It is now BREXIT Day! After only 4 years of slogging…
United Kingdom Independence Day, Hip Hip Hurray!
Here’s Nigel’s last EU Parliament speech. I wonder what he’ll do now?
IF I’ve done my time zones right, that’s 3 P.M. Friday Pacific, 6 P.M. Eastern.
Australia is ahead, instead of behind, so ought to be Saturday, Feb 1, at 10 A.M. in Sydney.
New Zealand one or two hours later, depending on which Island, I think, unless they bent the time zone line to make it all one hour. I think I remember that was the case when I was there. Wellington ought to be at Noon.
Tokyo, per my TZ calculator, at 8 A.M.
Then India is on the half hour at 4:30 A.M. Saturday in Deli.
So set your clocks and let The Commonwealth & Anglosphere Party roll on!
If anyone finds a video link for the Downing Street count down clock, let us know.
Prior Party Posting, NSFW with ribald comedy videos, here:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2020/01/29/brexit-t-2days-nsfw-17-million-f-offs/
Musings from the Chiefio 
Nigel said he is going to travel to America to help Trump in the coming election, while he waits for Boris to complete the job. If Johnson miffs the job he will return to set a fire under the governments seats…pg
Try this to get time splits
https://24timezones.com/#/map
E.M.
IIRC New Zealand is 2 hours ahead of eastern Australian time
I feel the words of Ben Franklin should be used. Paraphrased. A free country – if you can keep it.
Hahahahahaha. I enjoyed this one.
Priceless!
With only 7 hours to go, I expected more hoopla… or maybe I’m not looking in the right places. Is everyone in the UK “down the pub”? Or just waiting for The Hour?
Many start the pub action at 8 PM local time — there will be singing of “Land of Hope and Glory.”
Some may still be standing 3 hours later. News on Saturday will be interesting.
But, here on the Left Coast I can’t start the party at 3 in the afternoon.
I will drink a beer to freedom, a little later.
Contains F-bombs…
Who’ll be the next to go? Who’ll be the next in line?
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/479726-thatcher-farage-eu-brexit/
Heroes of the revolution, “Just Do It” Farage and “Get ‘er Done” Boris. Keep up the good work!
I won’t need to list the villains.
The EU was flawed from the beginning. There were important things that they could not get agreement on, so they just left them unresolved. I thought it would fail just because of that, eventually. But it turns out there was a worse flaw — arrogance.
Stay tuned, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet”.
And this Mark Steyn comment needs to be noted:
https://www.steynonline.com/10021/remembrance-and-appropriation
For nearly 2,000 years various European Empire builders have tried to chain the Brits to their grand dream. After 40 years of the Elites of Europe slowly trying again to ensnare them into giving up their sovereignty, the British people awake and yell “Hell NO!” to the Grand Design.
Free men do not need Rulers! Rulers are for slaves…pg
EM – as regards hoopla, nothing will happen till the end of the year. At the moment, there’s no information about what needs to be done by us expats, and I went to the Mairie yesterday and they don’t know yet, either. M. Macron has said there’s no need to go home, since we are at home (nice of him), and I expect no major problems.
The main changes will likely be a stronger Pound in a few years, and the UK population getting better off. Good for the young in the UK, since they’ve had a bad deal so far. The EU citizens in the UK should also do well, and the young ones are in any case better off than in their own countries (why they came, after all).
The EU isn’t democratic. The voters can’t get rid of people they don’t like. They also can’t set policy or change it. The PIGS countries need policies to increase life chances and jobs for their young (other than moving to the UK, that is), and don’t get them. One size does not fit all.
Basically the EU said “take it or leave it”, and we said goodbye which they didn’t expect. It’s that Anglo-Saxon heritage….
Farewell to the Euro, farewell to the Bureau,
say ‘hello’ for the Brits, to a bright Brexit future.
Livé from Parliament square:
BTW, Cabernet Blanc in hand…
The Ruptly Live feed is interesting. Just a camera wandering the Parliament Square. It really is like I’m walking around the place. No stupid announcer voices in my head…
24 minutes to go…
I am very thankful to the Russians and Ruptly for giving me the live feed of Parliament Square. It is like I was there.
Great Britain and The United Kingdom are now free to rejoin the rest of the world. More inexpensive Australian Lamb, more New Zealand wool & wine, more Canadian woods and beef, more Indian spices and curry, and perhaps closer ties to thd USA too. Mum welcome back!
Is it just me, or does Boris look like he just woke up from a rough night every time he gets on TV?
It isn’t just you.
Boris has very fine hair, as do I.
NOTHING keeps it in place other than oiling it down, that is presently out of favor.
So you just accept it, tell everyone to deal with it, and move on.
FWIW, I suspect it correlates with more and finer dendrites and more cognitive ability, but don’t have the $millions to test the theory.
From what I have seen EM, all you both would need is a perm and a little of HR’s ponytail to get a straight up mullet in place :-)
Yeah, that’s the ticket!
mullet. Mullet? MULLET!?! REALLY. What fresh hell is this?
I had a perm once, for a high school reunion (where my date was the Chinese girl from my home town) and it lasted about a week. $50 (about $200 in present dollars) for one bit of show. Seems very fine hair does not “hold a perm” well.
(FWIW, I really had a thing for the Chinese girl, but she had a thing for a black guy. So it goes in multi culti California)
But a Mullet? Do you think me insane?
;-)
OssQss: “[…]and a little of HR’s ponytail to get a straight up mullet in place :-)”
LOLOLOL!
Absolutely NO to man buns and HELL effen NO WAY to mullets!!!
.
.
.
*ahem* That said, I did plan on one more year of growing out the hair and I have been thinking about what to do with my longer locks.
I am now considering the ‘Greta’ style, which is pigtail braids.
With pigtail braids, I figure I can pay homage to our Native American culture (or at a minimum, be accused of cultural appropriation) AND have that oh-so-desirable and au currant “HOW DARE YOU!” look. If I go for the latter, I will have to spritz lemon juice into one eye to get that authentic stink eye that Gretta manifests.
P.S. My wife’s grandma on the American side was at least 1/4 Indian and maybe as much as 1/2. She had the stink eye down pat and could drop a possum out of a tree with it at 100 paces. No doubt she could stop a black bear in its tracks and definitely give pause to a grizzly. Greta needs to work on her stink eye.
“Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.” – MLK
I just felt those words were appropriate for our UK brethren.
So. Now “the United Kingdom has left the European Union”. Well, I didn’t get a decent philosophy degree to believe whatever politicians say without question, so I’ll wait and see what this statement actually means in the real world before I celebrate unreservedly (or not).
Which doesn’t mean I’m not celebrating “reservedly” meanwhile, still a bit “mellow” when I woke up this morning :-) … Funny though, for now, it rather reminds me of a friend’s comment immediately after the 2008 market crash – when you look around you day to day, nothing has changed, and it all feels a bit unreal.
Meanwhile, I shall adapt the Zen saying about enlightenment:
Before Brexit – chopping wood, carrying water.
After Brexit – chopping wood, carrying water … ;-)
What a shame that it took so long to divorce from the doomed EU. Tyranny by bureaucrat destroys souls as well as bodies.
Let joy be unconfined………what a great excuse for pouring some of the Glenfiddich I have been hoarding.
So the EU Parliament held hands and sang Auld Lang Syne. Apparently they didn’t know the words. Only Kumbaya. I was thinking how rare democracy is. Which is to say how unique America is. The founders took the thoughts of French and English philosophers and made something of them. But most of Europe had a history of Kings and Emperors and was still in that mind-set until after WW2. The French overthrew the King, and they ended up with The Terror. The Russians overthrew the Tsar and ended up with the Dictatorship of The People (people is plural, but you could count them with fingers, maybe even with thumbs). Iran overthrew the Shah and ended up with the Dictatorship of the Imams. Germany. China. Japan. You can’t just give someone a constitution and tell them that now they are a democracy. They need to already have a compatible tradition, a compatible culture. Maybe they need to have been a British colony. Worse, Democracy is not a stable system. It requires constant effort to keep it.
Dictatorships are stable. Look how few countries have escaped Communism. The peasants have no power. Monarchies are somewhat less stable because other princes have power. Islamism is stable because it is absolute. Democracy, the inmates are in charge. As they should be, but it’s unpredictable.
So, congratulations are in order. It’s a historic moment. But it’s not over. It’s never over.
@Steve C.:
Yes, there’s another year of “hope and trust” ahead, but I think Boris is up for it.
Then, if things are too bad, as a Sovereign Nation again, the UK just just exit / change anything it doesn’t like later. Sovereigns can, and do, just break treaties they don’t like.
@G.C.:
I’ll have to wait a bit before I’ve recovered enough to have a “wee drop” more ;-)
Spouse & I both were virtually at Parliament Square for the event, via the Ruptly live camera. It was rather an emotional moment. Then I went to the virtual pub…
@YMMV:
Well said.
We went. Lots of people of all kinds, races, ages. Even a French guy with a Frexit flag. Very good-natured, all those cops didn’t need to do anything. A few speakers, and Dominic Frisby performing the two songs you will find on the previous thread. Woke up in a free country. With the sun shining. Wow.
{“Compu Gator says:
Maybe BrExit will add some enthusiasm for the physical restoration of the U.K. Parliament building, formally the Palace of Westminster, which reportedly is in surprisingly sad shape. So much for construction in stone lasting “for the ages“. Perhaps the stone chosen is especially vulnerable to air-borne pollution? No such claims would be made for plumbing, not even of the sewage persuasion (might the broken pipes have been rust-friendly cast iron?).
And the building is something of a fire trap: Air passages built into the structure were intended to provide an early form of air-conditioning, but largely failed to do so; they are feared nowadays to provide a really effective means for fire to spread.
All this and more from a cover story in an issue of TIME Magazine that I read recently in a waiting room:
• “Britain’s Houses of Parliament Are Falling Down. Can They Be Saved in Time?”.
By Billy Perrigo | Photographs by Ben Quinton · TIME, July 29, 2019
[time.com/longform/british-parliament-falling-down/].
Being partially descended from those rebel “colonials” across the Pond, I didn’t realize that the issue had been in the news for at least 2½ years, e.g.:
• “London’s Big Ben Is About to Shut Down for Years”. Effective Aug. 21, 2017.
By Tara John · TIME, August 14, 2017
[time.com/4899026/london-big-ben-goes-silent/].
The U.K. government seems to have an official site (I’ve barely looked at it):
• “Palace of Westminster: Restoration and Renewal”
[restorationandrenewal.parliament.uk/].
20 years ago, I looked on the EU as a hope for a stable and peaceful Europe that would be an economic equal to the US, Instead it turned into Woke central where freedom goes to die (and still does). I celebrate the UK exit as evidence of the hope that man will chose freedom over slavery.
244 years ago our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
And that is from memory. It is indeed a rare event and to date has not been duplicated. the UK is half way there, But as long as they persecute those who believe in science,they are not there yet. But there is hope. They took the first step. The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. They have many more steps to go
With Britain gone, the EU is already pushing for an even more tightly bound structure.
I think this will only succeed in driving the edges further away.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/eu-leaders-to-push-for-ever-closer-union-without-britain-8cghcmsj0
Then it goes to shilling for a subscription.
I note in passing that 2022 is sooner than an exit of another nation can complete… Sure looks like Germany trying to slam shut the exit ramp before Italy or the Visegrad States can escape.
YMMV said:
“You can’t just give someone a constitution and tell them that now they are a democracy.”
Clearly that is true for new states it has somber implications for established states.
For example I have been told that Russia has an excellent written constitution. Unfortunately Vladimir Putin has no intention of following it.
In the USA our constitution guaranteed important rights to every citizen. Today it might be an overstatement to say that our constitution is under attack. It is far worse that that……just like in Russia our ruling elites simply ignore it in their determination to remove Donald Trump even to the point that a corrupt politician (Adam Shiff) publicly stated that elections can no longer be trusted.
Will we become Russia or Venezuela?
E M Brexit has provided other nations in the EU with an example, a ‘pathway’, to escape the EU. Nations like Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Italy and maybe even Ireland, plus others will not want any further loss of national identity & sovereignty.
And Macron of course is a ‘dead president walking’. Most french voters are simply waiting to give him the steel capped electoral boot in the bum….
So while there may be a few ideologues keen on deeper union..I suspect that the peoples of Europe have other ideas…
Bill in Oz – yep, I’d expect that the populace in various other countries see Brexit as a beacon, but also see that the EU will attempt to block it happening. Main way is to disallow the necessary referendum happening, as in Catalonia and Scotland, and Macron isn’t going to allow the French a referendum either in case they go for Frexit. Being in France, I see that Macron is actually trying to make France more competitive and to reduce the various regulations that make it uncompetitive, and though a lot of people support that they don’t like the way it will impact on their own benefits and so strike against the reform of pensions even though they individually support the need for it. Macron is far better for France than Hollande was, with the downside being that he’s aiming for the “ever-closer union” in the EU. I suspect he’ll get re-elected, since he’s obviously the best of the bunch when it comes to election time. He is cutting the number of civil servants and thus the regulatory (and tax) burden gradually, which is probably around as fast as is possible anyway given the natural expansion of bureaucracy. If he can reduce (by even a small amount) the red tape that is a feature of French life, I think he’ll have done a good job.
He does appear to recognise the interdependence of France and the UK, and I expect he’ll try to reduce the problems of trade between them even if the others in the EU want to punish the UK for daring to leave. We’ll need to wait and see whether that prediction works out. Of course he’ll want the best deal for France, but that should result in a bit more flexibility on the needs of the UK because of that interdependence. I think we can expect a bit of fudging of the principles given the requirement to keep selling cheese and wine to the UK, and for the Germans to continue selling cars without tariffs. Since there are also a lot more EU citizens working in the UK than UK citizens in the rest of the EU, and they are needed there, all the politicians need to recognise the realities (and that the UK is obviously attractive for EU citizens).
To some extent, it depends on whether the EU wants to continue its trajectory towards the USSE (union of soviet states of Europe) or not. It should be obvious that that’s not a good path, but that socialist shiny thing does retain its glamour still.
I suspect that Scotland will end up independent at some point, which will not be a good move for them (their oil revenue won’t be enough to make up for the losses). They’ll then need to join the EU which could be a bit of a shock. Catalonia leaving Spain but remaining in the EU should be fairly easy to arrange, as should the Basque region of France and Spain (just a rearrangement of the map but nothing really changes). Rearrange the deck-chairs on the Titanic…. We live in interesting times.
Is the nonEuropean infestation of Britain, notably by Muslims, the result of laws or regulations:
• U.K. privileges (in contrast to “rights”) granted on occasions of colonial independence, notably, to former imperial subjects in Pakistan, or
• EU determination to destroy national identity by mandating nationally uncontrollable immigration “rights” for nonEuropeans, notably those from cultures that resist assimilation?
What will a BrExited sovereign U.K. be abled to do about the practical problems caused for U.K. national identity & domestic tranquility (the latter perhaps more properly the “Queen’s Peace”)?
(Why, yes, I suppose I posed my questions in phrasing that might be criticized as “biased”. I credit “polls” by Greenpeace with providing me with examples of how to do that.)
@Compugator:
And might “washing” the UK through the EU have erased earlier grants to former colonies?
I doubt the EU just accepted former British Colonies to have EU immigration rights…
So how much of a fresh stsrt does the UK have?
The immigration problems in the UK are entirely down to our own policies. Now that we are free, the first thing to understand is that our enemy is no longer out there, he is within. Like he always has been.
The marriage of France and the UK is a recent thing – barely 100 years old (well, I guess 120 now). And was in response to the rise and unification of the Teutonic folks. One of those “if they ever come to realize they out number us 100 to 1, we are in trouble” things. (reference: A bugs Life)
The third reich failed, Due to 2 things, barbarism and impatience. The 4th reich is succeeding – or kind of (Brexit is a bad break for them). Merkel did not start it, but she understands it. Bojo does not understand it, but he is ending it.
Macron has no clue.