The Rotten State

 

Balthasar van der Ast, Basket of Fruits, 1625 Oil on wood, Staatliche Museen, Berlin. Image: WGA

via Scorched Earth

Hope & Glory Martin Hübscher Photography ©19 October 2019

All the world wondered

With their take-over of the British government, Vote Leave’s subversion of our democracy is so complete, the country’s divisions so wide, the future of families and businesses so bleak, that no joke about it seems far-fetched enough to be funny any more.

Brexit has plunged us into wartime black humour conditions. Not altogether healthy: we laugh at truths we want to minimize.

This, for instance, sounds more like a plausible outcome of the new Home Secretary, Priti Patel’s, tenure than a laughing matter:

Priti Patel, sacked as a government minister by the previous Prime Minister for pursuing her own secret foreign policy and lying about it, is typical of Boris Johnson’s Cabinet of Rogues. The stench of their lies and amorality is polluting the air of an already over-heated country.

Here’s a whiff of their essence: Patel is a passionate advocate for the return of the death penalty.

It is being said across the world that this is Great Britain’s nadir. The election of the classically educated dreamer of Ancient Roman emperors and do or die global swanking, the narcissistic liar and charlatan Boris Johnson (“It’ll take more than shouting some pig Latin and waving around a kipper” to run the country tweeted Larry the Cat) as Prime Minister, by 0.13% of the country, is the latest sign of our democratic dysfunction.

Head of Nero (popularly regarded as one of the worst Roman Emperors) Part of a statue, after 64BC. Glyptothek, Munich. Image: Wikipedia

This, it is being said, “is how Britain ends”. (James Butler, The New York Times, 22 July, 2019)

The Tory Party members who voted for him “were obviously dominated by people who like Boris Johnson, do not distinguish between fact and fiction”. (Lawrence O’Donnell, MSNBC, 23 July 2019)

The organization Vote Leave, to which the majority of Johnson and his appointees belonged, has been found guilty of breaking electoral law. As they are now the rulers of Britain, it follows that Britain is no longer governed by the rule of law.

Accountability, keystone of Democracy, is now eliminated from the UK government. Vote Leave’s reign of liars, racists & careerists, enabled by most of the news media, most notably by the BBC, lacks the most basic justification for power.

Many of us feel ashamed to be English. Brexit is an English far-right project, either dragging Wales, Scotland and Ireland down with it, or threatening the Union itself.

We must resist it.  We, “lions led by donkeys”, have been betrayed by the privileged political classes before. We have defeated fascism abroad. Now, we must defeat it inside our own borders. Our island has gone mad, and we must heal it.

We need your support, wherever you are.

Nothing is funny here, any more.

When men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over,
and the tale hath had its effect….like a physician, who hath found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead. Jonathan Swift

Lord Cardigan Leading the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, by Harry Payne

Someone had blundered.

   Theirs not to make reply,

   Theirs not to reason why,

   Theirs but to do and die.

   ….
All the world wondered.

From Alfred Tennyson, The Charge of the Light Brigade, which, before Brexit, was England’s iconic worst self-inflicted disaster.

Living in England, 2019

“Many of us…have a feeling that we are living in a country where fanatics, hooligans and eccentrics have got the upper hand.”
Horace Rumbold, British Ambassador to Berlin, 1933

“My God. History will condemn this period. It will condemn those who’ve sat back and kept their view to themselves, who haven’t stood up and tried to stop all this nonsense.”
Anna Soubry MP, 2017

Clio, Muse of History reading a scroll
Attic red-figure lekythos, ca. 435-425 BC. From Boeotia. Louvre. Image: Wikipedia

“I don’t want to be known as the last prime minister of the United Kingdom”
attributed to Theresa May, Prime Minister, 2019

“When I am dead and opened, you shall find Calais engraved on my heart”.
Mary I, 1558, referring to the humiliating incompetence of losing England’s last stronghold in continental Europe

Jan Swart van Groningen, Woman Lamenting by a Burning City 1550-55
Pen in black, brush in brown,
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Image: WGA

History lesson

Protesters on the march of 23 March 2019, calling for the British Government to stop our withdrawal from The European Union.

REVOKE ARTICLE 50

The ultimate measure of a hero

via The ultimate measure of a hero

Stephen Goodall is still fighting for Britain, along with three younger generations of his family who were on the march of 23 March 2019 calling for our country to remain in Europe.

Other heroes of this national crisis are the people with the courage to have openly changed their minds: Remainer Now

Our Future is in Their Paws

The tarts of the Internet, the sublime opportunists of the home, the pragmatic survivors, the most independent inhabitants of the Kingdom, the cutest of the Cute, the choosiest of the Choosy, don’t want a hard Brexit, and anyone who knows cats knows they will get their way.

Protesting Puss

British cats in every home are telling their humans to

sign the Petition for a People’s Vote

over 300,000 people have signed already

Meanwhile, some courageous, independent humans, who voted Brexit and are now regretting it, have formed
REGREXIT

 

Stay!

“Will of the People”: a potential leader for Stay in Europe.
King Charles Spaniel by Édouard Manet, oil on canvas, c. 1866. Image source: Wikipedia

The Brexit Government’s smooth ride, trampling over NHS, education, Welfare and human rights in its hurry to get to the Kill, has been jolted at last.

Over-excited by their gallop, Tory MPs forgot they represent an animal-loving electorate when they voted down the animal sentience amendment in the EU Withdrawal Bill.

For one brief moment, Leavers and Remainers in the country were united in patriotic indignation.

The Government had been stupid enough to expose the weak spot of all Conservative Administrations: being perceived as uncaring.

Instantly, damage-controlling directives went out to Tory MPs to Be Compassionate.

One Tory MP posted a video of himself Loving his Dog. The dog, Poppy, was not consulted or asked if she was reassured her rights were safe.

If Remainers elected a dog or a cat to be their leader today, Brexit would be stopped by the Will of the People tomorrow.

PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY: ASK YOUR MP TO SUPPORT AMENDMENT 7