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Don’s rant

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By Don Adamson, Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class

This week’s homework: 1. is there any truth in the rumour that Elon Musk is funding the Labour Party? 2. Whenever the Tories FUBAR (Foul Up Beyond All Repair) the standard excuse they trot out is ‘we got the big calls right.’ What exactly is a ‘Big Call’ in this context and how horribly disastrous must things become before these Tories admit they got it wrong? 

This week’s quotes: “ Brexit has been painful … it will get worse when full import controls are imposed next year … a lack of genuine respect for the complexity all this involves … the more the Tories try to imitate Thatcher the less she is remembered … miserable times … an asylum processing process that has been allowed to collapse … most shocking claim, that Braverman has now repudiated …  an activist blob left wing lawyers, civil servants … blocked us … it is baseless …  classic language of dehumanisation …  what the Nazis did to the German Civil Service … main reasons for dismissal without pension … unbecoming conduct (could involve buying goods in Jewish shops ) … failing to protest against insults to National Socialism … aimed at those who refused to go along with the politicisation of public administration … biggest and most racialised infraction of human rights in Britain since the 1930s … power to deport without regard to British law … puts Braverman way outside the Tory mainstream … pitch for the Tory leadership, becoming the Enoch Powell of our time … repudiation of human rights … raising anger at facts that are not true, grievances that are manufactured … new asylum law will not work … repressive forces do not want fairness or progress … they claim that their populism is motivated  by a belief in free speech…. BBC sees nothing wrong in having a chairman who made huge donations to the Tory Party … helped Johnson secure an £800,000 loan … is there anything this government can do competently? … synthetic rage … Braverman has admitted that her policy contravenes the law … not dissimilar to the language used by 1930s Nazis … language similarities between Der Sturmer and Volkischer Beobachter in 1930s Germany and the Mail, Express in recent decades … Richy Scumbag is not as incontinentally dishonest as Johsnon or as utterly useless as Thick Lizzie … such a low bar … hrdly worthy of comparison  … Brexit is undermining the judiciary … making it hard for the young and poor to vote … easier for the Tories to break election law … reward their friends … TV and radio pander to rather than challenge their vile agenda … Johnson asked for show of hands on who thought Brexit was a good idea. Two hands were raised. One was his own … Johnson sees rules as for others to follow … trimmed down his list of honours from three figures to two … Richy Scumbag should cross them all out … failure to do so will leave him as tainted as Johnson … Murdoch may have a soft spot for Johnson but he recognises that Johnson will never again be PM, unlike Rothermere lackeys … Britain’s manufacturers have turned their backs on the government … attacks on the government open and strongly worded … political mismanagement of the economy cannot continue … no government strategy at all … the idea that ideology can trump common sense is grim news to the industry … EU businesses are not interested … the government has given up pretending to care … German Nationalists … the parallels between the language adopted by the New Tory Party and the Nazis are obvious … poisonous cocktail of ideologically driven nationalism and gradual erosion of our rights  … the difference between right and ‘the Right’ has never been clearer … Tory Party is being relentlessly dragged to the extreme right …  moderate Tories have gone, never to return … any pretence at decency from Richy Scumbag is gone … what were May, Johnson and Thick Lizzie doing apart from dreaming up slogans to distract our attention from the disastrous effects of Brexit … the government ordering the BBC to purge itself of dissenting voices was not the best way to refute the suggestion that it is fascist … 1823 Foundation of the Anti Slavery Society which led to abolition of slavery in the British Empire. 2023 Removal by Sue Ellen Braverman of legal protection from modern slavery in the UK … putting major bankers into the hands of a bank with the world’s worst reputation for money laundering is not without risk … recent events have not dulled the taste of MPs for largess from Russian Mafia … cosy relationship between Clipper Logistics and the Tory Party continues … no bid contract to distribute PPE for the NHS receiving at least £112M…   “Arise Sir Wife Beater … Stanley Johnson’s former wife said ‘He was always hitting me …. Boris saw it … many times over many years … ‘ s well as the broken nose that landed her in hospital Wall suffered a nervous breakdown … just the sort of thing that deserves an order of chivalry … HM Revenue and Customs ‘too slow to tackle fraud and error … recovery of the billions paid out …. woeful … many in Whitehall refused to follow their own restrictions, lied about them and covered them up … Downing St broke the lockdown rules, taken the public for fools and lied … News UK received emails from management accusing them of misdemeanours … ‘f***ing outrageous’ … Fox News commentators helped to propagate the most damaging conspiracy theory in post war democracy … damning evidence from Murdoch and other Fox executives predicted to result in $1.6B …Former Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi has become toxic in his own constituency … Tories considering deselecting him … local businesses shunning him … GB News … bonkers rightwing ideologues … Jacob Rees Mogg … half witted persona … observers call him a ‘complete c**t’ … Nigel Garbage makes  happier viewing for Remainers than Leavers … seriously off his muttons … he considers Moggy to be dangerously leftie … GB News ratings are bad but Murdoch’s TalkTV are worse … criticising the Far Right from the perspective of the Really Far Right … GB News lot £30M in first year …  GB News output increasing Batsh*t  crazy… £29B has been lost through Brexit … not convinced the UK Infrastructure Bank has a strategic view … limited delivery … A right wing coalition that would undermine the rule of law and undermine … and weaken democracy … country is in turmoil … fiery rhetoric from right wingers … bad solutions to real problems … woeful remedy … far right fringe has grown, fuelled by demagogic politics … inequality … a country that is betraying its liberal roots … this government relies on extremists … reckless words have consequences …, Jeremy Hunt’s budget is better at diagnosis than treatment … the bar for a successful budget was dramatically lowered last year … underlying problems persist … a bizarrely blunt way to do it … a bad decision that will raise carbon emissions … a dreadful fudge … Britain desperately needs a stable tax regime … a hostage to fortune … by 2024 real living standards will have fallen by the greatest amount over a two year period since records began .. Dismal record on productivity … not yet tackled Britain’s biggest headaches … populist politics another stumbling block … fixation with cultural controversy is another distraction from real needs … nor did the budget provide much for Britain’s struggling public services, particularly the health care system … Britain takes a fresh look at foreign and defence policies … a Europe shaped hole … Johnson’s tilt to the Indo Pacific region was a boosterish folly, not least after Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine … the risk of escalation is greater than at any time in decades … the biggest question is if Britain has the resources to realise the vision … the government has left this tricky dilemma to successors …  Tories should forget about the small boats and stop the dodgy car washes and sweet shops … car washes … archetypal example of black market economy … Tories have made it easy to run law breaking industries … law breaking is endemic … Ministers know all this … these businesses are profitable because they do not adhere to the law … illegal conditions … withheld wages … fire doors being locked shut … enforcement of basic rights is weak … clear and obvious scams in London … skipped business rates to the tune of £9m … weak and slack enforcement allows scammers to thrive … plenty that the government could do to crack down … no guarantee … resources to crack down on black market … a government serious about dealing with the root causes of illegal immigration, not just looking tough, has plenty of options available …”

Pip Pip                         Medway Delta (Retired)           Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class

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Failing fast

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By Don Adamson, Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class

This week’s homework: 1. Governments sometimes have to make tough decisions about controversial questions. There is a right way and a wrong way to do that. This government always chooses a wrong and stupid way to make tough decisions.

This week’s homework: 2. Brexit has failed and has been seen to fail. Every day produces more evidence that Brexit can only be a fiasco. Tories respond by sulking and blaming everybody but themselves. Labour Party responds by insisting that everything will be hunky dory so long as we pretend that Brexit is working (despite all the evidence to the contrary).There is no question of either Labour or Tories shifting their backsides and doing something to reverse the biggest act of stupidity any British government has perpetrated for many years. Which party is showing the greatest degree of hypocrisy and moral cowardice: Labour or Tories? 

This week’s quotes: “English Chamber orchestra had to cancel a US tour … visa problems … King’s Singers … concert Pensacola College cancelled … one of the singers is gay … (COMMENTS:  This does not sit well with Johnson forever talking about ‘new opportunities outside Europe’) … earthquakes in Turkey … Erdogan stripped the ‘experts’ out of state institutions … including the disaster response agency (COMMENT: 21st century Tories have interesting things to say about experts. Perhaps it is just as well that UK is not in an earthquake prone area)… Britain’s creeping corruption … best assessment is Transparency International’s  index … Britain is sliding to its worst ever score … Richy Scumbag is another in a growing list of Tory Prime Minister’s undone by Brexit … British companies do not train their staff … a lack of skills is making almost a quarter of all vacancies hard to fill … Covid 19 and Brexit have made that worse … government has completely ignored this puzzle … at a Facebook content moderation centre in Kenya run by Sama, an outsourcing firm … workers told Time magazine they were mistreated by both companies … accusing them of union busting, forced labour and human trafficking … Royal Mail is failing its duty to deliver letters on Saturday … Food chain may collapse when Brexit checks come in later this year  … underlying problems caused by Brexit … to understand the problem you have to understand that this is a sector significantly disrupted by Brexit … UK market is not attractive … Brexit is adding to the chaos … despite what the ‘nothing to do with Brexit’ Brigade might believe … food logistics industry is less resilient .. a warning of what lies ahead …  problems like this will be worse in future … sub standard meat is entering the country … could lead to African Swine Fever or another highly contagious and devastating disease … huge problem … small sign of what lies ahead … you ain’t seen nothing yet … government has had seven years to come up with a solution … and has failed … if ‘take back control was the lie that unleashed Brexit might ‘let them eat turnip be Brexit’s epitath? … We are on our fifth Brexit PM … ‘nothing to do with Brexit’ supply chains … Thick Lizzie believes it but her judgement is catastrophic …  the environment secretary could not have looked more bored, disengaged, could not give a toss about farmer’s problems … Johnson said ‘F*** business’ … Coffey said F*** Farmers’ … the never ending civil war in the Tory Party … dire figures about NHS …  Lasers are precise, powerful and efficient … when James Cleverly said ‘we remain laser focussed on finding a solution … the reaction in Brussels was bemusement mixed with scepticism … the closer Richy Scumbag gets to a deal the  more the lunatic fringes of his party seem determined to stop him … there is no way to divide and conquer the EU … they have stuck together for years … the involvement of Johnson is seen as hugely damaging in Brussels … last year alone  Therese Coffey chomped her way through £4,442 of hospitality … Johnson’s memoirs will cause a massive problem for booksellers and librarians … should they be classified as fiction or fantasy … Brexit ideas … hopelessly flawed, poorly conceived or just plain suicidally stupid …. Britain stock market has languished. Gilts may be next … disastrous budget by Toilet Kwarteng … long running exodus from London … shrivel compared to the rest of the world … Big firms are ditching their British listings … Britain’s stock market … on a downward path … make matters worse … buyers of sovereign debt departing … British assets no longer seem like a must have for global investors … totemic blow to the City of London … Richy Scumbag’s deal softens the Irish Sea border but not as much as he claims … London does not seem to grasp … Johnson still dreams of returning to Westminster … idiotic rows … Johnson’s deal was disastrous … the case for long term despair is compelling … public services are exhausted … day long waits in A & E … some crimes have, in effect, been legalised … slow growth, rubbish public services and falling incomes will probably doom the Tories at the next election … After 7 years of Brexit EU has emerged as the clear winner … Tories heading for a thumping defeat at the polls … thanks to Brexit … Vote Leave claimed to have all the cards … nobody ever worked out what the British really wanted … fuzzy notions … not even the maddest populist on the continent thinks leaving the EU is a good idea … dire governance … a bad official always says yes to the ruler …  goes along with him even when he is wrong … Journalists will soon be replaced by artificial intelligence. The Turing Test of the near future may be a machine’s ability to convince a Daily Mail reader that the latest polemic by a flesh and blood employee and not by a machine designed to generate rabid headlines to stir up xenophobes … If the Tories are crushed they will be replaced by something even worse … Richy Scumbag’s sudden conversion to competence … if we are lucky that may go down as the first moves in a Tory campaign to avoid electoral oblivion … whenever I enter a TV studio for a political … there is nearly always somebody from the far right. Their shtick is always to avoid logic and evidence … Caution prevents Labour from telling the truth about Brexit … there is no shortage of Leave voters who now think Brexit was a mistake … A majority of Labour voters backed Remain and a sizeable share of Brexiters now think Brexit was a mistake … (Johnson) Lying Putrescence …Brexit continues to wreck the lives of Britain’s small farmers … Liz Webster (a small farmer) always knew Brexit would be a disaster … she underestimated how quickly that disaster would overtake the industry … It is actually worse than we predicted … everyone is suffering … some of the countries from which we import agricultural goods have much lower standards … prospect is terrifying for the food industry … always contradictions in Brexit promises … to hide that reality … Farmers thought they would get more money while the government planned to shrink the industry … industry is bracing itself for the pain to come … Government refuses to demand that imports comply with UK food standards … this could hardly have come at a worse time … farmers were promised the world and have been sadly disappointed … the agricultural industry is a sacrificial lamb for Brexit … Richy Scumbag has all but given up pretending to be a presence on the world stage; still less believing ‘Global Britain’ was anything more than an empty slogan … he is reluctant to go anywhere … partly because he is worried about what plots against him might be hatched in his absence and an awareness of what other world leaders think about him and Brexit … Johnson Fanzine the Daily Mail was having problems finding Tory MPs to say on the record that he could come back as PM. The style of the paper is to quote unidentified ‘friends.’… Johnson’s ‘friends’ would have more authority if they talked like real people … ‘Partygate is a political show trial with an outrageous level of bias that would make Stalin blush’ … absurd tabloidese … Mandrake challenges the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday to quote real people willing to talk on the record … long suffering readers of the Times and Sunday Times reacted with dismay to the papers’ ‘exclusive’ serialisation of Paris Hilton’s memoirs …’ has the times become The Sun?’ … ‘I thought my subscription was to the Times and not some grubby tabloid’ … Rebekah Brooks, CEO of News UK, forced the book on the editors of both titles … (Conspiracy theories) we have seen a combination of people who have deliberately manipulated the situation and misrepresented the facts … conspiracy theories are impossible to knock down. Any presentation of the facts is dismissed as part of the plot … Conspiracy theorists hold 16 random beliefs and eight contradict the other eight … the only thing that holds them together is resentment and distrust … symptoms of Brexgret … many layers of denial, bluster and jingoistic claptrap … spiteful, empty pride … you let a bunch of hucksters, gangsters and race baiting demagogues hoodwink you into destroying your livelihood and your grandchildren’s future … justify the unjustifiable and repeatedly deny the evidence … Britain has endured a decade of early deaths … pandemic is not the only reason … something went wrong in the early 20102 (COMMENT: About the time we started getting corrupt and incompetent Tory governments) … between 2012 and 2022 approximately 700,000 Brits died sooner than they might have … death rates for  30 to 49 year old steadily increased in Britain since 2012 in sharp contrast to with neighbouring countries … life expectancy has fallen for the poorest and increased for the wealthy … Britain has done worst out of its European peers … hospital wait lists of record lengths … crisis in primary care … poorer Brits are more likely to be diagnosed with cancer at a later stage … it will be tricky to find enough radiologists and GPs to make a difference … life expectancy worst affected in places with the largest decline in housing services and social care spending … cannot obscure the fact that something has gone badly wrong in the last decade …no European country has stalled as much as Britain … funding cuts are likely to have worsened health outcomes … 40% of the burden on the NHS may be preventable … services have been pruned in the last decade … 10m years of life have been in lost in Britain over the last decade  compared with what might have been expected in 2011. The grim total keeps ticking up …  Russia’s war on the Ukraine has vindicated Macron’s call for a stronger EU … A new plan to stop migrants in boats is unlikely to work … impractical, morally and legally dubious … a myriad practical flaws … echo an earlier failure to tackle the problem … lawyers say plan has made no actual difference … though it may temporarily please the right of the Tory party … the plan is the wrong way round … new law will not stop the boats … Tory intellectuals (sic) declared that culture had vanquished economics … ‘It is not the economy, stupid’ ran one headline … What is going on out there is brutal … miserable politics … economic competence is decisive in general elections … Tory right wingers who call themselves Thatcherites have treated distribution networks much as a toddler with a hammer treats a wristwatch. 

Pip Pip                         Medway Delta (Retired)           Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class

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Brexit Strangulation

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By Adrian Ekins-Daukes, angry ex Tory Councillor from Tunbridge Wells.

During the run-up to the referendum, the extremist group of ‘Economists for Brexit’ predicted leaving EU would create a 4% boom for the British economy. This has not materialised. But also, Brexit guru Professor Patrick Minford admitted that it would “effectively eliminate” British manufacturing industry. That prophecy is proving spot on.

Officially, manufacturing accounts for only 10% of the economy, but in fact it is much more important. It produces 45% of all UK exports and pays for 65% of private R&D. It employs the services of many other industries, from catering to software design and logistics. Manufacturing workers are well paid, with wages 15% above the national average,  which is reflected in the tax take. In fact manufacturing probably accounts for 20% of the economy, and is vital to our trade balance, science base and general prosperity.

Much of our manufacturing industry is owned by foreign firms. who decided to base themselves in the UK largely because it offered access to the EU’s single market which enables products to be sold freely across the continent, . But Brexit has put an end to UK access to the single market, creating trade barriers, extra costs and delivery delays. Government figures show that red tape at the border with the EU costs £7bn per year.  

As a result, many foreign firms which had established their HQs in London have moved to the continent, taking the trade, money and jobs with them. Those who remain are investing less. The level of investment by such firms used to be above the average of their UK counterparts.  Now it has fallen to about half. Brexit is also proving to be a disincentive for new foreign investment.  Before, the UK attracted more foreign investment than any other EU member state but now it  has been overtaken by Germany and  others are catching up . In particular,  Germany has replaced UK as  the favourite destination of Japanese firms whose investment is rising in many EU countries but falling in the UK

Strangulation by Brexit – what a way to go !!

BREXIT KILLS OUR MOTOR INDUSTRY

The decline of our motor industry since Brexit is grim.  The number of new cars made in the UK has sunk to its lowest level for 66 years,  with production having fallen every year since  2016 . Our car plants are being overlooked when manufacturers consider where to build new models. Elon Musk bypassed Britain and built his Gigafactory in Berlin instead. The new electric models of Jaguar, Lotus and BMW’s mini are all going to be built abroad . Once sale of new petrol and diesel cars becomes illegal in the UK by 2030. There are fears within the industry that its decline may be terminal.

One major cause of the industry’s decline since Brexit is the decision by our Brexit negotiators to withdraw from the single market.  An essential feature of vehicle manufacturing in the EU is the absence of any checks or delays at its internal frontiers, enabling vehicle components to be shipped throughout Europe without hindrance. The supply chains are now so extensive that, it is said, “it takes a continent to make a car “ But the barriers erected by our Brexit negotiators abolished seamless access for our our car manufacturers , subjecting their products to checks and delays, and hence causing them to be excluded us from the system. 

BREXIT DOUBLES RED TAPE

Our negotiators have inflicted similar damage on our important  chemical industry.That is because they refused to permit the industry to remain in the EU’s ‘REACH’ system, an organisation which had registered, tested, approved and regulated virtually  every chemical in use, and which it had cost  our industry billions to join. Instead, our Brexiteer government decided to create its own. This duplication  means further huge costs for  companies having to register with and access  two different systems, possibly comply with two differing sets  of legislation, and even perhaps repeating some tests as well,  The chemical industry is a clear victim of the doubling of unnecessary red tape which Brexit causes.

Brexit is also damaging  exports of many other industrial products for which CE marking is obligatory before they can be put on the EU market. These include machinery, construction materials, electric and gas appliances, cosmetics and toys, to name but a few. The CE mark is proof that a  product conforms with  specified EU safety, health and environmental standards. Once it has been applied, normally by the manufacturer himself (who is responsible for drawing up documents proving compliance), the product is then accepted across the EU  without the need for further delays or inspections. We could have had an agreement guaranteeing equivalence between  our own standards and those of the EU,  thus enabling UK/EU  trade to continue to flow as freely as before.  Johnson actually reached an agreement with the EU to this effect in early 2019. However, following his triumph in the general election of that year, he chose to renege on it in order to appease the  extremist bigots amongst  his backbenchers, preferring instead to diverge from EU standards and create a UK version of the CE mark. He thus increased bureaucracy  and inflicted new  heavy costs on industry to no one’s advantage . Far from freeing us from EU red tape,  as Brexiteers claim, they have  doubled it for any company that manufactures for both the UK and  EU markets.

There are other essential sectors of our economy which are being as seriously damaged by Brexit as manufacturing. Michael Gove claimed recently that “on balance, Brexit has been a significant success for the country.” This opinion might be shared by the super-rich cliques who sustain the Government and some City fat cats but opinion polls show that even 2016 Leave voters,  let alone the rest of us, see it as a bare faced lie.

The Solution ? First …. 

GET THE BREXITEERS OUT !

RATTUS BREXITUS

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Turd Reich

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By Don Adamson, Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class

This week’s quotes: “A mess of Johnson’s making … Johnson is wading in making things worse …  outrageous even by Johnson’s standards … a new low for an ex PM who has long since left the moral gutter behind … I hope Richy Scumbag goes down to a crushing defeat but I also hope he fixes the NI Protocol problem … oven ready meal that turned out to be half baked … it is hardly in China’s interests to see a strong Russia … The more Russia weakens the more vulnerable Siberia looks. Chinese encroachment is a future headache waiting to happen … Gove is now being ‘honest’ about the failure of Brexit … if he were really honest he would apologise and shut up… Johnson crashes his way through democracy like a poltergeist who has not noticed his own demise.

Nigel Garbage hosts a TV show on a channel nobody watches … (Richy Scumbag) it is almost charming how the son of Punjabi immigrants still thinks he can become the darling of bigots … Johnson is buying a house … we wait to hear with whose money … the plan seems to be that whatever is left of the Tory Party after the next election will flock to his bloodstained banner …

Turd Reich

George Takei finds British politics illogical …  Brexit was a disastrous mistake … every bit as bad as those who opposed it predicted … and getting worse … Nigel Garbage … a deluded and dangerous man … politicians lack imagination and have had very privileged lives … cannot understand what other people’s lives are like … Trump is a good example … worst President we ever had …  Takei feels despair at the lies told by politicians … He has raged magnificently against Brexit … Only Boris Johnson could make Thick Lizzie look competent … Thick Lizzie’s brief, miserable innings … 

The UK has a long term productivity problem. Since 2008 it has been running at less than a quarter of its usual rate. … the government has no idea how to improve things … the government seems to be deliberately making things worse instead of better … what the economy needs is a well functioning government, massive levels of investment, better training and far better management … investment has flat lined since Brexit … the government has slashed so many jobs that the accountancy profession complains the HM Revenue and Customs is so inefficient and understaffed that it is stifling the creating of companies;, jobs and wealth … we have had a tax dodging chancellor, a PM whose wife was a non-dom, billions of Covid loans that mysteriously disappeared, billions wasted on crony contracts for PPE … we have had Boris Johnson who could out bunga Sylvio Berlusconi … and we have had Thick Lizzie who makes corruption and incompetence look like a model of fiscal responsibility … the collapse of inward investment is extremely damaging, Britain is seen as too risky to invest in … stupidity over the Northern Ireland protocol … wasted resources, an economy that overheats easily …

UK is losing the race to be a leader in new technology .. Failing to ride the hi-tech wave of growth potential… If things were not bad enough for UK musicians in the EU they get worse by the minute in the USA … “

Pip Pip                         Medway Delta (Retired)           Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class

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Censorship

Political Censorship

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It has come to my attention that The European Movement (EM) have continued a sustained smear campaign against me and my work, asking members and volunteers to censor my output, by stating that it was inappropriate and irrelevant, restricting its sharing on social media platforms across the UK and beyond.  In elitist media circles this is known as ‘deplatforming’.  The latest manifestation of this is shown below in the form of a Facebook post made innocently into the Warwick District for EU group by another person, who was unaware of my ‘ban’. 

The person had recommended that members of the group view my Brexit social impact film.  You can view it by clicking here to check whether it is inappropriate or irrelevant.  I understand that it is European Movement policy not to publish my posts due to the alleged ‘damage’ I have done to the organisation.  No further communications were received, despite the offer to discuss privately and the person’s posts put on approval, thus blocking any further communications.

This censorship has been widespread across all social media platforms across the UK and as far as Spain, possibly further.  It seems that this was a deliberate policy on the part of Anna Bird (CEO) enacted via members of  the Executive / EM Council / Grassroots for Europe senior figures over an extended period. There are two sides to every story and I have decided to record here (with the evidence) my side of the story.  I have done this in the form of a Q&A, as it is a complex affair.  Censorship and deplatforming are the realm of hard right Brexit extremists, but it seems that the left also use the tool to control the minds of activists and grassroots people.

What position did I hold?

I have held the position of Chair of The European Movement (Mid Kent) for some time before this took place and was fired unilaterally by the CEO without reference to the Executive or National Council, in contravention of EM policy.  A review took place with Dominic Grieve QC and the National Council and I was exonerated, nonetheless Anna Bird persisted with her decision.

Why was I expelled?

The CEO of EM was clearly irritated by two things I can talk about and one that I cannot.  These almost certainly informed my expulsion without reference to the National Executive or Council and against EM policy.

In 2020 I was encouraged to apply to become Branches Forum Chair by senior EM figures.  During the election campaign, it emerged that a concerted smear campaign had been organised against me and leveraged underground in secret WhatsApp groups by various individuals who favoured the other candidate.  Sadly, one of the main agents of this (Patrick Reynolds) did not know how to use e-mail properly and inadvertently mailed me a copy of the smear letter, see below.  Please note that there were only two candidates for election, so the other person mentioned in the red box below but not named was myself.  Those involved: Reynolds, Wancke, Gaskell, Jacobson, Hammond and Gordon ran away when I challenged them on the matter directly.

The red box area refers to my candidacy as there were only two candidates

The key point about this letter is that I understand that it was sent to all 14 000 members of The European Movementdue to e-mail incompetence.  This undoubtedly set the tone for everything else that took place and still means that people with whom I have had no contact are wary of me or block my content out of hand without any knowledge of what took place.  I asked the other candidate, Yvonne Wancke, to ask these people to stop the smear campaign within her own campaign team.  She refused.  See her reply to me below.

Yvonne’s refusal to stop the campaign

I am not at liberty to discuss the reasons as to why Patrick Reynolds and Yvonne Wancke’s campaign team decided to do this.  Suffice to say that there had been a previous legal challenge against EM which they lost, but which is subject to a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) or what is more usually referred to as a ‘gagging order’, so I have confined myself to subsequent matters to respect this agreement.

The second issue took place in 2021 when I was asked to attend the Reading Festival on behalf of the Young European Movement (YEM) to engage festival goers with anti-Brexit stickers and generally to raise awareness of YEM on their behalf.  YEM sent a contract which explained that I could claim travel expenses.  This I did, but EM ‘lost the claim’ multiple times over a matter of several months.  Although I was complimented on my work at the festival, the process for follow up payment of expenses was shambolic.

YEM feedback to me

I counted approximately 150 e-mails sent about the expenses claim.  Eventually the YEM President invented the excuse that I was older than their target demographic, should not have been invited to attend and refused to pay the agreed expenses.  Nine months later, after I issued Small Claims Court proceedings, they paid the trivial sum that was owed, claiming that they did not have my contact details as the reason for gross incompetence and inefficiency.  This is, of course, incorrect.  As Branch Chair, they had access to my e-mail, phone number, address and so on.  I had sent the claim by e-mail on up to five different occasions with bank details / Paypal contacts and so on.  The submission to the Small Claims Court explains more of the timeline and sequence of excuses used.

This case continues, as there are court costs and charges to be paid.  Naturally it is a source of irritation to the EM CEO, as they are in the ‘Prince Andrew’ position, having paid up for breaking the contract but now trying to claim zero responsibility for what happened.  In November 2022 I offered in court to waive all charges and settle for the £50 court fee, but the President of YEM said he was unable to authorise this amount of money.  I can only presume that the EM CEO blocked his ability to settle.  Two weeks after the court hearing, and apparently after a board level consultation with Lord Adonis / Heseltine et al to authorise the £50 payment, the YEM President offered to accept my offer of paying the £50 court fee, but asked for a no-blame clause on their part, when they are clearly culpable, having been fined £3000 by HMRC before.

Was my expulsion from EM handled correctly?

No. Anna Bird claims that I was expelled for using bad language during my conversation with the YEM President.  It’s absolutely true that, in sheer frustration, having been given the runaround by about four members of YEM over three months and about 150 e-mails, that I got the number of the YEM President and called them.  They were not around to take my call so I left a voice message.  Within the message I stated that ‘the payment process was a fucking mess’.  This was twisted into the idea that I had abused him personally.  This is untrue.  I was very specific when I talked about the process being a mess.  Abuse would have been something like saying the person had one leg longer than the other and / or that they had bad breath etc.

Anna Bird then acted unilaterally without reference to the EM Executive or Council.  I was made aware by a senior EM figure that she and Lord Adonis had an hour-long meeting to consider the ‘Reading Gate’ affair.  I had originally been invited to an EM Council meeting to present my case.  At short notice I was uninvited without explanation and told that the item was not to be tabled at the meeting after all.  I then received an e-mail to tell me that I had been defenestrated without reference to any meetings, committees or EM policy.

I had originally been invited to an EM Council meeting to present my case.  At short notice I was uninvited without explanation and told that the item was not to be tabled at the meeting after all.  I then received an e-mail to tell me that I had been defenestrated without reference to any meetings, committees or EM policy. Some members of the EM Council felt strongly that this treatment was disproportionate, given that EM’s own media relations staff swear regularly on public fora.  It was also against neurodiversity.  A special general meeting was called with The Rt Hon Dominic Grieve (former Attorney General) in attendance, where these matters were considered.  I was sanctioned for the language used to describe the sheer incompetence and obfuscation, but it was not considered a matter for expulsion.  Anna Bird ignored the EM Council recommendation and the judgement of Dominic Grieve.  At the present time I believe I am in the Schrödinger Chair position i.e. both Chair and not Chair at the same time.

Held in the presence of The Rt Hon Dominic Grieve QC
EM’s Head of Media Relations seems to swear wilfully in public ….

Was the smear campaign restricted to these incidents?

No.  For example, I had been invited to an event featuring Gavin Esler by East Kent European Movement.  I was subsequently uninvited, based on my decision to take EM to court for illegal acts.  Below is the e-mail banning me from attendance.  Mr Beevor clearly knew nothing of the real reasons for the court case, as he indicates that he has no idea why I took EM to court.  Generally speaking, people don’t take people to court and win their case if there is no case to answer.  Please note the ‘not so hidden hand’ of Chris Hammond in the cc list.  He was part of the previous smear campaign for Team Wancke and this demonstrates the pervasive long-term nature of this campaign and its impact on people who have no idea what took place, hence the need for this transparency statement.

BANNED without reason

Did I try to sort this out myself rather than whingeing on here?

Of course I did.  I wrote to Lord Adonis and Richard Wilson (Grassroots for Europe Chair) on more than one occasion.  This was the result:

Brexit Blockers

You may be wondering why Bremain in Spain and The National Rejoin March (NRM) joined in with the blocking here.  This is a key point.  The smear campaign on WhatsApp and other platforms coupled with how social media works means that people who do not know the story or the people involved spread the message without any real knowledge of what actually took place.  In Bremain’s case, Sue Wilson (Chief of Bremain) is closely connected to Wilson and Adonis and Wilson worked behind the scenes on the NRM.  The NRM know nothing of my work but took Sue Wilson’s word for it.  When I challenged them on the matter, they too ran away.

One of the pile ons – there were many from Bremain in Spain members and others

Have I damaged EM?

No.  One of Anna Bird’s claims is that I have damaged The European Movement.  I have made a lot of suggestions on how EM can be a more effective national movement over the years and offered my services pro-bono as a professional business and OD consultant way back, something that most organisations I have worked for as a business consultant and author generally welcome.  But I have not told lies, deleted inconvenient truths, blocked people who disagree with me or targeted personalities in my suggestions for better strategy, organisation and execution of strategy and so on. 

In any case, all businesses and organisations are subject to a thing called customer feedback.  If I were to challenge Virgin, Tesco, Currys, Pfizer, B&Q at al on matters of product design, customer service, strategy, innovation and so on, or make suggestions for improvement to their offering, most intelligent enterprises would at least look at the suggestions rather than shooting the messenger out of hand.  Why then do EM believe that they should be excluded from such scrutiny?  As a former Council board member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), part of our role was to be a ‘critical friend’, as the eyes and ears of the enterprise, to help it seize opportunities and head off or avoid threats etc.  This is normal business practice and the reason why most companies have Non-Exec Directors.

Moreover, Richard Wilson’s own feedback in the private WhatsApp group demonstrates that I have not damaged EM.  See below.  Richard published some other messages in this group but then deleted them as they were potentially libellous.  Anna Bird is a member of this group and thus had oversight of these messages.  She chose to do nothing, allowing the rumour machine to grow out of control.  More recently, Mike Galsworthy reported that EM has gone from strength to strength in an attempt in his bid to become Chair of EM to replace Lord Adonis.  Over the period of the alleged damage, EM membership has increased by 2000, a healthy 14% set against an environment when most pro-EU / anti-Brexit activists have given up campaigning about Brexit faced with mass gaslighting by the Government and a virtual silencing of the media and political opposition on the subject of Brexit.  Anna Bird has also reported outstanding EM growth under her watch just recently.

In the below message, Peter Packham requests that an article I wrote for London for Europe be censored.  He is told by Emma Knaggs that it is up to groups whether they do this but clearly indicates a deliberate policy that had reached ordinary members of EM.  She also has no idea why I had been defenestrated from EM but repeats the lie. Sussex for Europe booked me to talk at one of their events and also faced pressure to ban me from appearing in Brighton.  They refused.

What does reputational damage really look like?

In one single tweet, Lord Andrew Adonis caused more damage to The European Movement than anyone else that I can recall.  Adonis launched a campaign to demonise Tories holding seats in the red wall area of Britain.  In doing so, his indiscriminate campaign targeted former remain Tories such as David Lidington and others who had remained loyal to EM and the cause of rejoining the EU. This led to the departure of The Conservative European Forum (CEF) from The European Movement, with figures such as The Rt Hon Dominic Grieve QC placing distance between themselves and the EM and Lord Heseltine having to act as a bridge to hold the fractured organisation together.  If you are a Labour voter you may well say “so what if the Tories are expunged from EM?” However, Brexit is a cross-party issue requiring skilful advocacy within all political parties. Andrew’s tweet disenfranchised remain voting Conservatives in one move. My activities, claiming immoral and indecent behaviour in elections and illegal accounting practices pale into insignificance by comparison and are completely justified in any case.

The accusation that I had ‘thwarted’ the EM’s efforts is reminiscent of the recent interview by Isabel Oakeshott and Richard Tice with Lord Heseltine, where Oakeshott suggested that Heseltine had thwarted Brexit singlehandedly.  It’s a ridiculous accusation, since Leavers have held the levers of power for the last six and a half years and have had plenty of time to execute Brexit.  Simply to say that Brexit hadn’t been done because someone else without power chose to moan about it is faintly ridiculous. It is just as ridiculous to suggest that I singlehandedly thwarted the EM, an organisation of now 17 000 members, with an international reach and budget to match.  A colleague remarked that they were surprised that EM had not suggested that I started the war in Ukraine and / or to have brought aliens to land hot air balloons in the USA or sent Liz Truss to mediate in China.

Cock up or conspiracy?

A reasonable question to ask would be “Is all of the above this just a series of unfortunate events or a deliberate policy?”, in short, cock-up or conspiracy?  The reason I favour a planned deliberate campaign (conspiracy if you will) can be summed up as follows:

  1. The physical evidence of smear letters sent to all 14 000 EM members, only some of which can be reported here.
  2. Many WhatsApp exchanges, only some of which are reproduced here.
  3. The fact that people who could not possibly know of my activities or who I am have an impression of what I do without having ever experienced or seen any of my work.

Anna Bird indicated that this was a policy decision in a reply to the person who complained about the censorship.  She says “but many, like Warwickshire, have chosen not to engage or to share his content”.  The word many implies some kind of top-down briefing rather than a gradual diffusion through people who actually know me, in the same way that Patrick Reynolds applied the ‘send to all’ button in his smear campaign. 

Conclusions and next steps

I’m a firm believer in truth and transparency and have written this detailed report in the spirit of balancing what is taking place here. It is up to others to judge for themselves what is taking place and to decide where the truth lies.  I have been libelled for raising legitimate moral concerns about electoral processes and raising a Small Claims Court case about illegal accounting practices at The European Movement. 

It is now incumbent upon The European Movement to make amends for the spread of fake news and various deletions, distortions and generalisations that have occurred, wilfully in my opinion.  I will be writing to the Executive and some others asking them to issue a full unreserved and public apology to put things right in due course.

Censored material I
Censored material Part II

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