Category Archives: Brexit

Politi-hippy 3: The death of politi-hippy

Brexit, Politics, society, the hippy, ,

You won! Get over it! 

I feel like screaming this at the Brexiteers who continue to hurl abuse at people on the left. They are suffering from a brand new thing, that I have dubbed SWS, which stands for Sore Winner Syndrome.

It’s like the home team beat the away team at football, but all the home team fans jumped on the away team’s bus, just to continue the abuse all the way back their hometown. Not cool. If I won something, I would be happy. The winners of our recent election, don’t seem happy at all.

Seriously, you guys won. Get over it!

You get your Brexit, you get a toxic, incompetent government, with more cruelty, and more austerity. What more could you want? 

You own Brexit now. You own the next 5 years of this parliament, enjoy it. You’ve got no one else to blame. You won. We lost. Get. Over. It. Don’t be sore winners. It’s unbecoming of your massive victory. 

It already feels like a 100 years ago, when we went to the polls last month and handed Boris Johnson this huge majority. 

Well, I say “we”, but there were a lot of us who didn’t vote for Boris’s Tory Party and we are all still here. Fun fact: more of us voted for remain-leaning parties than leave-leaning parties. And how did that work out for us? We still lost. Fragmentation of the remain vote, like life, is a bitch. 

The Tories only increased their vote share by 1% nationally, yet they won tons of seats. They seemed to get just the right amount of votes, in just the right places. It’s almost as if someone was showing off, just how skilled they are at voter manipulation, by demonstrating the economy of their abilities. 

Voter manipulation is easier than everyone thinks, because no one thinks it works on them. Guess what, like any repetitive advertising, it is extremely effective. 

Here, you can take my super-fun, three question quiz:

1) What kind of chicken is “finger lickin’ good”?

2) What do Weebles do?

3) What is the “real thing”?

Answers: 1) KFC, 2) they wobble but they don’t fall down, and 3) Coca Cola. I bet you knew all three answers, as any good consumer would. Advertising works!

I grew up in front of the television, advertising certainly worked on me. Brand new kids cereal, gimme! Brand new toys, gimme, gimme. Vote against my own interests as an adult? Why not! You can be easily swayed. We all can. 

Anyway, that’s my theory. I suspect the same tools used by Cambridge Analytica to deliver the Brexit referendum result, have only been refined and improved to the point where an increase of 1% vote share, in just the right constituencies, is achievable through machine learning, AI and a whopping great big data set. 

And the far right are employing these tools all over the world. If the left has any hope of ever getting anything done, they need their own dodgy dark tool box. It’s not hacking, it’s voodoo, it’s data science and algorithms, and a Facebook advertising platform that allows micro-targeting at such a granular level that you can literally flip votes as needed.

One of the saddest things I kept hearing from the campaign trail, is the repeated refrain that former Labour voters switched to the Tories because they felt the country needed a change from Labour. Huh? Labour haven’t been in charge of the government for 10 years, so what exactly were they changing from? Instead they voted Tory, the party that has been in government for the last 10 years, but they are expecting a different outcome. Mr. Einstein, what was it everyone says you said again, about insanity?

Look, I get it, we lost. Remain lost, Labour and the LibDems lost. We are leaving the EU at the end of this month, no ifs, ands or buts. And probably a year after that, we will get that hard, no-deal Brexit that Boris is so keen on, as the transition period won’t be extended. There is no chance of a comprehensive trade deal in a year. Shall we stockpile supplies for a third time? Oh we shall, we shall!

None of this matters. The Great British public doesn’t care about the truth or reality any more. Boris will lie and tell us that everything is fine, and a large number of people will believe it. Lies are comforting in an uncomfortable world. Trump knows this too. Don’t like reality? Then create your own twisted version of it instead. 

For example, Boris has banned the word Brexit after the end of the month. Brexit will be nowhere near finished, but if he eliminates the word, he eliminates the problem. He’s like Thanos with the Reality Stone. Reality can be whatever he wants it to be. Yay!

Who will the Tories blame when the economy tanks? I guess they will just tell us it’s all Jeremy Corbyn’s fault, for not losing hard enough. If Corbyn was a better loser, we wouldn’t be having all these problems. Stupid Corbyn!

Here are some random observations from the now dearly departed, Politi-hippy:

I was right about the branding of Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats, their messaging was way off the mark. They performed worse than even I expected. And I certainly didn’t predict Ms. Swinson’s loss. Rather bizarrely, LibDem MP and current peer, Lynn Featherstone, liked and retweeted this piece, which was highly critical of her party. I’m guessing she didn’t read it, but if she did and still retweeted it, then wow. Just wow.

I was wrong about tactical voting. I had hoped it would save us. It didn’t. We still lost. We could have toppled Tories, but we didn’t. 

Labour had so many problems, that I could write a series of books based on them all. I won’t, plenty of other people will do a better job than I ever could. The biggest issue to me, was the lack of unity within the party that was publicly revealed within minutes of the result. The split, between the centre and left wings of the party, will probably kill off Labour in the long term. They are a spent force, just check out the cavalcade of mediocrity trying to become leader. It looks and feels hopeless for them. 

A small selection of shitposts

During the campaign, I made a shit-ton of shitty graphics and shit-posted them on Twitter. I briefly increased my reach on Twitter as a result. I went from being an absolute total nobody, to a just plain old total nobody, but in spectacular fashion. 

Here’s an overview of my a normal hippy month on Twitter, from last April. Remember, I suck at Twitter.

As you can see, I sent a whopping 60 tweets for a measly 13,000 impressions.

Here’s another typical hippy month on Twitter, from October. Slightly better but still not rocking anyone’s world.

This time, 98 tweets, for nearly 30,000 impressions. Still not setting the world on fire, not by a long shot. And look, I actually lost followers.

And then, witness the birth of politi-hippy. For around a month during the election campaign, I made a bit of an effort with original content in the form of the aforementioned shitposted graphics. Doing this improved my statistics significantly.

I sent a over 1,000 tweets, racking up around 700,000 impressions and I gained 40 new followers. While it is a big change for me, it’s still a drop in the bucket compared to anyone with name recognition and a decent follower count. I used hashtags, I tagged famous people, and I replied to tweets from well established accounts.

I had retweets and likes from a wide variety of notable people, including Glen Matlock, the original bass player for the Sex Pistols, and Bianca Jagger, the well known human rights campaigner and first wife of Mick. The Times columnist, India Knight, liked one of my graphics too.

Ultimately, none of this had an effect on anything, other than giving me a fun new hobby for a month. It did show me that getting anywhere on Twitter is a lot of work for very little reward. 

Our side lost, my efforts online had zero effect, so politi-hippy is now crossing over to the great beyond. And with this final piece, indeed you are witnessing the slow death of politi-hippy. 

I started out this campaign by asking how many children Boris Johnson has fathered. We still don’t know. Our Prime Minister is the Jonny Appleseed of jism, he is the human lawn sprinkler of spunk. He could have a hundred little blond, floppy-haired sons and daughters out there, for all we know, and no one would care. We now have a deadbeat dad in charge of the entire country. Cool.

I really expected Boris’s first bit of legislation passed by his new, giant majority, to be a ban on court mandated paternity tests, but no, they went for the Brexit withdrawal bill instead. Maybe that paternity test ban will be next? Who can say. 

But from now on, I’m back to being the plain, old, normal version of the northlondonhippy. I want to reform the drug laws and get cannabis legalised. That’s my issue, that’s what I will campaign for, hard. I’ll leave the rest of real politics to the grown-ups, or for what passes for grown-ups in today’s world.

I was able to update one of my fun graphics, so it is valid for the next 5 years. This is the last official act of politi-hippy, before he draws his last breath. Sharing it is a public service. Enjoy!

The northlondonhippy is an anonymous author, cannabis evangelist and recreational drug user, who has been writing about drugs and drug use for over 15 years.  In real life, the hippy is a senior multimedia journalist with over 30 years experience of working in broadcast news. Soon, the hippy will be leaving journalism to embark on a career as a full time hippy, writer and activist. This is not a drill.

The hippy’s book, ‘Personal Use’ details the hippy’s first 35 years of recreational drug taking, while calling for urgent drug law reform. It’s a cracking read, you will laugh, you will cry and you can bet your ass that you will wish you were a hippy too!

“Personal Use” is available as a digital download on all platforms, including Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s iBooks and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. The paperback is available from all online retailers and book shops everywhere. 

The hippy says his next book, “High Hopes” will be published in late Spring. The hippy says a lot of things.  

You can also find the northlondonhippy on Twitter: @nthlondonhippy but only if you look really hard.

Politi-hippy 2 – hippy’s revenge

Brexit, Politics, society, the hippy, Uncategorized, , , , ,

I’m going to tell you flat out, from the start, there is no revenge. I’ve never done a sequel to one of my pieces before, and I really wanted to nail the title. I’m not out to settle any personal scores, I just wanted to get your attention. Did it work? Are you reading? Cool.

As I mentioned in my previous piece, Politi-hippy, I have been swept up in this stupid election we’re stuck with this month. I wrote a couple of pieces about the campaign, one about Boris Johnson’s utter lack of character, and the other on the poor branding choices made by Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats.

The whole thing is really stressing me out, and I know I am not the only one. My coping mechanism is that I started making weird, funny graphics to express my quiet rage. I’ve made like 50 of them in the last week or so. I am ever so slightly obsessed. You can find half of them on the the original Politi-hippy post, including the 6 panel Baby Yoda series. No baby yoda is safe from Boris Johnson’ Tory party!

I’ve been sharing them on Twitter and at least one of them has gone viral enough that you may have actually seen it. It’s this one:

Yep, that was me. Basic joke, simple format, internet gold. Who knew? And here I’ve spent 15 years trying to come up with original material. I don’t mean to sell myself short, it’s a decent gag, but hardly my best. In my own defence, I posted it not long after the interview finished on TV, so my timing was very good. Sure, it’s uncredited, and I doubt many people will see me claim credit here, but that’s ok. I like making people laugh.

I’ve never gone viral before in any meaningful way, so this was a new one for me. I knew it had been successful when I saw other people posting it all over the place. The truth is, I suck at Twitter, but in the last week or so, I’ve learned how to suck at it less. Go me!

I went on to make a bunch of graphics around Donald Trump’s visit:

Similar format, another basic joke. Private Eye should hire me, when I am a free agent again. They won’t, I’m too expensive, and I doubt they pay in weed anyway. Will work for bud, just putting that out there.

I made a bunch for the Trump visit, but that was the best one. I did try some other jokes with the graphic, this is the only other one that seemed to land:

And I did this one, too, which seemed to do better with Americans than British people. And it’s funny, because it’s true. Allegedly.

Trump and Boris did meet, but you didn’t get to see it, until now:

Trump left early because a bunch of bad kids were gossiping about him, including his very best friend, Boris Johnson. Here’s what that looked like:

I even did an arty one, with a fancy-pants literary quote, that I had to Google because of my vague memory and piss poor American education:

Once dumb Donny ditched NATO, I shifted my attention to what I think is the key to this election, tactical voting. There’s far more of us, than there are of them, but we are fragmented. We need to be smart. Are you smart? Of course you are! Smart people vote tactically. We all might prefer different parties, but who we like is not nearly as important as who we defeat. We need to vote the Tories out! Feel free to share any graphic I’ve made, no need to credit me.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks and well done you! Since I started posting all these graphics, I have increased my visibility on Twitter exponentially. I’ve had tweets liked and RT’d by a former MP and peer, the ex-wife of one of the world’s most famous rock stars, newspaper columnists and the original bassist from the original punk rock band. That’s why I will be back to tell you all about this and more in part 3 of the Politi-hippy series, Politi-hippy-Post-mortem, coming as soon as I can, after election day. And man I can’t wait till election day is done!

As a special treat for making it all the way to the end, here are 4 bonus, extra graphics that I’ve only just started sharing on Twitter. You can share them too.

The northlondonhippy is an anonymous author, cannabis evangelist and recreational drug user, who has been writing about drugs and drug use for over 15 years.  In real life, the hippy is a senior multimedia journalist with over 30 years experience of working in news.

The hippy’s book, ‘Personal Use’ details the hippy’s first 35 years of recreational drug taking, while calling for urgent drug law reform. It’s a cracking read, you will laugh, you will cry and you can bet your ass that you will wish you were a hippy too!

“Personal Use” is available as a digital download on all platforms, including Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s iBooks and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. The paperback is available from all online retailers and book shops everywhere. 

You can also find the northlondonhippy on Twitter: @nthlondonhippy but only if you look really hard.

Politi-hippy

Brexit, Politics, society, , , , ,

I have been a bit General Election obsessed since this one was called. I’ve had a lot of time on my hands too.

So I wrote about Boris Johnson’s utter lack of character.

And then I wrote about how I wish I could support the LibDems, but I can’t. Luckily, I don’t need to, but I would if it made tactical sense. I don’t hate them, but I should support them more than I do.

And I made a bunch of very shareable graphics. Have you shared any of them? There’s still time, and there’s plenty of choice, so choose one that expresses your own personal style! I especially recommend choosing one from the ‘baby yoda’ series. Confuse your political enemies with his cuteness. They’re not branded to me and I am making them publicly available. Go crazy, they are free!

Now that I’ve published all of these in one handy place, I am going to chill the fuck out. We will have a result soon enough, but I don’t think any of us are going to like it. And chances are, a lot of these graphics may still be useful for our next election, coming in Summer 2020!

The northlondonhippy is an anonymous author, cannabis evangelist and recreational drug user, who has been writing about drugs and drug use for over 15 years.  In real life, the hippy is a senior multimedia journalist with over 30 years experience of working in news. The hippy is finding this election campaign really depressing and stressful.

The hippy’s book, ‘Personal Use’ details the hippy’s first 35 years of recreational drug taking, while calling for urgent drug law reform. It’s a cracking read, you will laugh, you will cry and you can bet your ass that you will wish you were a hippy too!

“Personal Use” is available as a digital download on all platforms, including Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s iBooks and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. The paperback is available from all online retailers and book shops everywhere. 

You can also find the northlondonhippy on Twitter: @nthlondonhippy

Branding Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats

Brexit, Politics, society, , , ,

By all rights, I should love the LibDems. They want to stop Brexit, and they want to legalise weed, two things I would like to do, too. I really should support them, but I don’t. I can’t. Not this time. 

Do you want to know why we are having a General Election right now, and not that mythical second referendum on our membership in the EU? Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats refused to join a government of national unity because of their twisted dislike of Jeremy Corbyn. 

All a government of national unity had to do was sort out a referendum. Their agreement on the terms of a caretaker administration, would have included a ‘no new legislation’ clause. In other words, all they would have done is maintain the status quo until the referendum and then the subsequent general election. And then maybe, Brexit would have finally been sorted, one way or another. Instead, we get a general election around Xmas. Ho ho ho.

Swinson’s attacks on Corbyn have left me cold. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a huge Corbyn fan, but I do respect him. He is one of the most consistent politicians I’ve ever come across, with policies that would be popular with people, if they got to hear about them. But instead, the negative campaign run against Mr. C consists of personal attacks and twisted facts. But Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t trade in personal attacks, so it’s all very one sided and unfair.

I have nothing against personal attacks, if they are warranted. For example, Boris the bully from the Bullingdon Club, has earned the personal attacks aimed at him. I really want to know how many kids he thinks he has. No one can ever really know for sure. He’s a racist, and a liar. Those are undisputed facts, unless you drink the Kool-Aid served up by the Tories. Then you dismiss the overwhelming evidence of Boris Johnson’s utter lack of character, and you press on. 

Jo Swinson would say she attacks BoJo and Corby equally, but it is a false equivalence and you can’t lump them both together. If anything, I bet Swinson’s voting record is more closely aligned with Johnson’s than Corbyn’s.

If you Google Jo Swinson, the first suggested search term is ‘voting record’. It’s not pretty reading. Austerity, the bedroom tax, and university fees, to name just a few of her greatest hits. She was part of the Tory-led coalition, which is the root cause of many problems we have in our society today. Go Jo!

I didn’t live in the UK in the 1980’s, but I know plenty of people who did. They are not fans of Maggie T, not by a long shot. I can’t imagine Ms. Swinson’s campaign for a statue in Thatcher’s honour is a vote winner either

Whooopsie!

Ms. Swinson says that she wants to stop Brexit and I believe that is true. She also wants to increase the LibDems seat count, which is also true. The problem is where these two goals collide, like in Canterbury and High Peak, where the local candidates stood aside, to allow another remain supporting party a free run at the seat. Jo Swinson”s Liberal Democrat’s won’t allow that, and have imposed new, outside candidates to take their places on the ballot. It seems that the need for seats outweighs the need to stop Brexit, as that is their primary priority. It is extremely disappointing. 

One might say that because I am a north London media, liberal elite, that I would automatically support Labour. There is a kernel of truth to that. I don’t like to brag about my liberal elite status, but sometimes, when I go to McDonalds, I supersize my meal…AND I upgrade to a shake. But only sometimes, I’m not rich, like that uppity Jacob Rees-Mogg. I heard when he goes to McDonalds, he supersizes, he upgrades to the shake and he gets a McFlurry too. Not one of those little bitty mini ones either, but full sized. Shhhhhh, don’t tell nanny!

The reason I mention my media background is because I am coming to the point of this piece. “Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats” is terrible branding. I feel like some PR agency pulled a fast one by appealing to her vanity and turning her into the literal face and name of the party.

Have you see the bus? Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats’ Bus. Have a gander:

Branding gone wrong

I can just imagine the creative agency’s pitch meeting. Have you ever seen the Monorail episode of The Simpsons? 

“Jo, you have tested through the roof with our focus groups. People love you! So we want you to be the face of the campaign. Every leaflet will have a small headshot of you on the front, and a larger photo of you on the back! 

And have you seen the bus? A close up of you, full bus height! Gorgeous! And, are you ready for this, you will love this! We are going to rebrand the whole party as “Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats!”

A breathless, jubilant Jo Swinson’s shouts, yes, yes, yes! Where do I sign?

I can actually envision this being very close to the truth.

And when I first heard about this new branding, this was my immediate thought, now expressed in graphic form:

Seriously?

It sounds like a band name or an improv group struggling to break through at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It makes the party sound like her personal possession and plaything. And that shit is plastered all over her campaign bus! It’s a branding faux pas on an epic scale. It’s the ‘New Coke’ of political reinvention. 

I’m lucky, my local MP is as anti-Brexit as they come. My MP voted against triggering Article 50, and yes, my MP is a Labour MP with a sizeable majority. But I still checked a tactical voting website to see what they recommended. And you know what, they recommended I vote Labour for the best chance of stopping Brexit. I was going to do it anyway, but it’s nice to know it’s tactical too. 

If I lived somewhere else, where voting tactically for a LibDem candidate made sense, of course I would do it. They’re not a bad bunch of people, even if their election branding is bad this go-round, and they have a history of propping up Tory governments. What matters most in this election, is stopping Brexit. Sky News have nailed the branding, they are rightly calling it the “Brexit Election”.

All of our votes count, but they really, really count this time. Your vote matters, do your homework, work out which party in your constituency is best placed to win and stop Brexit. Then hold your nose if you need to, but vote for the party helps Britain remain in the EU. Your county’s future depends on all us, including and especially, you.

The northlondonhippy is an anonymous author, cannabis evangelist and recreational drug user, who has been writing about drugs and drug use for over 15 years.  In real life, the hippy is a senior multimedia journalist with over 30 years experience of working in news.

The hippy’s book, ‘Personal Use’ details the hippy’s first 35 years of recreational drug taking, while calling for urgent drug law reform. It’s a cracking read, you will laugh, you will cry and you can bet your ass that you will wish you were a hippy too!

“Personal Use” is available as a digital download on all platforms, including Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s iBooks and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. The paperback is available from all online retailers and book shops everywhere. 

You can also find the northlondonhippy on Twitter: @nthlondonhippy but only if you look really hard.

A busy hippy

Brexit, cannabis, Climate Change, Climate Crisis, decriminalisation, drug use, High Hopes, Politics, society, , , , , , , , , , ,
Not an actual photo of me

You might have noticed in the last few weeks, I’ve been more productive than usual.

I’ve been a busy hippy. 

I’ve had some free time, so I decided to solve some big issues.

Dangerous Tea

For instance, I highlighted the truth about cannabis. Don’t blame weed, it is tea drinking that is the real cause of everything bad.

ClimateGear(TM)

Want to survive the Climate Apocalypse? I figured out how it can be done. First, you need to be super rich.

Brexit lives at the bottom of this very deep hole

I had a free hour, so I solved Brexit. It’s not pretty, but it gets the job done. You can thank me later.

Giant steps are what you take

I shared my memories of the first moon landing. I was 6 and a half when it happened, but I still came up with a few obscure details.

The UK is a dry country

I wrote to Grandma Hippy about living in a dry country. She is imaginary, and she lives in Colorado. She digs edibles. I do too.

Dump Trump, because Trump is a dump

I received my first 12 hour Twitter ban. I tried to fight the power, but the power of stupid prevailed.

Fire!

And, my fellow earthlings, I tried to convince everyone that we are all Citizens of Everywhere. It’s our only hope.

There’s not a lot to be optimistic about these days, but we can all distract ourselves from the mess we’re in. My distraction, ironically, is hope. Don’t lose hope, we can all help make things a little less miserable. This is my attempt to do just that.

There is only one way out a of hole

Brexit, Politics, society, ,
The actual Brexit hole

If you fall down into a deep hole, there really is only one way out. Up.

Brexit is a bottomless pit of abject stupidity and depressing despair, but we have to assume at some point, we will slam into the very rock bottom. When we do, what will happen? 

The only way out is up. 

I wanted to get this prediction written down, on the extreme outside chance I am right. If I am, and that’s a big eff-ing if, then I will be seen as a genius of prognostication and you might even want to invite me to your next dinner party. But before I accept, do you have a special smoking area, for, you know, cool smoking? 😉

Here’s how I see things playing out over the next couple of months. I won’t put in any firm timings, beyond the one obvious one… As the law stands, right now, as I bash my keyboard and spew out my scenario, Britain will leave the EU, without a deal, on the 31st of October. Halloween. 

Boo!

Did I scare you? You should be scared, because if we crash out on All Hallows’ Eve, it will not be a pretty picture. But I’m not here to debate or outline the calamity that would be a no-deal Brexit. I’m here to explain that unless something miraculous happens, this is the most likely outcome. 

But don’t worry, I am also going to outline what that miraculous salvation could be. It might be our only hope. You can thank me later.

Again, as I write this, the Tory leadership contest is still ongoing, with both candidates trying to outdo each other in just how quickly and efficiently they can drive the UK over a cliff edge into a no-deal, must-have, do-or-die, bang -on-time, Brexit. 

We live in Crazy Town, population, all of us. Please send help.

Unless a different miracle happens, we are headed for a government lead by Bumbling Boris Johnson. Or should it be Bungling Boris Johnson? How about bumbling on the first reference, bungling on the second? (Note to self, adopt this as hippy house-style from now on). 

So Bumbling Boris will almost certainly be our next PM. All Boris has to do to facilitate a no-deal Brexit, is nothing. If he does absolutely nothing, the clock runs out and we leave the European Union, as the current law states at the end of October. We know, from his disastrous spell as Mayor of London, that Bungling Boris is extremely lazy. Doing sweet FA is his specialty. Remember his limp, late response to the riots in 2011? He can handle doing nothing. I bet he is doing nothing right now, this very second. And for this, his advisors are grateful. 

But, but, but you say, parliament will bring down the government, if no-deal appears to be the likely outcome. I wouldn’t argue with this, I think that a no-confidence vote is very possible in this scenario. Likely even. And it may very well succeed. But that won’t solve our problems.

A no confidence vote will not solve our problems, because it leaves Bumbling, Bungling Boris, as caretaker Prime Minister. A dissolved parliament can’t force him to request an extension to Article 50, any more than a sitting parliament could. All he has to do is sit on his hands and run out the clock. But that’s not checkmate, not yet. 

While an election would strengthen any request for an extension, it would still require a formal request to be made, by the PM, Boris. The EU would not unilaterally grant one, even for an election, without that formal request. If Befuddled Boris doesn’t write to Brussels, an election at this point won’t help. Please see the previous paragraph about Boris sitting on his hands. 

Following a successful no-confidence vote, and before an election is called, opposition parties have a fortnight to form a new government with the Queen’s blessing. This is our only small glimmer of hope.

If the other parties could form some sort of government of national unity, they could do two very useful things. 

The first is to revoke Article 50. 

Sure, the government of national unity could request another extension, but at this point, I fear the EU would politely decline. Could you blame them? After watching this slow-moving car crash for over 3 years, it would make sense for the European Union to effectively tell us to shit or get off the pot. 

That would make for a very stark, binary choice, leave without a deal and suffer all that comes with it, or revoke Article 50, sparing the country enormous pain, while alienating a large portion of the general public. 

Decisions, decisions.

You might have noticed, I glossed over the whole government of national unity thing. At its heart, would have to be the Labour Party. Yes, the same Labour Party that currently doesn’t have a decisive remain policy. Let’s be honest, their stance on Brexit lacks any real clarity. They have tried to make it be all things, to all people and that strategy has failed. 

Labour would be the largest party in this mythical coalition, but the other parties that would help form it, are are all firmly on the remain side, For this to work, for Jeremy Corbyn to be Prime Minister, Labour would have to also come out hard for remain. They would not have a choice. The alternative is that cliff edge, that they claim to want to avoid. This will be their chance to avoid it, once and for all.

A government of national unity, as the name suggests, puts country ahead of party, something our current parliament, and especially the Conservative Party seems to be unable to do. If this all plays out, as I am suggesting, the least worst outcome would be the revocation of Article 50.

And I have crunched the numbers, based on the current composition of parliament. Mathematics follow:

Current State of the Parliamentary Parties
Source: https://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps/current-state-of-the-parties/

The Tories are a minority government, with 312 seats. The DUP prop them up with their 10 seats, as part of the confidence and supply agreement hammered out after our last election in 2017. 

There are 650 seats in parliament, The speaker, plus the 3 deputy speakers, don’t vote. Sinn Fein don’t take their 7 seats, and there is currently one vacancy, so a full house right now is 638. Half of that is 319, a majority of 1 seat is 320. The Tories and the DUP combined, have 322. That’s the current magic number the Tories and the DUP can muster to vote, on a good day.

Labour currently have 247 seats. The next largest party is the SNP with 35 seats, followed by the Lib Dems with 12, Change UK with 5, Plaid Cymru with 4, and the Green Party with 1. Total here is 303, so we are still shy 17 more MP’s to join the fun and games.

There are 15 independent MPs, for the sake of simplicity, I am going to divide that number in half and round it up to 8. It could be less, it could be more, so I think 8 is a reasonable compromise figure. That brings our historic government of national unity up to 311 seats. We are still 12 shy of the magic number, 323, to have more more votes than the Tory/DUP combo. 

Tories. We need Tories, less than a dozen of them. Maybe 10, maybe 12, without certainty, I will stick to 9. Based on rumour and voting records, I am banking on there being at least 9 principled Conservative MPs willing to join a government of national unity. 

If current media reports are correct, there are around 30 current Conservative MPs that are willing to bring a no-deal focussed government down, we should be OK on this score.

The Brecon and Radnorshire by-election is expected on the 1st of August. I’m not going to attempt to predict the outcome, especially since the pro- remain parties are cooperating. But this one seat, will probably be filled before my scenario will play out. So yes, my calculations are slightly fuzzy. Also, I am not a parliamentary scholar, I’m just some random British journalist and career stoner with too much time on my hands right now.

I am not saying any of this will be easy, or straightforward, but what I am saying is that it is possible. More than possible, but likely. And more than just likely, as I truly believe at this point, it is our one and only hope. 

The second useful thing my imaginary government of national unity will do, will be to call another no confidence vote, to bring themselves down. Having done the only thing required of them, by cancelling Brexit and getting all of us out of this very deep hole, it would no longer need to exist and an election could be safely called. 

Some MPs would be rewarded, and some would be punished in the next general election, but all of those who supported the government of national unity, will be looked upon by history most kindly, even if some people today, end up hating them. 

I have no doubt that our next parliament, and our next government, will be unlike anything we’ve seen in living memory. The Brexit Party will get seats, neither the Tories nor Labour will have a majority, and the Lib Dems may become players again. Maybe the Greens will finally get more MPs. Anything is possible. And we could end up with another coalition government that lacks a big majority and its chief feature would be its inherent instability. 

Whatever happens next, Brexit still needs to be dealt with, somehow. There is only one deal on offer, the same one that parliament has repeatedly rejected, the same one that the EU says will not be renegotiated under any circumstances. That deal is dead. And no deal would be a disaster. Our only hope is a government of national unity.

Or the apocalypse, but I am not convinced even the end of the world could end the endless stupidity that is Brexit. 

We can’t lose hope. There’s only one way out of a hole. It’s up. And up is the positive direction. So let’s put the up in uplifting. We need a government of nationality unity that will exist for one purpose, to revoke Article 50. So let’s just do that.  

The northlondonhippy is an anonymous author, online cannabis activist and recreational drug user, who has been writing about drugs and drug use for over 15 years.  In real life, the hippy is a senior multimedia journalist with over 30 years experience of working in the industry. 

The hippy’s book, ‘Personal Use’ details the hippy’s first 35 years of recreational drug taking, while calling for urgent drug law reform. It’s a cracking read, you will laugh, you will cry and you can bet your ass that you will wish you were a hippy too!

“Personal Use” is available as a digital download on all platforms, including Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s iBooks and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. The paperback is available from all online retailers and book shops everywhere. 

You can also find the northlondonhippy on Twitter: @nthlondonhippy –  follow him and receive a free gift*)

(*There is no free gift)