Boris Johnson Votes Leave From Theresa May's Bloody Government

Technically Brexit is still on, but good luck figuring out how it's supposed to work.

The British government appears to be imploding over Brexit talks after several key UK government officials resigned, and there's a real fear that nobody will be around to shake Trump's hand this weekend.

Days after British Prime Minister Theresa May stitched together a Brexit proposal for the EU, some of the loudest pro-Brexit voices in her cabinet are bailing out. Brexit Secretary David Davis and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson resigned, criticizing May's so-called Chequers proposal as "weak" and an "absolute stinker," whining that it didn't go far enough in separating the the UK from the EU. It's as if the Brexiters want to exist on their own dreary island in Europe, protected by a vast ocean to keep out immigrants.

News of Davis and Johnson's resignations has been met met with a mixture of laughter and condemnation. Davis, the pro-Brexit architect, griped that the EU still maintained too much control and demanded a "hard-Brexit" to cut off the EU entirely. That same sentiment was shared by the bombastic child-punching gaffe machine that is Boris Johnson in his resignation letter. Johnson bumbled his way through one self-inflicted scandal after another since 2016; many Britons are not sad to see him zipline off into the sunset.

Or possibly even, not ever be given the job in the first place. https: //t.co/vcKbDj5qY4 
— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) July 9, 2018 

A list of David Davis' and Boris Johnson's achievements in two years as Brexit Secretary and Foreign Secretary:
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— Tom Hamilton (@thhamilton) July 9, 2018 

Now that Johnson is finally stumbling off the world stage, there are very real calls for a vote of no confidence in May. When faced with a similar crisis last year, May called for snap elections and hoped to strengthen her conservative base. Her stunt backfired, however, and resulted in a hung parliament. The British right-wing echo chamber is attempting to reassure commoners that she'll survive (again), but there's already screaming from the far-right and left for her to step down.

May has hobbled along for months clinging to the hope thatmaybethe conservative Tories would stop stabbing one another in the back long enough to form a stable government. Her administration has been rocked by one horrific scandal after another: the widespread sexual abuse at Westminster which was revealed during #MeToo, the role of Cambridge Analytica in Brexit , the horrific aftermath of the fire at Grenfell tower, the obscene logistical clusterfuck of the Windrush generation, and the revolving door of disgraced government officials. All the while Brexit loomed like London fog, making it impossible to forge agreements within her own party or Parliament, let alone the EU.

With the UK set to leave the EU in nine months, politicians have yet to agree on a road map to get out. Issues like customs and immigration procedures, trade relations, and border crossings litter the path like potholes, constantly stopping negotiations for the last two years. The Brexiteers will complain about national sovereignty, but get pissy about traveling freely through Ireland and the EU. They'll bitch about better trade relations, but propose tariffs on EU imports. They want to have their cake, eat it too, and call everyone without cake a bunch of bloody wankers.

The tragic irony is that literally all these problems have been self-inflicted. Hardcore conservatives muscled their way into power with a mixture of half-truths and bullshit only to find that government is a lot of fucking work. It's likely that Brexit was always doomed, and a Blue Wave is building across the pond. Calls for the Labour Party and progressives to step up have been growing in recent months, and there is now serious talk about a second referendum on Brexit, but it's still early. Johnson's resignation may have opened the floodgates for hard-right members of Parliament to walk away, or they may have just kneecapped their own careers. Either way, good riddance.

This is what happens when you have men in government who've been raised from birth to believe it's someone else's job to clean up after them. They throw tantrums when they finally make a mess no-one can fix. #Brexit 
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 9, 2018 

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