On June 26, 2016 2:40:27 PM GMT+01:00, R wrote:

Nic,

When people find out you’re an American, are they asking “what are you
thinking?”.
When I was in Canada, one guy said “what are the American people
thinking.  A lot of the world looks to the US for leadership”….
Have you gotten any reaction????
Geez, if you say you’re American…. “what are you thinking with Trump”
If you say you’re British…. “What are you thinking with pulling out of
the EU”
Good time to be out of the country??…. “what were you thinking”

What was I thinking? What were they thinking?!?

To get a sense of just how quickly things are moving over here.  Since I left my London flat @ 6:45 this morning, 8 10 11 20 30 31 Labour MPs have resigned from the “shadow” cabinet, and at least 10 more from various leadership positions.  They’re resigning so fast I have to keep updating this post!  So far that’s about half the entire shadow cabinet.

Labour & Tories are both now in leadership struggles, as are the Greens. Lib Democrats have sworn to return to the EU, if elected (fat chance of that).

Meanwhile millions (Pawn included) have signed an online petition demanding a mulligan on Brexit.  That now seems to be getting a new portmanteau, CNN are using REGREXIT, but I think that should be ReBrexit, or maybe just Oops!  Seems not all signatories are legit, however, so an investigation is underway:

Despite Vatican City, a tiny city state, having a total population of just 800, over 39,000 residents of Vatican City appeared to have signed the petition.

Oh, and that petition they’re all signing?  It was actually started by a Brexiteer, who thought it would give Leave a hedge against a razor-thin Remain vote.

My favourite story to come out of this is Cornwall, which voted Leave by over 56%, yet then turned around to complain that the UK had damn well better make up for the large share of EU funding they now stand to lose out on.  Cut off your nose…

Region was on course to benefit from £2.5bn of funding between 2000 and 2020 but voted 56% in favour of leaving EU

This is largely in line with the Washington Post story which has stayed on their most circulated list all weekend long, “The British are frantically Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it.”

WaPo also has a similar thread about Tilbury:

Tilbury is one of England’s poorest places — and one of its most Euroskeptic. More than 72 percent of voters here and in surrounding Thurrock voted for Britain to leave the European Union in Thursday’s referendum. Few places voted more decisively.

But by Sunday, the initial excitement among some pro-Brexit voters had already started to disappear, making room for worries about what’s next for an increasingly divided Britain.

Some in this town of 12,000 have also begun to wonder whether they had been misled by politicians advocating to leave the E.U. amid a campaign marked by negativity on both sides.

“I was swayed by the rhetorics, but if I had thought this through, I would have voted to stay in. I would certainly do so now,” said Antony Kerin, 38, who was watching his daughter at a newly refurbished but empty playground.

But then again, Brexit may just never happen at all.  This meme was forward me by A:

The referendum result is not binding. It is advisory. Parliament is not bound to commit itself in that same direction.

The Conservative party election that Cameron triggered will now have one question looming over it: will you, if elected as party leader, trigger the notice under Article 50?

Who will want to have the responsibility of all those ramifications and consequences on his/her head and shoulders?

Boris Johnson knew this yesterday, when he emerged subdued from his home and was even more subdued at the press conference. He has been out-maneouvered and check-mated.

If he runs for leadership of the party, and then fails to follow through on triggering Article 50, then he is finished. If he does not run and effectively abandons the field, then he is finished. If he runs, wins and pulls the UK out of the EU, then it will all be over – Scotland will break away, there will be upheaval in Ireland, a recession … broken trade agreements. Then he is also finished. Boris Johnson knows all of this. When he acts like the dumb blond it is just that: an act.

The Brexit leaders now have a result that they cannot use. For them, leadership of the Tory party has become a poison chalice.

When Boris Johnson said there was no need to trigger Article 50 straight away, what he really meant to say was “never”. When Michael Gove went on and on about “informal negotiations” … why? why not the formal ones straight away? … he also meant not triggering the formal departure. They both know what a formal demarche would mean: an irreversible step that neither of them is prepared to take.

Indeed. This seems to align with a point which R put forward in re: the Trump campaign:

He has been running this like an episode of the apprentice…..

This is what I see happening, Trump has talked to Reince Priebus, saying “I’m a winner and I don’t want to be associated with loosing causes.

“I can’t win the election in the fall, I don’t want to be seen as a “looser”, so I want out.”

That’s why he hasn’t been raising money for the fall election…

That’s why the Republican party is pushing this “Vote your conscience” idea with the delegates.

Trump won’t get the nod on the first ballot, he’ll clam it’s been stolen from him…

“I’ll sue…I’m going 3rd party…” bla bla bla

He’s going to try and fade away still being a “Winner”, who got things stolen from him in a rigged election.

Yikes, pretty detailed scenario there. In general, people who try to predict what Trump might do are the only bigger fools than those who try to understand what he does.

See what I did there?  Drew a direct comparison between Trump and the whole tawdry Brexit affair?  I’m hardly the only one doing it.  Some have even suggested Trexit for the Trump effort.  Yetch!

But back to Article 50, that’s a few paragraphs in the EU’s Lisbon Treaty which defines the precise manner of leaving the union.  The first step is to invoke this article, “A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention” (emphasis mine), and when that happens is the real question.  Cameron won’t do it.  He’s stepping down.  BoJo has said he wants to take things slow and deliberate.  The EU wants it to happen now, and are even investigating whether they can trigger it.

But just to be sure, Brexiteers are starting to walk back their most audacious claims, like that huge savings for National Health.

Then there are those who propose that even it Article 50 is invoked, it could be blocked.  Nicola Sturgeon, Scotish First Minister is one such pol:

Nicola Sturgeon has suggested that the Scottish parliament could block the passage of legislation necessary for the UK to leave the EU.

In an interview with the Sunday Politics Scotland, she said that “of course” she would consider asking the Scottish parliament to vote down the legislative consent motions required for the legislation.

In her fifth major political interview of the morning, Scotland’s first minister told the show’s host, Gordon Brewer: “If the Scottish parliament is judging this on the basis of what’s right for Scotland, then the option of saying we’re not going to vote for something that’s against Scotland’s interests, that’s got to be on the table. You’re not going to vote for something that is not in Scotland’s interests.”

Asked if she could imagine the fury of English people who voted for Brexit if Scotland tried to block the UK leaving the EU, she said: “I can, but it’s perhaps similar to the fury of many people in Scotland right now as we face the prospect of being taken out of the EU against their will. I didn’t create these situations. I’m trying to navigate the best way forward through them.”

So now Pawn finds himself in the Netherlands, which is actively considering Nexit, I kid you not.

As a matter of fact, until early 2015, there was a Eurosceptic party here named, ready for it? Article 50.  It hasn’t gone away, just merged with another party, For The Neatherlands.

Never a dull moment, as my British father used to say…

[Update: This post has been updated to reflect the current number of Labour shadow cabinet ministers who have stepped down]