Independent Media | Campaigning Journalism
The week in satire Vol. #79
And what a week it was!
A week in which the government promised “adequate food” post-Brexit! A week in which the government promised the “adequate food” would be delivered by the army! And a week in which everyone agreed Brexit is shaping up better than expected!
But what else happened?
Let’s look back and see:
![Jacob Rees Mogg at the Brexit north pole]()
Rees-Mogg promises Brexit boost ‘between now and the next ice age’
We were told before the EU referendum that Brexit would be:
- Easy fucking peasy.
- Lovely fucking jubbly.
We’re now being told:
No one said Brexit would be easy. Well – okay – maybe we did say it would be easy, but no one believed us. And if they did believe us, they certainly didn’t believe there’d be immediate benefits.
You could tell Boris was fibbing, because his bus was moving.
We are told to expect some benefits eventually, though. It’s just that the timescale has expanded slightly.
The iceman cometh
Jacob Rees-Mogg spoke with Off The Perch:
JRM: Look – no one said Brexit would be easy. And even if we-
OTP: We’ve done that bit already.
JRM: Oh, okay. Well anyway, no one said it would be quick. But we can expect to see benefits between now and the next ice age.
OTP: Do you think people would have voted for Brexit if they’d realised any potential benefits would only be enjoyed by their great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren?
JRM: You say that, but we could have another ice age next week for all we know.
OTP: I think climate change will probably push the next ice age back a few millennia.
JRM: Well, yes, if you believe all that nonsense.
OTP: The experts seem to think it’s real.
JRM: People are tired of experts.
OTP: Don’t you claim to be an expert on Brexit?
JRM: Do I look like I’m an expert on anything?
OTP: Touché.
JRM: If you’ll excuse me, my relatives and I have an appointment to be cryogenically frozen in the Rees-Mogg family pyramid. I intend to be around to enjoy the Brexit boost when it eventually materialises.
OTP: Can I come?
JRM: That depends. Are you willing to wear a Dalmatian costume and pretend to be the family pet?
OTP: Woof, woof.
The iceman goeth
Obviously, most people can’t afford to be cryogenically frozen in their own luxury pyramid. You might get lucky and fall into a glacier or something, though. And the odds of that happening are actually higher than this whole Brexit thing panning out.
![Theresa May on a beach. She's saying "A week is a long time in politics. Impressive that we got so little done in the past 52"]()
Tory government ready for another well-earned six-week holiday
The Tories did a lot in the last year. Which isn’t to say they achieved a lot. They were out there, though – getting things done. Just not the sort of things that needed doing.
Government
The Tories split their time in the last sitting of parliament across a few key areas:
- Ensuring every ministerial position was occupied by the worst candidate for the job.
- Ensuring ‘adequate food’ was prepared for after Brexit (allegedly a million tonnes of cheese and onion cocktail sticks).
- Committing, covering up, and resigning from their various scandals.
- Planning new ways of not planning a Brexit plan.
- Identifying problems with the roll out of Universal Credit and ensuring they remained unfixed.
- Apologising for Boris Johnson.
- Preparing jokes for Prime Minister’s Questions to distract easily-duped journalists from the fact that SHE NEVER ANSWERS THE QUESTIONS.
- Thinking eugenics conference attendee Toby Young would be a good fit for the university regulator.
- Hoping no one finds out Jacob Rees-Mogg is a steam-powered Terminator from the Victorian Era who was sent here to restore the Empire.
- Pointing at anything they don’t like and saying “that’s communist”.
What the Tories haven’t done much of is actually governing the country.
Holidays
Of course, there are benefits to the Tories being off for six weeks. For a start, it’s difficult for them to fuck anything up when they’re not here.
![Theresa May OTP satire]()
Theresa May leaves Brexit in the ‘safest of hands’ as she slips away for the summer
Theresa May has slipped away for the summer, escaping from a Conservative government currently soundtracked by the Benny Hill theme music.
But just before she retreated into the shadows, she publicly appointed the person who’ll be in charge of steering the hole-ridden HMS Brexit in her absence.
“The safest of hands”
The prime minister proclaimed:
I would like to make it very clear that our position at this time is that we must stand up for Britain. Because Britain is Britain, as our record proves. And we are entirely capable of making sure that continues in the most efficient way possible.
For that reason, I have appointed a Brexit tsar from my loyal and united party to maintain a strong and stable front in Brussels during the parliamentary recess. So British voters need not worry. Brexit is in the safest of hands.
18-year-old hereditary peer Lord Rodrick Ownback will take the reins in the government’s absence.
Ownback was previously a ball boy for tennis matches between Boris Johnson and not-at-all-controversial oligarchs from Russia. Here he is in action:
Play it cool Rodney…….play it cool…… pic.twitter.com/xfwQBtDVzJ
— Ben Ryan (@benjaminryan) May 14, 2018
In all fairness, could it really get much worse?
While Ownback is not exactly the smoothest operator in politics, he happens to be one of the smoothest people in the slowly crumbling Conservative Party. So although it’s unlikely that he’ll be able to mend the rocky relationship between May’s negotiating team and their counterparts in Brussels, it’s also highly unlikely that he’ll make it any worse. Because let’s face it, that would be a real challenge.
![A man telling the sun to shoo]()
The Home Office has deported the sun
Despite having worked in Britain for 4.5 billion years, the sun has been deported by the Home Office.
But why?
A Home Office spokesperson told us:
We asked the sun if it could prove it had permission to be here. In response, the sun asked us, ‘are you fucking thick?’
Despite overwhelming evidence that the sun has been here for several million years, we’ve decided to teach the prick a lesson.
A literal dark age
The problem with deporting the sun is that the UK is actually pretty reliant on it. We can’t grow crops without its light for a start, and people are somewhat attached to the daytime.
Despite this, the government failed to plan how we’ll survive now it’s gone.
A prominent Tory backbencher has given his thoughts on the matter, though:
Get the plebs, prisoners, and pensioners out in the fields with torches. If that doesn’t get the crops going, we’ll work the beggars until they drop. Have you eaten roast pleb before? It really is quite delectable.
Dark at the end of the tunnel
Addressing the controversy, Boris Johnson said:
If the British citizenry didn’t want to live through an eternity of darkness, they wouldn’t have voted Tory in the first place.
And you can’t really argue with that, can you?
Get Involved!
– For more satirical news, you can also follow Off The Perch on Facebook and Twitter.
– Join The Canary, so we can keep holding the powerful to account.
Featured image via JOC Kevin Elliot – US Submarine Force / Chris McAndrew – Wikimedia / Public Domain Pictures / YouTube / YouTube screenshot / pxhere / Royal Air Force / KingaNBM – Wikimedia [IMAGES WERE ALL ALTERED]
We need your help ...
The coronavirus pandemic is changing our world, fast. And we will do all we can to keep bringing you news and analysis throughout. But we are worried about maintaining enough income to pay our staff and minimal overheads.
Now, more than ever, we need a vibrant, independent media that holds the government to account and calls it out when it puts vested economic interests above human lives. We need a media that shows solidarity with the people most affected by the crisis – and one that can help to build a world based on collaboration and compassion.
We have been fighting against an establishment that is trying to shut us down. And like most independent media, we don’t have the deep pockets of investors to call on to bail us out.
Can you help by chipping in a few pounds each month?
Support us