The Eeeeew

[Mongrel]

I can't say I follow Italian politics all that closely, so my brain practically exploded when I learned that the protest party started by comedian/card-carrying clown Beppo Grillo as a rather angry gag a decade ago has become an actual political party contesting and winning real elections. (via BBC)

[Mongrel]

So, this is really almost more of a Canadian thing, but I'm posting it here, because the overall story is really about the EU and not Canada: Canada walks out of the Canada-EU free trade talks

The overall story is that Canada has been trying to get a free trade deal worked out with the EU. There's a number of incentives in it for both side, but the EU has much more riding on this at the moment, because in the wake of Brexit, the EU wants a good agreement to go through so they can demonstrate that the EU is still perfectly functional.

The speedbump came from Wallonia (the French-speaking portion of Belgium). The Walloons have veto power on international agreement signed by Brussels, so the Belgians cannot sign on to the trade deal. And because the deal requires unanimity from all EU member states, it's dead in the water.

The deal being sunk for such dumb reasons is of course frustrating to Canada - I mean, as the article says, this is pretty unprecedentedly blunt and negative language for a Canadian diplomat or cabinet minister (even considering that some of it is just posturing to push the EU into getting this sorted out). But it's far more damaging to the EU. If they're not capable of mustering enough agreement in order to sign a trade deal with frikkin' Canada, who the hell will they be able to sign a deal of any sort with?

[zaratustra]

on one hand, brexiteers must be jumping up and down at how inept the EU is being

on the other, this doesn't spell good things for the UK being able to seal a deal with the EU themselves

[Mongrel]

ohhhhh maannnnnn I didn't even think of the UK angle. Wow.

[Mongrel]

Prepare for fun times!

British high court rules Brexit must go to a parliamentary vote before article 50 can be triggered

(sooooooo Parliament can vote not to go... though that will take some big stones)

To those who are angry and disappointed at today's High Court ruling on the legality of triggering Article 50:

You lost. Get over it.

OH BOY.

[Mothra]

I mean, if it's "the will of the people" I can't imagine they'd actually be able to justify blocking it.

[Mongrel]

Right. But they might want to try?

There's also this hilarious wrinkle:

The Government immediately confirmed it would challenge the ruling at the Supreme Court – probably on December 7 – with speculation the case could end up at the European Court of Justice.

oops

[Mongrel]

Also, so assuming it does somehow come to a vote, right now the Cons have 329 Seats in a 650-seat Parliament. Labour has 231, the Scottish National Party has 54, and both could be reliably counted on to vote solidly to remain without suffering severe political consequences because their constituencies generally (or overwhelmingly, in the case of the SNP) voted to remain. The rest of the seats in parliament are mostly small-time leftists (lol still that one UKIP seat), or pro-EU regional parties who would have a strong incentive to vote to remain (i.e. Sinn Fein, Ulster unionists, etc.). Only Plaid Cymru is maybe a question mark there because Wales weirdly voted to leave even though the region is hideously dependent on EU trade (go figure... maybe overconsumption of leeks causes brain damage). But they only have 4 seats.

Meanwhile the Conservatives were and still are seriously divided over the issue. All it would take is a small rump of Conservative MPs to vote to remain for the leave vote to be overturned. Which is still maybe a long shot, but not impossible.

And then... Interesting Times!

[Mongrel]

So Theresa May is going for the hardest "You wanted it? Well you fucking GOT IT." Brexit possible. She's even planing to withdraw from the customs union, which seems INSANE since that will probably straight-up destroy the market for a huge percentage of British small businesses.

If this is some kind of fake out, whoo boy... I'm not sure the time for economic brinkmanship is after the deal goes live.

[Mongrel]

In not-unrelated news, the coalition government Northern Ireland's had for ten years has collapsed in acrimony which could have a very interesting and unknown impact on the parliamentary Brexit vote as well as Northern Irish politics in general.

(via SkyNews)

[Brantly B.]

Worldwide anarchy is starting to sound like the most sensible option.

God, I'm in high school again.

[Mongrel]

It is rather scary to contemplate a world which has gone from the usual "Most world leaders are evil, complete idiots, or both." to "No wait... all of them are like that now." Except maybe some guy in Canada. But that's not even a real country.

[Thad]

You know, after whatsisface couldn't name a single world leader he admired, I thought about the question.

And yeah, Trudeau's probably at the top of my list right now. He's got a lot of the usual neoliberal problems -- support for TPP and the oil industry -- but he's pretty good, all around.

I'd list Merkel, too. I disagree with her completely on economics, but her handling of the refugee crisis was so laudable that now she's backing off it and it may cost her her job. Yeah, the EU's in some serious shit right now, and part of that's her fault, but we could do an awful lot worse than her right now, and there's a very good chance we're about to find out how much worse.

Other than that...hell. Does Corbyn count? Do minority-party leaders count as world leaders? Probably not, but he'd still be a better answer than the one...Johnson! the Libertarian candidate's name was Johnson!...gave.

(Special bonus quote about Libertarians: when asked why he supported Carter instead of the Libertarian candidate in 1980, Robert Anton Wilson responded, "I am not that kind of Libertarian, really; I don't hate poor people.")

[Mongrel]

I respect Merkel and she's the easily person everyone names as the most notable among the not-crazy leaders.

The problem is that she's up for re-election in a couple months. Right now she still very popular and still looks to win on paper, but with all the recent elections going batshit crazy and the "Aw come on, we're not Nazis." AFD looking to make big gains, no one really knows what's going to happen in Germany this year.

On top of that, there's Russian interference. More than any other leader in the world, Putin wants Merkel gone. Trump was a lark, some fun that paid off way better than Putin expected, but he actively despises Merkel.

The Germans have mentioned hacking attempts originating from Russia have already been underway, so it's going to be REALLY INTERESTING to see what sort of attempted interference is going to come up in the German election.

[Blossom]

Corbyn instructs Labour MPs to vote in favor of Brexit.

So I dunno about that.

[Mongrel]

Uh.

Uh.

What.

Corbyn you stupid fuck.

[zaratustra]

no protests against brexit on the streets, nothing

nobody cares

[Mongrel]

I guess!

[Thad]

I've been on the receiving end of a legislature voting to nullify an initiative passed by the public. I'm not in favor of it.

I think Brexit's a terrible idea. But I also think it's a government's job to govern according to the will of the people.

[zaratustra]

The will of the 21% of the people that actually went out and voted Leave, you mean.