BoJo resigns; Truss fails; Sunak ascends

Changing to Labour would probably have the merits of brining minimal competence and stopping any more ideologicially extreme bollocks - such as the deregulated freeports the Tories are planning. It might also mean that things get marginally better in terms of where increased taxes and cuts fall.

But you're right. Labour won't address or be able to address the over-reliance on finance capital. Or the need to at least rejoin the single market. Or the massive productivity issues. Or the need to challenge some assumptions around inflation and deficits. Starmer ran on a radical platform but ditched all of those promises as soon as he could and is currently working to purge everyone on the left of the party.

The UK is not in a good place.

UK PM Truss’s Net Favorability Slumps to Minus 70 in YouGov Poll

Interesting that one of the supposed strengths of the Parliamentary system is being able to change out an incompetent government much more quickly than in our US system. But if I understand correctly, the Tories have a party rule that forbids a "no confidence" vote for a PM and government that's been in office for less than a year. A year of this is not a pleasant thought.

Yeah, but that's a party rule. There's nothing stopping Parliament from having a confidence vote.

Except that the Tories still have the majority. Not saying it can't or won't happen, but that rule doesn't help.

True, but as they showed with Boris, they can and will change those rules. The issue now is whether they think it's better to 1) stick it out with Truss, 2) get someone else in and wing it till 2024-5, or 3) lose a General Election on the basis Labour will not be able to deal with their mess in 5 years and they'll be able to campaign on that next election on.

Options 1 and 2 might also include just sticking it out until their electoral defeat will be less of a wipeout than it would right now.

Option 1 seems like a non-starter. Once people start laughing at you, you're fucked. Option 2 might be the choice, but that would basically admit they made a mistake by choosing Truss in the first place. Denial of reality has become the hallmark of conservative politicians in both the US and UK in recent years. 3 would require long-term strategic thinking and a clear plan for cleaning up their own mess...from the same people who made the mess in the first place. I think they'll change their rule, throw out Truss and try to muddle through, but I don't see them making it to the end of the term. Then they'll adopt some version of option 3, but as we saw with Labour cleaning up that kind of mess is not easy.

Apparently all of the UK’s problems are due to people eating tofu.

https://twitter.com/willgeorgelloyd/status/1582413669341663238?s=46&t=WF0Mab9iREktdytpmZozAg

Did Marjorie Taylor Greene emigrate to the UK?

So realistically how does this end?

Listening to a podcast totally unrelated to this issue (it was about how the Anglo-American political establishment doesn’t understand/still thinks of the LatinX demo as farm workers and roofers) and apparently with what has being going on, if you were to splice out just LatinX-Americans and their income, corporations, etc, and other contributions to GDP that they would have passed the UK as the 5th largest economy in the world this summer.

Like for real… from The Sun Never Sets to Pearl Snaps and Pointy Boots…

How does the UK pull out of this nose dive?

Can it?

In the medium-long term it is probably inevitable that the UK drops down world economic rankings (at least on a total scale). It's currently 21st in the world by population, and as wealth grows in developing economies I would hope they climb the charts.

When it comes to per capita rankings, the drops the UK has seen are a result of years of poor political leadership, but it's also hard to see a clear path to bouncing back up. It's a small land mass without large amounts of natural resources to sell. The Empire is long dead, and the economic benefits it provided aren't coming back. The industrial revolution emerging from the UK set the model for modern industry and the momentum from that first starter advantage buoyed UK industry for a century, but again the time when it made sense for industry to set up shop in the UK is largely gone.

Dafuq is this shit?

Truss' Home Secretary Suella Braverman has just resigned, ostensibly over a breach of the ministerial code (sending an official secure document from a personal email to someone who wasn't cleared to see it) but looks like this is an excuse to get out while she can and also to get in a dig at Truss in so doing ("I'm resigning because I admit MY mistakes, why don't YOU?!").

Also whispers that this because Truss tried to get her to liberalise her immigration policies to help boost the economic forecast (tacit admission that Brexit's "kick out the furriners!!" rhetoric is no good for the nation) and Braverman is VERY right-wing on immigration... she claimed it was her "dream" to have migrants on flights to Rwanda by Christmas.

Fat fingers Mikey?

Not even sure where to start on today's events. It seemed like every half hour there was some new catastrophe for the Tories.

ITV says the government is in chaos.

https://twitter.com/franklinleonard/status/1582926081094393856?s=46&t=InZnmIeE0j4ypuihdy1X3A

England and Wales to become 51st and 52nd States, while Ireland absorbs Northern Ireland and Scotland declares independence, bagpipers patrolling Hadrian's Wall?

ALL HAIL THE LETTUCE. VICTORY!!!

WTF is "the 1922 Committee" that she mentioned?

https://twitter.com/BloombergUK/status/1583074003610406914?s=20&t=lnNqqo5seF4_j3NGuickJQ

Suddenly, American politics seem almost sane.

Committee of all backbench Tory MPs (i.e. those not in Cabinet) and they set the party rules. They also oversee leader elections - they're the ones who changed the rule so Boris could be kicked out. They haven't here but will have made it plain to Truss she needed to jump before they pushed her.

Let's not go overboard here.

That's when you know we are well and truly boned.

The thread title will need to be updated again.

There is talk of Boris coming back. Yes, really.

They won't though, at least my understanding is that nothing can compel them to for another 4+ years.

The problem is Brexit is fucked, it was always going to lead to this, and they don't have anyone to blame.

So they need to try to ride it out until they have to have an election, and hope the damage is done and things have gone back to 'normal' by then.

Of course, by then 'normal' will have meant the finance sector leaving the UK and the economy taking a massive hit.

Brexit really is the elephant in the room. It's been a fucking disaster and a large majority of people recognise that - yet the political classes are acting like it would be electoral suicide to say so. Labour are suggesting only the mildest of mitigations.