through the looking glass and off the map

And so Parliament, by a majority of 27, takes the tiller from Boris Johnson with the intention of ruling out a no-deal Brexit. For perspective, the last PM to lost his very first vote was Pitt the Younger. Now all manner of chicanery is afoot. There’s talk of Boris refusing to seek royal assent for the bill. There’s talk of calling an election for October 14 and then pushing the date out once Parliament is dissolved to double down on the prorogue and ensure that Brexit happens on the 31st. And most of all, there’s a growing realization that unwritten rules aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.

At this point, the game is to secure the extension and push the date out long enough that an election can be held. From there, we functionally have our second referendum: yes or no on a no-deal Brexit. If yes, vote Tory or Brexit or UKIP; if no, vote for the Rebel Alliance, whether Labour or LibDem or SNP or what have you. The risk is that with the vote chopped so many ways, there’s no telling who might finish first past the post with a chance to form a government.

Theresa May’s problem was that she was committed to doing this within her government alone, and Jeremy Corbin was happy to let her. Now that the Tory party is withdrawing the whip from as many as 21 of its members, it remains to be seen where the non-Labour anti-no-deal forces will line up. LibDem? Possibly, although many of their rank and file are already grousing about uncritical acceptance of Tories whose other issue positions are anathema. An altogether new center-right party a la Change UK? Maybe. But would that party line up behind Corbin as PM? And if not, would Corbin line up behind some other MP for the sake of derailing no-deal?

One thing’s for sure: the people whose first field was Comparative are every bit as regretful as Americanists that they wasted years on a diploma at this point. What we have now is a six way cage match in an arena that’s burning down. British politics finally and firmly has no god but Loki.

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