On HBO’s Last Week Tonight, John Oliver explains the Byzantine Brexit issue further entangled with a divisive election, as Britain will begin the process of leaving the European Union while Theresa May must fold her political cards.
Oliver detailed the British political process and specifically the “hard or soft” Brexit by saying: “It is going to be vastly more difficult and more expensive, for a start. A so-called divorce bill needs to be negotiated where the UK settles financial commitments that they made while a part of the EU and some estimates put that as high as a hundred billion euros and that’s just the beginning.”
He noted that the entire point of holding this election early in the first place was to strengthen May’s hand going into Brexit negotiations.
Now, the future of the entire “divorce” is not so sure-footed.
Noting some complicated factors, he said: “The United Kingdom… the country that’s been saying ‘Yasss Queen’…we’ve been saying it for
centuries…held a national election this week. There wasn’t actually due to be one for three years, but Prime Minister Theresa May called it early it’s called a snap election and she did it to consolidate her power, although it didn’t quite work.”
It did not. Now a disaster for conservatives who are suffering a stunning setback for their goal of securing a stronger hand, as May’s plans backfired spectacularly the snap general election has ended with a hung parliament.
Oliver quipped: “Yes this was a clusterf*** – or to be more precise a crumpet f*** of epic proportions.”
Explaining the May conundrum, Oliver said: “[The] DUP, a hard-line anti-gay anti-abortion party in Northern Ireland which has opened her up to even more criticism. Meanwhile, there are rumors of a leadership challenge from within her own party by Boris Johnson, a grown man who perpetually looks like a seven-year-old who’s just spun in circles for two minutes and is about to throw up.”
British politics as described by Oliver “has a proud tradition of having all candidates standing together on the stage when the results are announced, even joke candidates which means that on election night as her party was dealt a massive blow, the Prime Minister here had to stand on stage alongside Elmo who got three votes as well as Howling Laud Hope of the monster raving loony party who got 119 votes.”
But it was Lord Buckethead who got the biggest shoutout. Oliver said: “For the record, Lord Buckethead is this guy… an intergalactic space lord who ran on a platform of among other things, the abolition of the other lords except me, and to stop selling arms to Saudi
Arabia and start buying lasers from Lord Buckethead.”
In closing, he said: “What I’m saying is British politics when done well can be very fun….[but] this is going to be a messy complicated divorce and it’s a rough analogy, but try to think of it this way imagine if Florida wanted to secede from the union. Nice right?”
Last Week Tonight airs Sundays at 11 PM on HBO