I now call Australia home...

... says the Angry Exile, ripping off QANTAS' advertising campaigns. Why? Because for all practical purposes the country in which I was born no longer exists and Australia is all I am left with. I was born English and British in the same sense than someone can be born a Londoner or a Lancastrian, or for that matter Norman or Bavarian or Tuscan, but England and the UK no longer exist because the Czechs have dropped their opposition to the EU Constitreaty:

Vaclav Klaus, the only European Union leader who has still not signed the document, said he could not wait for a British general election next year which could lead to a Tory government and a possible referendum to bury the Treaty.
Mr Klaus said: "The train carrying the treaty is going so fast and it's so far that it can't be stopped or returned, no matter how much some of us would want that."

Oh fuck it.

And that's desperately sad not just because in the back of my mind the UK was always there to return to if Australia didn't work out for me, but because millions of people who want to think of themselves as British, to say nothing of those French, Germans, Spanish, Italians etc. who feel love and pride and patriotism towards their respective countries, can just fucking forget it from now on. It may not look it yet but Britain is dead. Carrying on the pretence of a national Parliament in Westminster no more makes it a sovereign nation than nailing a dead parrot to its perch makes it alive. It might not realise it yet but the country is gone, it is no more, it's gone to meet its maker, it's run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible - you know the routine.

[The Czech President's] remarks devastated Conservative MPs and eurosceptic campaigners who have been clinging to the hope that he might be able to go on delaying ratification of the Treaty until the election next year.

I'll fucking bet! That means that Cameron is going to have to grow a set and actually say what he plans to do before the election. I'm sure he's looking forward to that like a cat looks forward to going to the vet, but since the Consititreaty is expected to become law across the whole EU within weeks I imagine Cameron will simply wring his hands and wail that nothing can now be done and if only the country had not voted the wicked wicked Labour government the UK would not have been sold to the Eurocrats on the cheap, so awfully sorry about it but we're not going to have that referendum. I may be 100% wrong about that - I hope I'm 100% wrong and I'm halfway to praying to a God I don't even believe in that I'm 100% wrong - but I can't help feeling that if Cameron was serious about it he'd simply have said that there would be a referendum no matter what.

Possibly I'm misjudging the guy and the only reason he hasn't been so blunt about up till now is that he's been trying to keep Tory Europhiles like Ken Clarke onside as long as possible, and now it's crunch time he'll announce that there will still be a referendum if he becomes Prime Minister next year and if Tory Europhiles aren't happy about it there are other parties that they can join and they should go now. Yes, it'd reduce the size of the Conservative vote in Parliament, but there'll be an election soon anyway and most or all of those seats will come back except they won't have a pain in the arse like Ken Clarke occupying them. Seriously, who cares if the fat fuck crosses the floor - it no longer matters much. If Cameron were to commit to a referendum nowt I reckon the Tories would regain every vote they ever lost to UKIP and probably a certain amount of ex-Labour voters who are protesting by voting BNP, but I very much doubt it's going to happen because I don't think the fucker has the balls for it. His bluff has been called and I expect him to fold. That in turn means that whatever I once thought of myself as being I am now a European from UKJ: South East England or Arc Manche or whatever the fuck. I can still call myself English or British, and here my voice will forever mark me out as being a Pom whatever I choose to call it, but what's the fucking point if being English or British has no relevance except to identify what part of Federated Europe I was born in?

Seriously, what's standing in the way now? UKIP? Sure, they'll pick up some Tory votes if Cameron does as I expect and caves in, but not enough to win. So great is their desire to get back in and so great is the fear of Labour pulling off a John Major style miracle and winning that the party will be working flat out to round up, and possibly even dig up, anyone who can be persuaded to put an X next to the name of their local Conservative candidate. Most people with Tory leanings will vote for 'em and there's possibly enough people who loathe Gordon Brown and NuLaborg enough to simply vote negatively to remove the cunts rather than positively to show support of the Tories or anyone else. The BNP? Well, aside from the fact that if the choice was between Labour and the BNP I'd seriously consider voting for Gordon Brown's mob* they're in the same position as UKIP. Again, the fear of loss, or at least the desire to minimise the size of the likely defeat, is going to make the Laborg drones very busy bunnies until after the election and ring the bell for Labour's Pavlovian anyone-but-the-Tories-do-you-remeber-Thatcher-the-Snatcher**-what-a-bitch vote. The Libertarian Party is even worse off simply because it's new and virtually unheard of. They might expect to get votes from people who are disillusioned with both Labour and Tories, won't vote LibDem because they're pro-EU and for whatever reason aren't happy with UKIP either, but unless they've actually heard of LPUK most of those people will stay at home. Can the LPUK make enough noise over the next few months to make a difference? Almost certainly not.

So assuming that everything I said above is in the ballpark is there anything now that can save Britain? Last time I had my fingers crossed for a hung Parliament on the basis that with no overall majority it probably couldn't fuck up the country too much, but I think it's too late for that. Possibly some outside chance make up of a Tory minority government just short of a majority but with a small number of UKIP MPs present, possibly a Libertarian or two in coalition, who could be persuaded to vote with them in return for the biggie - that fucking referendum that everyone promised and has been one of the most talked about votes never to have taken place. Would I bet on that happening? No. The UK voting system makes it unlikely, so barring a miracle the UK is either in for another Labour government and the un-lubed arse fucking of all time or a Tory government which will probably kiss it first and whisper sweet nothings in its ear.

So the choice is made for me. Home is here in Oz by my own decision to move here, but it could have been the UK once again in the future. Not now though. I can never go to that home again because it's not really there anymore. It is an ex-country.


* If you put a gun to my head and said the choice is between cunts and racist cunts I'd choose cunts. Or possibly I'd take the bullet.
** Of course many of them can't remember Thatcher the Snatcher and have no idea what the Snatcher label originally referred to or that it predates her becoming Tory leader, let alone Prime Minister. I only know because I am old enough to remember her as PM and asked what it was she snatched that earned her the nickname. For many on the left that's all irrelevant and it's enough simply to hate Thatcher and the Tories without looking too much at why or what benefit there is in getting hung up on what the PM of a quarter century ago did.