If you've been wondered what the hell is going on in the UK this week, well, you wouldn't be alone. Even those of us who are literally in the UK are struggling to keep up with the political upheaval here. Here to make sense of it, Graham Norton kindly explained to The Late Show's Stephen Colbert what's going on in layman's terms.
And over tequila, of course.
"In a sweet way, it's as if the United Kingdom was embarrassed for America, felt like you're all alone out in the world stage so we found our own angry Cabbage Patch Kid and made him the leader," Norton told Colbert, referring to Prime Minister Boris Johnson. "I wouldn't trust him to water my plants when I was away but somehow he is the prime minister."
Norton also described the dramatic events which unfolded in parliament this week, which led to Johnson losing his party's majority. Basically, Conservative MPs were warned that if they voted against Johnson to block a no-deal Brexit they'd "lose the whip".
Lost? Losing the whip is just a fancy term for getting kicked out of the party. Johnson had already lost his majority by the time it came to actually vote — former Conservative MP Phillip Lee defected to the Liberal Democrats on live television. So, when 21 Tory rebels voted against the government to block a no-deal Brexit, Johnson followed through with his threat and they were booted out of the party.
Alright, got it?
"What he cleverly did was, he said if anyone votes against me in my party, I will fire you. So they did vote against him so he fired them," said Norton. "As he fires them, his majority gets less and less and less so it's like he's drilling holes in his own ship out of spite."
Topics Stephen Colbert Politics
