrase this one-time high school student newspaper editor's own predicament, or rather an oh-so-apt assessment thereof via a funny as (and wonderfully-caricatured) cartoon thereabouts...vis-a-vis Yours Truly's own (near Herculean and Olympian) 'efforts to get this paper out, damn it!' (In Mercury #102(?), my final issue, I believe.)
******As, according to that ever-popular nightly British TV quiz show, 'the Chase', evidently were likewise one or two previous U K prime ministers, I believe both Margaret Thatcher and Gordon Brown.
*******However eminently reasonable-sounding she was in her tone, that'd surely have to go down for the most understated, euphemistic assessment of the ongoing, seemingly never-ending constitutional crisis/fiasco which is Brexit that would even be imaginable!
********Or methinks perplexed, baffled, bamboozled, bedazzled...would likely be more apt...especially re all the ins and outs and outs and ins of the so-called Irish 'backstop'...and apparently I'm by no means alone in that... Plus completely, frustratingly round-the-bendable...
*********As graphically depicted - with extraordinary clarity and utterly convincing prophetic insight even - in a brilliant box-set (or two) entitled: 'The Nostradamus Effect' and 'Nostradamus:2012', I happened to stumble upon back in, you guessed it, that year the world was predicted to end...(i.e.on December 21) 2012...though, curiously enough - however much asserted by critics (of 'prophecies' and the like contained therein) - not actually - necessarily - asserted therein.
Postscript (vis-a-vis brief remarks of European Union leaders thereabouts - as reported by Cindy (?Kew) on today's midday 'World Watch' on RNZ National... "There'll be no further concessions by the EU"? Really? That's a piece of straight out fake news if I ever hear it; they've only ever given diddly squat...from the very get-go...
For the British to unilaterally leave the European Union without any deal whatsoever...which, with the ever-prescient benefit of hindsight, some (such as Yours Truly - and the 'hard Brexiteers') had not only fervently wished and even hoped against hope they'd do, but moreover believed they ought to have done...at the very outset...i.e. immediately post-referendum 2016...
I.e. as - quite arguably - the British/United Kingdom public, 'declared' (as per the June 23rd referendum result they delivered their politicians)...thus leaving the EU with absolutely no strings attached...
*But she don't look like happening anytime soon...least of all today, more's the pity...- and thus and so, as Prime Minister Teresa May (and others) have well said, **''without [TM's) deal there may well [ultimately] be no deal and no Brexit whatsoever"... -but more upon that (sorry, sad and supremely sordid) state of affairs shortly...
Nevertheless, as I blogged on December 13th last...precisely three months ago (and may well also have done two months ago as well - sorry, I've simply lost count (of the sheer number much less timing of all such posts), but that seems a reasonable enough likelihood)...one cannot but admire Ms May for her dogged determination, come what may - be that hell, high water or ye proverbial tsunami even - to see this through to (what increasingly appears) the bitter end...to secure some/a/any sort of deal...with the ever-irascible, eminently unreasonable and downright intransigent leaders of the European Union - in particular Messrs Juncker and Tusk (and their assorted 'negotiating' team) ...
Yes, P. M. May has been making an ****all-out, Herculean effort - of Olympian proportions - a marathon endurance feat even, up to the very last week, day, hour, minute and even moment, quite literally down to the very wire - to get it over the line... Returning "croaky" from more last-minute EU negotiations - as fellow Conservative M.P. Nigel Evans puts it - and thereby showing she's at wit's and strength's end (even her husband is evidently in the parliamentary gallery at Westminster this very day) she's 'determined to *****get the - some - deal over the line, damn it!
As British (TV/radio?) "producer" Stuart/Stewart Hughes has just now (9.10ff NZ-time) shared with Newstalk ZB talkback host Kerre-Woodham-McIvor, Prime Minister May had [hoped - and (being a ******vicar's daughter) doubtless prayed!] "it'd reach the crunch point where people would have become so heartily sick and tired (of the whole shemozzle) that they'd simply agree to her deal." But [alas], that hasn't happened." And a later emailer"It'll never happen because it (i.e. the Brexit agreed upon at the referendum) will never happen because it'll never be allowed to happen...
For a brief (minorly diversionary) interlude upon selfsame subject - though right up to the minute, in terms of being immediately following the renewed voting down of Teresa May's 'new deal' by the British Parliament - the U K's High Commissioner to New Zealand, Laura Clark, talking with RNZ National's Suzie Ferguson, admitted "It looks *******messy, but it's a very big sovereignty and constitutional issue that the British are dealing with here."
Personally I - and I can well imagine a sizable and not inconsiderable proportion of leave voters - would have hoped that Boris Johnson, among others, would have risen to the occasion, seeing the all-too-graphic and evident writing on the wall for the utter demise of Brexit come very much more pushing and shoving, delay and delay and delay, negotiation and renegotiation seemingly ad nauseum - of the whole stinking, sordid mass and mess - and become the statesman the one-time justly named Great Britain ever seems to see rise to the surface when the occasion demands...
And accept Teresa May's admittedly extremely flawed deal...rather than hold out indefinitely, in a Custer's Last Stand sort of stance, for a 'hard', no strings attached Brexit...realizing that the ideal is ever the enemy of the real[istic]...the opposite side of the coin to the equally valid idea that the good is oftentimes the enemy of the best... And thus and so, ever holding out - doggedly and determinedly - for dear life and for all-or-nothing, come no matter what...so that ultimately the very thing you so desired never ever even happens at all...
So what do the (other, continental) Europeans make of the whole sorry saga? According to reporters checking in with the BBC World Radio's OS Show this morning (NZ time), they're as equally ********confused by this unedifying and unprecedented spectacle (my paraphrase, even original wording)..."The technical aspects now also of interest?" asked an incredulous Nuala McGovern of the reporter there. "Indeed - yes! That's the level of interest with which Italians are following it."
'In her own words,' as a concurrent news bulletin declares, "My Government/Parliament is committed to delivering the referendum result the British people voted for...and I believe the deal I've achieved with the European Union is the best way of securing that." But this having now again been soundly rejected (by U K parliamentarians), "What's indeed the point," intoned Richard Quest with Mike Hosking around 7.10 a.m., "then of going back to the EU...and asking in reference to that [i.e. yet another additional extension, were it even approved by the UK Parliament tomorrow]? What indeed?!
Perhaps the final words should go to a tackback host whom I seldom listen in to, the aforementioned Kerre Woodham-McIvor, who, summing up the entire sorry scenario, commentated (around 10.08 a.m.), that there's "no consensus [whatsoever] between the main (U K political) parties...everybody's apparently fighting (for) their own corner...(&) there's no real way of knowing what's happening next." "Cometh the hour, cometh the (wo)man?" Apparently not, there's no-one even in sight...
But moving on from that relevant summary of the complete drama, perhaps the very last words ought to be given to a former British statesman, who - unlike his, in many respects, indomitable female carbon copy, Margaret Thatcher, approximately a half-century later - was inclined to support the 'European Project' after WW11 came to its rather ghastly, blood-soaked conclusion...yet ever opposed, incidentally, and quite significantly, the European-uniting and global designs of that aptly-designated master of Machiavellianism, or *********'Third World Antichrist', German Chancellor/ Fuhrer Adolf Hitler himself...
*And as of 6.45ish NZ-time apparently, according to Nigel Evans, himself a (now dissenting) member of the hard brexiteers' 'European Research Project', both they and the Northern Irish D(emocratic) U(nion) P(arty) have just announced against the deal...thus ensuring/guaranteeing its failure in just over an hour's time...as has, of course, now transpired... Yes, as Mr Evans well recognizes - and his fellow Brexiteers seem to have completely forgotten - the much-coveted Brexit may now not only not occur, as - successively - one after another of P M May's parliamentary proposals are roundly voted down (today and tomorrow)...her deal, leaving without a deal, any more extension...
...and even, horror of horrors (to those who cherish participatory democracy - however much it goes against one's personal wishes/preferences; hey, it's called 'democracy, folks! - another election and/or referendum is henceforth likely to be triggered...but hey, why should that one be binding (cf to the present one)? Oh, I understand...because it'll deliver the result that suits your particular views!
Some, and I'm among them, would call that a matter of anti-democratic tendencies reigning supreme
- not only leaving a vast swathe of Britons ultimately unhappy...who actually do believe in real-deal participatory democracy, that is... Which, as that great statesman of Great Britain's yesteryear just referred to well said...as a system of government is really awful...except for all the others. Indeed!
**Indeed, as ***Rod Little - talking with Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking just now (8.30ish, 13/3) has just declared, today's (just announced) vote (rejecting May's deal) has "effectively seen the (entire) end of Brexit altogether"...tonight's "the last nail in the coffin"...and so the U K is "now moving closer and closer to a second referendum...in which the question(s) asked will be gerrymandered" (i.e. towards a 'no brexit' result)... And as a later emailer expressed things on the Kerre McIvor show, "It (i.e. the Brexit agreed upon at the referendum)'ll never happen because it'll never be allowed to happen...the British [elites] will ensure it won't...and will [so word things] - i.e. in the oft-proposed '2nd referendum' - that it won't...
***As Mr Little so well puts it - on such matters as not only the Brexit but LGBT issues - it's not necessarily a sure/done thing (my own paraphrase) that a second referendum - properly worded (i.e. vis-a-vis leaving without any deal whatsoever etc) - would necessarily lose...but on this/these issue/s "the U K Parliament/elites has/have shown it/they is/are well out of [sync] with the British public." And as Mr Little was subsequently quoted on ZB's 10 a.m. bulletin as saying, "There's a very real possibility that it'll never even happen now...(essentially) because the British Parliament and even Government never wanted it anyway."
****Indeed, as an emailer/texter to the Mike Hosking programme just (8.30 a.m.ff NZtime) Ms May has effectively gone to the nth degree and beyond (to secure and ensure some sort of deal)...
*****To - unwittingly - paraphrase this one-time high school student newspaper editor's own predicament, or rather an oh-so-apt assessment thereof via a funny as (and wonderfully-caricatured) cartoon thereabouts...vis-a-vis Yours Truly's own (near Herculean and Olympian) 'efforts to get this paper out, damn it!' (In Mercury #102(?), my final issue, I believe.)
******As, according to that ever-popular nightly British TV quiz show, 'the Chase', evidently were likewise one or two previous U K prime ministers, I believe both Margaret Thatcher and Gordon Brown.
*******However eminently reasonable-sounding she was in her tone, that'd surely have to go down for the most understated, euphemistic assessment of the ongoing, seemingly never-ending constitutional crisis/fiasco which is Brexit that would even be imaginable!
********Or methinks perplexed, baffled, bamboozled, bedazzled...would likely be more apt...especially re all the ins and outs and outs and ins of the so-called Irish 'backstop'...and apparently I'm by no means alone in that... Plus completely, frustratingly round-the-bendable...
*********As graphically depicted - with extraordinary clarity and utterly convincing prophetic insight even - in a brilliant box-set (or two) entitled: 'The Nostradamus Effect' and 'Nostradamus:2012', I happened to stumble upon back in, you guessed it, that year the world was predicted to end...(i.e.on December 21) 2012...though, curiously enough - however much asserted by critics (of 'prophecies' and the like contained therein) - not actually - necessarily - asserted therein.
Postscript (vis-a-vis brief remarks of European Union leaders thereabouts - as reported by Cindy (?Kew) on today's midday 'World Watch' on RNZ National... "There'll be no further concessions by the EU"? Really? That's a piece of straight out fake news if I ever hear it; they've only ever given diddly squat...from the very get-go...
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