Brexit. Sigh. The U.K. is shooting itself in the head.
The Tories called for an ill-advised and non-binding popular 2016 vote about Brexit under Cameron, who left office over the result, & wasn't in favor of Brexit anyway. Tories and Brexiteers delayed for years about it under May, who did most of the evil work of wasting the U.K.'s time and energy. Now Boris Johnson (an even dirtier character than his two predecessors, I now know) is trying to both short-circuit the British Parliament, daring it to force a general election which, while it might have the satisfying end of running Boris out of office, would eat up more irreplaceable time. Brexit will probably run Scotland out of the UK. We'll be lucky if the Northern Ireland border continues to stand is a useful, peaceful fashion. The British Isles will be broken. The damage will be lasting, if not permanent. Where we once had 2 mostly peaceful nations, we will have 3 1/2 injured, contentious ones.
In an ideal world of Robert's Rules of Order, the minority can't stop the majority from acting. Similarly, the majority can't stop the minority from trying to *be* the majority. It's wrong for a minority to impose its will on a majority. It's also wrong to do harm to a group, a company, a people, or a nation you're representing. The U.K. Parliament doesn't use Robert's, but a minority of Brexiteers are trying to force their broken scheme on the majority, and hurt Great Britain in the process. It's wrong.
The British political parties aren't strictly aligned over Brexit. But neither the Tories, nor Brexit, nor the resurrected, so-called "Brexit Party" have an honest mandate. If Brexit were put to the U.K. population today, it would lose. If had been put to the British voters a year before or after it was, it would have lost. If there were a U.K. general election today, the Tories would likely lose. Conservative Party members are already leaving government and the party; others are being threatened with expulsion. The Brexit minority, and those who've supported it, have lied their asses off to get Great Britain to leave the European Union. Britain, like the U.S., has been subjected to specious, illegal, deceptive, foreign influence to increase contention and divisiveness, dividing the E.U. and Britain. And again like the U.S., the policies pursued under the current U.K. regime are driving the U.K. into a depression. If both the U.K. & the U.S. are driven into a depression, the E.U., China, and the world will follow.
Brexit must fail. A no-deal Brexit is the worst possible result. The lies used to propel Brexit must not stand. Every claim used to justify Brexit has been wrong, a lie, or irrelevant. It's a power grab by a minority of British politicians, fanning flames of self-determination, nationalism, and racism to promote themselves. (I'm looking at you, Nigel Farage. Go get a milkshake somewhere else.) Brexit will damage England, the U.K., Europe, and the world. And, if a Brexit does go through, the liars, politicians, and evil people who promoted it must be rooted out of office, never again to represent or hold position over their peers and electors. Those who committed crimes over it should be punished, maybe jailed. The foreign governments that supported Brexit should be brought down, their rulers & lackeys branded as evil liars. Anyone who tramples their own citizens, uttering lies while they do it, in a scheme to promote their flawed ideas and give themselves more power, should never be allowed to hold office again.
I doubt this is my best writing ever. It's written in a rush, over an issue that doesn't directly affect me, about an island next to a continent that's an ocean away. I've never even been there. But today, right now, after what's happening there, it's right now the most important thing on my mind about this world. The mother country of my country, the place with the same name as my native tongue, needs our help. I am one person, with no job, no money, no influence, no relatives in the British Isles. But I will -- and I must! -- do what I can.
Relevant article from The Economist: https://www.economist.com/britain/2019/09/02/parliaments-brexit-showdown-begins
