Trixie O’Blivion 🚢

Unpleasant and somewhat unhinged. Taking a breath and a break.

[Trixie O’Blivion 🚢 @neskatxa]

@LoomsSuzanne @EUflagmafia @GirloftheN @BorisJohnson If Britain plays her cards right, full EU membership is a real possibility.

[Trixie O’Blivion 🚢 @neskatxa]

A motor cruiser exits the lock at Sharpness Docks, heading out into the Severn Estuary. The waiting yacht, facing upstream, had a little trouble turning and exiting the lock owing to (I suppose) currents and breeze inside the lock, but managed it in a few minutes.

[Trixie O’Blivion 🚢 @neskatxa]

@StevePeers @fujamu5pr1m3 @cheltartist @davidallengreen Ah, yes, understood. I apologise for that smarty-pants, unwarranted abuse. I resolve to learn better the distinction between fantasy, West Wing fiction and the real world. Thank you for the advisory.

[Trixie O’Blivion 🚢 @neskatxa]

@StevePeers @fujamu5pr1m3 @cheltartist @davidallengreen I suppose it will have to be political, but it's so dispiriting to think what a very long and winding road that will be, with a stubbornly pro hard brexit govt firmly in power. And so depressing that there's no legal comeback for all the chicanery and lying that brexit's built on

[Trixie O’Blivion 🚢 @neskatxa]

@StevePeers @fujamu5pr1m3 @cheltartist @davidallengreen I guess it’s not that funny. Sorry!

[Chief Shearer 🙏🇪🇺 🕯️🐟🇫🇷 🐦 @nosheepzone]

If you don't get the horror of what has happened. Imagine being a teen age girl in Kabul. Yesterday you had dreams of university. Tomorrow you will have to wear a sack over your head if/when you're allowed out, no school, no job, married off to be a brood mare.

[Trixie O’Blivion 🚢 @neskatxa]

@StevePeers @fujamu5pr1m3 @cheltartist @davidallengreen I was only setting up a West Wing gag. Should have known better!

[Trixie O’Blivion 🚢 @neskatxa]

@john_psychology @craigboorer @hzeffman This simply should not apply to the holder of one of the high offices of state. A crisis of this magnitude requires the FS to be in their office immediately.

[Trixie O’Blivion 🚢 @neskatxa]

@localnotail @StevePeers @fujamu5pr1m3 @cheltartist @davidallengreen Indeed, many of those who voted Leave in 2016 did so on the understanding (created by assurances from such as Dan Hannan) that there was 'no question of leaving the SM'. People *will* get sick of paying more, and waiting ages, for goods from the EU -> so let's rejoin the SM/CU.

[Trixie O’Blivion 🚢 @neskatxa]

@localnotail @fujamu5pr1m3 @cheltartist @StevePeers @davidallengreen That's possibly a realistic-borderline-pessimistic view, I think. Full-fat Brexit doesn't even really kick in till Jan 2022. And things *can* flip opinion quite suddenly.

Again, your 'best we can hope for' I (an inveterate pessimist) find unduly pessimistic!

[Trixie O’Blivion 🚢 @neskatxa]

@localnotail @fujamu5pr1m3 @cheltartist @StevePeers @davidallengreen You and I are in complete agreement on all of those points.

And, as you say, the consensus-building process began the day we left. I happen to think it will only gain real momentum when MPs, union- and/-or business leaders dare to stick their necks out and kick off the movement.

[Trixie O’Blivion 🚢 @neskatxa]

@StevePeers @fujamu5pr1m3 @cheltartist @davidallengreen I can't accept that. 'Expecting the govt to lock itself up' is a flippant straw man argument. It's up to law enforcement and the judiciary to punish lawbreaking even among members of government.

What derogatory term do you mean?

[Trixie O’Blivion 🚢 @neskatxa]

@localnotail @fujamu5pr1m3 @cheltartist @StevePeers @davidallengreen I don't see how citing yourself helps here, Jane. Everything you say is almost self-evidently true. If, like me, you believe that Brexit will prove disastrous for the UK, the question remains:

When may we stop reminding ourselves of the fait accompli and *start* rejoining?

[Trixie O’Blivion 🚢 @neskatxa]

@StevePeers @fujamu5pr1m3 @cheltartist @davidallengreen I'm not suggesting it, and I believe you know that.
And while 'rejoining' itself will be fraught, difficult and distant, 'aiming' to rejoin is easy, and starts now. It is a mindset, an intention, a goal. Almost as easy is framing the goal. A bit harder is *stating it* as policy.

[Trixie O’Blivion 🚢 @neskatxa]

@localnotail @fujamu5pr1m3 @cheltartist @StevePeers @davidallengreen And that tweet is of that mindset!
We're not talking about phenomenology: *political* reality is what we make it. Is Brexit for all time? Why of course not. Even the UK is not for all time - no political country ever has been or will be. So: when may reality start to be changed?

[Trixie O’Blivion 🚢 @neskatxa]

@localnotail @fujamu5pr1m3 @cheltartist @StevePeers @davidallengreen 'Brexit happened. Can't be undone' is, sadly, indistinguishable from the triumphalist crowing of brexitists. Technicalities aside (of *course* it's a fait accompli) it's a 'defeated mindset' which I for one hope we will never allow to take root.

Brexit must be seen as a phase.

[Trixie O’Blivion 🚢 @neskatxa]

@StevePeers @localnotail @fujamu5pr1m3 @cheltartist @davidallengreen All the better. If and when the Untied (sic) Kingdom rejoins a future EU, I would hope and expect membership to be on the same terms as other members, with none of those 'concessions' that can only have contributed to a sense of exceptionalism in the first place!

[Rory Stewart @RoryStewartUK]

The UK is failing to fulfil its obligations to tens of thousands of Afghan civilians who have worked alongside the UK- in the grounds that they are technically “sub-contractors” - all this is shameful https://t.co/NbZJqffpXj

[Trixie O’Blivion 🚢 @neskatxa]

@SKZComics @StevePeers @fujamu5pr1m3 @cheltartist @davidallengreen Offence (Br Eng) but yes ;)

[Tobias Ellwood @Tobias_Ellwood]

18 hours later:

PARLIAMENT WILL NOW BE RECALLED. Thank you.

I now encourage ALL my colleagues to make it clear to the PM that abandoning Afghanistan is the wrong decision.