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Monthly Archives: August 2022

Keir Starmer and Rejoining the EU

I had a chance encounter with a Labour Councillor the other day whilst at gay pride in Rochester. We know each other from many years back and I like and respect him as a solid campaigner for Remain within the Labour party. He approached me because he recognised me from behind, as I had my ‘offensive swimming bag’ with me, pictured below.

Brexit-Watchers
Brexit-Watchers

After a brief exchange of pleasantries, he raised the issue of Labour’s strategy for Brexit. Here is what he told me:

“In our first term we will join EFTA.

In our second term we will have a referendum to rejoin the EU”.

Here is my analysis of this strategy, based on a much fuller treatment of the issue in my book Reboot Britain : Strategies to change minds on Europe and Brexit.

He claimed that Kier Starmer could not argue about ending Brexit at this time, due to his need to hold on to red wall seats at an election.  I dispute this position:

If Kier Starmer continues with the strategy of ‘making Brexit work’, he will be accused, quite rightly, of being a liar after being elected. This is the very thing that he has accused Boris Johnson and the Conservative party of doing and is therefore morally bankrupt.

Everyone knows that Starmer is a Remainer and therefore there would be no great loss if he were to remind us of this fact.  Boris Johnson reminds Keir Starmer of his EU / Remain credentials on a weekly and sometimes daily basis in parliament, so there is very little currency in the Daily Excess, Son or Maul revealing this ‘secret’.  Opinions about Brexit are changing rapidly, with Lord Sugar the latest person to call for Brexit to be reversed. 

The Labour Party seem to be terrified of the right-wing media, yet they themselves have a media machine.  Therefore, they ought to be able to put up a valid defence of his position if they needed to.  The Labour party somehow believe that their own media machine is inferior to the Tory party’s.  Perhaps Labour need to read my books as well.

My sense is that Keir Starmer is even more scared of the hard left element of his own party than the Conservatives and that this is driving his avoidance of the Brexit issue.  You have gotta love Mick Lynch’s ability to stand up and speak truth to power, but let’s not forget that Lynch is also a relic of the militant tendency from the 1980’s in terms of his wish to shut the borders and return us to Little Britain via Brexit myopia.

Let’s suppose that Starmer decided to ignore the hard left in his party. It is indeed possible that he would lose some votes in red wall seats.  Let’s guess that this may amount to 10% losses of seats in those areas. However he stands to gain anything like 20 to 40% of Conservative seats in other areas. Labour are allowing the militant tendency to dictate their strategy for re-election and this makes them no better than the bluekip Tories. I cannot recommend that any remainers vote for them under these circumstances, except where their candidates have a more enlightened view about Brexit.

My Councillor friend put it to me that Starmer simply cannot say the Brexit word at this time. Respectfully, I say this is horseshit.  He can say that Brexit isn’t working and has not delivered what was on ‘the brochure’ in 2016. He can also point to clear evidence to support such statements at this time, coming from UK in a changing Europe and our own work at Reboot Britain.  The Labour Party has fallen into the trap of believing that a poll in OK Magazine or the results of the latest focus group should dictate party policy. This is not leadership. Silence is assent and Starmer’s position is a clear demonstration of putting party before country, what Tony Blair describes as putting ideology before pragmatism.  I expected better from a clever man and I must conclude that, like the Tories, there are people who they are afraid of behind the scenes.

As regards Labour’s long-term plan, there are many flaws with this:

The EFTA countries are a small club of nations: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland who value collaboration over competition. It is unclear as to how such a club would wish to invite an aggressive competitor with a track record for wanting ‘cake and eat it too’ from its relationships with other trading partners. Brexit Britain has demonstrated a complete lack of regard for the role of international law,  breaking deals made with others and riding roughshod over nations that it considers to be inferior to itself. These are hardly the kinds of elements of a compelling psychological contract to join a new trading bloc.  Joining EFTA also means accepting the four freedoms of the EU.  How will this be put to the knuckle dragging red wall Brexiteers?

The assumption of a second term in office is also questionable, particularly if it becomes apparent that Starmer lied to get into power. This makes him equivalent to Johnson and the mainstream media would certainly weaponise this. The second doubtful assumption is that another referendum would be desirable or indeed practical. Brexit has divided the nation and I very much doubt that the nation will look back on 2016 and want to repeat the exercise with all that it has brought. It is entirely possible that, by this time, many people will have forgotten most of what Michael Gove glibly called ‘bumps in the road’ and will not wish to open up the debate again.  The longer we leave this question, the more difficult it becomes, as divergence will be complete and the damage to lives and livelihoods will be complete.

My friend assumed that the binary ping-pong politics model remain resilient into the future. This itself is questionable. Brexit has of course unleashed a disruptive influence on British politics, with a number of parties now standing for anything but the current system. Within the next few years we will see the emergence of Gina Miller’s True and Fair party, the possible resurgence of the Lib Dems in the South, the departure of Scotland from the United Kingdom and the emergence of other single-issue parties such as the Rejoin party. Under such circumstances, I’m doubtful as to whether ping-pong politics will remain the norm. My friend tried to deal with this with me by saying that if I didn’t vote Labour I would get the Tories. My reply was simple. I stated that I cannot vote for a Brexit party and that Labour must do better than this.

I am not sure whether the Labour strategy was given to my labour councillor friend in order to appease him or for him to use to appease me. Although miracles are sometimes possible, the strategy he presented has more holes in it than a piece of Swiss cheese banned by Liz Truss.  He is a very good chap and I wanted to believe him.  But I ended up with the feeling that he himself may well be hanging onto unicorns and trying to ‘believe harder’.

Brexit Books
Brexit Books – Check them out on Etsy
Reboot Britain

Street research

Check this video out that we made today in a sauna. The deception that the will of the people is still for Brexit is under extreme question, considering that this research was conducted in Brexity Kent. Watch the sauna video – it’s just two minutes long!!

Check also our World Wide Wednesday masterclass on Rejoining the EU below:

To get hold of the books ‘Reboot Britain’ and ‘Private Eyelines’ please go to Rage Against The Brexit Machine or write direct to me at reboot@brexitrage.com

Populism will eat itself

Populism will eat itself

The recent news that Trump is under investigation is yet another point on the curve towards improved world leadership. To misquote the band name : Populism will eat itself !

In world that needs collaborative leadership to face complex problems such as climate change, famine, war, migration and so on, we seem to have opted for more didactic leaders with catchy but meaningless slogans.  In the UK we have Brexit populism.  In the US we have Trump’s version of isolationist politics, and so on.

This is why I coined the phrase ‘Brexorcism’ to change minds in the UK about Brexit.  The skills involved are just as applicable in other theatres of populism.

Last week, I was asked to speak on the need to turn back from populism and discuss the contributions from psychology, sociology and therapeutic approaches to wake people up to more long-term and global outlooks on our politics.  You can view the masterclass below.

I also spoke on the role of satire, humour and catharsis as a way into the most closed minds on political issues, based on our book Private Eyelines.

To get hold of the books ‘Reboot Britain’ and ‘Private Eyelines’ please go to Rage Against The Brexit Machine or write direct to me at reboot@brexitrage.com

careless whisper

Careless Whisper

Whilst shopping in Tesco yesterday, a man approached me and whispered in my ear “I love your T-Shirt”, almost as if he dare not say the word Brexit in public !! Given this Twitter thread below, part of me understands his reticence. Yet we must not allow Brexit to be airbrushed out of the lexicon by the Tories. This is why I wrote three books on Brexit. Check the books out on ETSY. Our latest edition of Reboot Parliament explains more. Watch it below:

“Actually it’s 178 x more but I’m a Tory and I lied”

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Don Adamson

Don Adamson Brexit Slayer

This reflective piece comes from stalwart campaigner Don Adamson on the occasion of his move from Kent to Yorkshire. I am proud to know Don.

We rose at 8 bells in the Middle Watch, which is 0400 for landlubbers. The moving men said they would arrive at 0500 and be gone by 0600. In fact they arrived at 0530 but were gone by 0600 so it balanced out. We then spent a long and dull day waiting for word to come thought that legal and financial matters had been completed satisfactorily. This was tiresome since there was so much to do at the Bradford end. Eventually we got the phone call that all had been satisfactorily completed and we could go.

We stayed the night at a motel in Newark. In our younger days we might have made the journey in one stage. Besides June’s knee was giving trouble so I had to do all the driving. The M62 is a pain in the neck. Rush hour traffic is heavy and there are navigational problems that our Satnav struggles to overcome. Before very long we will be familiar with it to the point of boredom but right now the M62 is the Bermuda Triangle of motorways.

June had gone to a lot of trouble marking the packing cases to indicate in which room in the new house each package should be placed. They could have got it more right than they actually did. Since then we have been unpacking. I am a great believer that slow is steady and that steady is fast. June has been planning this for three years. The Pandemic was a major complicating factor. With every day the house looks more like a well organised home. My role in this has been heavy lifting while June got things organised. 

A few weeks ago we took the car for the annual Ministry of Transport roadworthiness test. The mechanics could only find one thing wrong with it: the tyres were showing signs of wear, no immediate action was necessary but the tyres would need to be replaced before winter. We decided to leave that for when we got to Yorkshire. Somewhere on the journey we got a nail in the rear offside tyre. We got the spare tyre fitted and, at the first opportunity, we had the worn tyres replaced. It could have been worse. If we had immediately changed the tyres we would have collected a nail in a brand-new tyre. What is interesting is that we had four standard tyres on the road but the spare was an emergency tyre that was all right for emergency use but not standard use. We had that tyre put back in the boot of the car as soon as we got the 4 new tyres. The mechanics reported that our brakes were showing signs of wear and advised us to be careful. I find it odd that that worn brakes were not mentioned by the mechanics that did the MOT check. 

Next door to the tyre place where we got the new tyres fitted there is an “Adult Store.” I suspect that “Immature Store” would be more appropriate. The window displays were full of degenerate underwear for dubious ladies. 

William is delighted to have two more willing slaves. The house is fairly new, barely 20 years old. It is on a hill and a bend and that makes reversing into the drive a pain.

William’s school has broken up for the summer holidays. He and I went to Knowles Park where the local council laid on events for children. This being Yorkshire cricket was a favourite and I was amused to see little girls batting balls all over the park. There was synchronised disco dancing in which William took no interest. There was a bouncy castle, a rock face that youngsters could climb so long as they wore safety harness. William and his friends had a wonderful time. I just wish I could spend more time with all my grandchildren. 

Brexit has failed and has been seen to fail. Every day produces more evidence that Brexit is slowly throttling the economy. That can only get worse. Starmer talks loftily about “making Brexit work” but he does not say how he will do that. That is just as delusional as anything Johnson said. Starmer has nailed his colours to the mast of a sinking ship. Whoever becomes PM, either as a result of this idiotic Tory selection process or in the General Election in 2024 will preside over failure and fiasco. 

This week’s quotes: “Britain is in a dangerous state … it is poorer than it imagines … it could stumble into a crisis … with Johnson’s departure politics must become anchored to reality … Tories are ill prepared to fix the damage …  whoever succeeds Johnson will inherit a monstrous in tray … a deeper question: is the Tory Party still capable of governing … the exhaustion may be too deep and the rifts too many for the party to recover … It will take years to get clean … a list of parliamentary scandals reads like a concupiscent ‘Cluedo’ … more details will only deepen the mystery … In the Corporate world good employees will quickly leave for other firms, consumers will boycott tarnished brands. Neither force operates in Westminster … Theresa May reinstated two sexual predators to win a vote … nobody’s reputation could survive contact with Johnson … That Johnson is a serial liar and lacks the self discipline to apply himself was well known … the extent to which Johnson has poisoned the reputations of those he works with is less appreciated … consider some of the people tarnished by exposure to Johnson … politicians sent out to defend Johnson’s integrity only to find their own impugned … at best such politicians look like idiots … reputations for honesty and competence were irradiated by Johnson … Steve Barclay was feted as a fearsomely efficient manager … a few weeks with Johnson and he had as much grip as a tea tray on a ski jump .. a parade of people with distinguished reputations were infected … Simon Case was meant to be the brightest and best civil servant of his generation … now he is just a guy who partied with Johnson … Johnson’s misconduct and tolerance of it in others leached straight into body politic … Johnson is not the cause of all that ails Britain … his flaws tarnished good people … they poisoned the government and the country… 

Join us Monday 8 AUG 8 pm to plot the destruction of the Tory party via ZOOM

This week’s quotes “Tory brought a major realignment of economic relations without considering the strategic implications … Brexit saw the exacerbation of foreign policy errors; particularly not listening to expertise that does not align with ideologically dominant views …. genuine experts were ignored and individuals with no experience were elevated to positions of high influence … two emerging themes of US Foreign Policy; neither of them valuing the “special relationship” with the UK as in the Blair era … Britain needs to forget the extreme ideology of Brexit … Johnson will go down in history as the most dishonest, most corrupt, most incompetent, most disgraced PM of all time … they think Brexit is going badly because it is not radical enough; all the evidence points to the opposite … but that is what they want and that is what candidates for Tory leadership will give them … the idea that the fall of Johnson will lead to a better Brexit is for the fairies … little to do with economics … just another Brexit fantasy … reckless… government excuses are ridiculous … we need certainly and a blind man on a galloping horse can see that we do not have it … government’s claim is rubbish … Government signed the Northern Ireland agreement knowing what it meant and wants to rewrite for political reasons … Government is breaking international law, damaging the country’s reputation and opening itself up to action by the EU; which is not going to sit idly by … government is walking into a sea of troubles … it is almost as if the EU did not trust UK government to keep its word or think the PM’s signature was worth anything … it is the hardest of Brexits. The one the ERG dreams of but which strikes fear into every sensible economist, politician, firm and business in the UK … UK is rapidly approaching a recession which is expected to make it the worst performing economy in the G20, except Russia, this is economic lunacy … this is the policy that will win the Tory leadership … If you think getting rid of this PM would make Brexit better, wait till you see the next one … every serious economist is aghast … government budgets face a painful crunch. Tory leadership hopefuls seem oblivious … none of the candidates has given a credible account of how they will finance their giveaways … this is an especially bad time to be increasing government giveaways … Tory claim is based on a tentative official forecast of the economic outlook. To erect your fiscal policy on it is reckless … expect a final attempt to heave some benefits of Brexit …  turning the role of the PM into a rotted presidency … MPs do not have a monopoly on wisdom; they often lack it … party leader can have the support of only a minority of the party and still be PM …

Labour activists thrust Jeremy Corbyn on an unwilling Party twice; misery ensued … there is no point in backing somebody good if you know they will be beaten by inept rivals … it is not right that members of Richmond’s local Tory Party decide who gets handed the nuclear codes … a dereliction of duty by MPs … a recipe for constitutional stress … competing mandates poison the British constitution … Brexit turned into a mess … number of people ill enough with Covid to need hospital treatment is sharply on the rise … PPE, ventilation and filtration equipment … unable to stop transmissions … NHS and Care Staff are contraction Covid (again) leading to severe shortages and increasing their risks of long Covid … Omicron is far from harmless … currently 6.5M people are waiting for NHS treatment and an estimated 117,000 died while on a waiting list last year … NHS clearly needs more capacity and staff and less Covid … no honest or sensible person would count these as new hospitals … the pledge was bo****s from the start … government seems unlikely to give it much thought … SureScreen diagnostics was big hope for ending UK dependence on China for lateral flow tests …  a turnover of £7.8M became £151M thanks to government deal … accounts show an unusual level of financial disarray … lack of documentary evidence … major winner for testing contracts was Randox Laboratories …  made a jackpot … much of the bunce has headed offshore … Tory donor Lord Ashcroft has had a bountiful pandemic … both from Government Covid contracts and poor government policies post pandemic … Impellam did well from government mismanagement … bad news for the nation but good news for Lord Ashcroft … donated another £50,000 to the Tory Party in February … abroad and at home Johnson stands revealed as failed, petulant, shabby and arrogantly heedless of the defeat to which he is taking his party … ‘look on my works, ye mighty, and despair’ … Starmer, who happily served in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet)  came over censorious about ministers who served a leader who was unfit for office … Cabinet was a ‘Z-list of nodding dogs’ … David Davis rubbished Johnson’s integrity …  period 2004 to 2019 was the weakest for growth of GDP since 1919-1934, and that was before the shocks of Brexit and the pandemic … Brexit throws an awful lot of sand in the gears … until Tories stop using Brexit as a test of political purity, its economic costs will grow … ‘Charismatic Mr Johnson’ … charisma used to be understood as an exceedingly rare characteristic of leadership .

If the word can be applied to Johnson then it has truly lost all meaning … Johnson might be a good case study of failed leadership but not of charisma … Britain’s political climate  is another problem … scale matters … A standoff between Britain and Brussels over Northern Ireland has jeopardised Britain’s involvement in the world’s largest research and development programme … Britain’s stock market has accounted for less than 1% of the capital raised this year … largest firms in London have been dwarfed by those choosing New York or Hong Kong … Liz Truss was raised by nuclear disarmament activists … she turned right at university … her critics see in her a bizarre tribute act to the Tory party’s most deified figure (Thatcher) … these tepid reactions bode ill for party unity. The contest is bitter and personal. Whoever wind, their share will be the lowest of anyone since Ian Duncan Snot in 2001 … Johnson is an accomplished storyteller who could disguise the holes in his agenda. Neither of the candidates to replace him is as skilled … John Stuart Mill once labelled the Conservatives ‘the stupid party’ … when asked to explain why he support Sunak one Tory grandee highlights Sunak’s tendency to read policy briefings … sounds like praising somebody for putting their trousers before leaving the house. But it would be an improvement on the current occupant of Downing St … stupid policies are needed to win the support of the stupid party … with the Tories wandering towards defeat the soundest, cleverest politician would struggle … With her plans to ramp up borrowing to pay for £300B in tax cuts – supported only by “an economist,” Patrick Minford who said Brexit would improve the nation’s finances to the tune of £135B per year Liz Truss shows a conveniently flexible view … surely she understands that being voted Tory leader by 0.3% of the population and being advised by one of the more swivel eyed economists does not give her a mandate to tear up economic principles … Rishi Sunak cited Brexit as giving opportunities on the necessary scale … he cited Teesside Freeport … ‘that is the type of radical thing we can do’ … er, not quite General Electric had pulled the plug on plans for a wind turbine plant … Sunak might want to check if everybody is as fired up as he is by his answer to Britain’s economic woes as he is …  Huge fire in London – source discovered (a pair of Johnson’s pants) … a joint editorial by British Medical Journal and Health Service Journal argues that living without Covid preventative measures other than vaccines is killing the National Health Service … a George Cross will not compensate for this … without sufficient clinical and care staff in good health there will soon be no viable NHS or social care system … at no time in the last 50 years has the NHS been so close to ceasing to function effectively … even if measures had been introduced a year ago the NHS would still be in crisis. It was clinging on by its fingertips before the pandemic, after a decade of austerity … because of staff shortages many work so hard they do not get regular food and drink breaks. Many have got badly dehydrated and suffered urinary tract infections during the pandemic … ‘we were so overloaded I did not realise that one of my patients was one of our nurses until she died. I was devastated. … Frontline staff are usually the first to notice serious problems, too often their concerns are ignored or they are vilified for raising them … staff are under huge stress and are unable to deliver high quality care … ambulance trusts have been doctoring their data to cover up failure and avoidable deaths … 

Pip Pip            Medway Delta (Retired)                       Saboteur First Class

Private Eyelines
Available to buy direct from the author via ETSY. Also on Amazon at a higher price.
Re-Boot Britain
Re-Boot Britain is a practical methodology on changing minds about Europe and Brexit. Find it on Amazon or buy direct from the author via ETSY

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