John Oliver on British election chaos and the Brexit disaster to come (video)

John Oliver reviews the UK’s general election clusterf*ck and the implications for Brexit.

“The United Kingdom, the country that’s been saying ‘yas queen!’ 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 din’t quite work out that way.”

“Yes, this was a clusterfuck or, to be more precise, a crumpet-fuck, of epic proportions,” Oliver said, referring to the hung parliament that emerged from last Thursday’s election. “Theresa May is hanging onto her job by a thread. To stay in power, she’s attempting to cut a distasteful deal with the DUP, a hardline 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 just spun in circles for three minutes and is about to throw up.

“British politics has a proud tradition of having all candidates stand together on the stage when the results are announced,” Oliver explained, in reference to the many “joke” candidates who ran for parliament. “Which means that on election night, as her party was dealt a massive blow, the prime minister 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.”

Oliver went on to introduce the candidate Lord Buckethead, the recipient of 249 votes in May’s Maidenhead constituency, who seemed to elicit a subtle eye-roll from the prime minister.

“You can roll your eyes all you like, Theresa,” Oliver quipped, “but your evening just found a way to get a lot worse. And for the record, Lord Buckethead is an intergalactic space lord who ran on a platform of, among other things, ‘the abolition of the House of Lords (except me)’ and ‘stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia, start buying lasers from Lord Buckethead’. And he did this all while looking like Darth Vader fucked an Amazon Echo.”

The Guardian 12 June 2017