Anthony Grayling is the author of about 30 books on philosophy, biography, history of ideas, human rights and ethics, including The Refutation of Scepticism (1985), The Future of Moral Values (1997), Wittgenstein (1992), What Is Good? (2000), The Meaning of Things (2001), The Good Book (2011), The God Argument (2013), The Age of Genius: The Seventeenth Century and the Birth of the Modern Mind (2016) and Democracy and its Crises (2017).
He has been a stalwart campaigner for our continuing membership of the European Union. Join us for this unique event. Professor Grayling will speak for 40 minutes, then 20 minutes for question followed by a facilitated event to digest the lessons from his talk.
A lot of school rules did not seen logical to me. I didn’t always conform
The event is co-promoted by Re-Boot Britain, Mid Kent European Movement, East Kent European Movement, Alliance4Europe and The Rejoin Party .
Alliance4Europe is a non-profit working to activate citizens for a more democratic, inclusive and sustainable Europe. It builds coalitions for pro-European action for more impactful campaigning. Omri Preiss is a co-founder and managing director of A4E, with a background in EU policy-making and human rights advocacy.
Here are our first cut stories from our Scenarios to Rejoin exercise. We are still working on these and you can join in every Monday at 8 pm via ZOOM. So far we have four thematic stories which may end up mixing and intermingling but at present are separate:
Bluff, Bluster and Bust – predominantly macro-economic
Breadline Britain – predominantly socio-economic
The Empire Strikes Back – predominantly political
The Eye of the Irish Tiger – predominantly global but focused on the post Brexit world outside Albion, so not exclusively Ireland, more a competitive scenario as to how the world responds to Brexit especially near neighbours
I’ve yet to capture some of the other scenarios – environmental and long range legal stuff. But we have made huge progress down to your efforts. Please get in touch to add your fingerprints to the work.
Please be kind. These are by no means finished and need your input.
Bluff, Bluster and Bust
London made a bid for independence in 2030 as news that the UK economy slipped from No 4 in 2015 to No 11. This had been preceded in 2029 after the UK Brexit economy finally tanked. The Sun reported the headline “England sick as a Brexit dog”.
The rot had started much much earlier, when Rishi Sunak removed the triple pension lock in 2022. This produced a generation of pensioners that were effectively living on the breadline, unable to support children and grandchildren, selling off their homes to pay for retirement and care homes. This was compounded by stagflation due to Brexit, as wages levelled off and National Insurance increased. Working people struggled to get well-paid jobs. Brexit economists struggled to find diversions to point the finger for Britain’s problems elsewhere but the underlying logic of high structural costs and declining economic activity defined our early years of so-called freedom. Things became so bad in 2024 that some people in UK insist on being paid in Euros. The Lugano Convention had still not been signed by 2026 but Britain continued to rely upon services to drive it’s economy, yet Lugano prevented UK from thriving in a post Brexit world. Save for an uptake in food production which happened as a necessity after The Hunger Games in 2022, Britain was broken.
The new EU tax avoidance scheme came into force on January 1st 2022. Brexit supporters started to become angry that it meant that Amazon et al had to pay tax in the countries they operated in within EU countries, whilst Britain became a haven for companies who wished to avoid tax. This meant that people were exploited to even greater levels than before and thus the dream of Brexit became even more distant.
Contributory factors to the decline of Britain as a world economic power began quickly after Brexit with Scottish independence in 2023, Irish unification in 2025 and a decision by Wales to seek independence in 2027. Their economies disappeared too, although Boris Johnson tried to hold back Scottish independence by moving UK public service agencies out of Scotland. Once the contagion began, it was unstoppable with London seeking to make itself a Crown Dependency and Cornwall and The North-East asking for Regional Parliaments.
In other disruptive and unexpected events, cybercurrency became regulated as the Bitcoin economy collapsed in 2025. Jacob Rees-Mogg lost everything in 2024 in the Sterling Crisis, after overplaying the markets with his financial trading company. The Daily Express headline said “How the mighty have fallen”, whereas The Sun ran with “Mogged off’. The Brexit illusion of Singapore on Thames came back to bite people where it hurt most. Never more had bluff, bluster and bust made more sense to the blowhards of Brexit.
Join us on Wed 8th September to discuss Rejoining the EU with Professor AC Grayling – Click picture for your ticket
Breadline Britain
By 2031, the impact of The Brexit Hunger Games had been felt through civil unrest, the formation of The People’s Progress Party (PPP), formed from the fragments of Labour, Lib Dems, a merger with The Green Party and Memoranda of Friendship with the independent Governments of Scotland, Ireland, Wales and The European Union. Although the party could not stop the damage done by Brexit, Brexit carnage had eventually unified the people against the remnants of the Conservative Party. This took place after an attempted takeover by Jacob Rees Mogg and following the worst riots ever seen on the streets of Britain in 2022, after the impact of Brexit on food supplies, prices and availabilities of goods and services previously taken for granted. One of the earliest acts of the PPP was to prosecute various culture carriers of Brexit. In 2026 a group of these people were jailed for various offences, including Boris Johnson and Priti Patel.
The PPP was formed in 2023 in a complete volte face of traditional politics. People were selected for office, based on rigorous selection methods and then elected by people’s assemblies. Whilst the party had some politicians drawn from the best of the crop, it was formed from people from business, the arts, community leaders and so on. This was informed by the insight that some celebrities and sportspeople were more skilled and popular than Westminster politicians. This was however no populist uprising. The PPP insisted on informed democracy, fought the election in 2024 on some old-fashioned ideas about trust, reforming politics and healing the country. They won a majority of votes but lost the election to the Conservatives due to the existing FPTP system This was based on some very good campaigning, based on an Enough is Enough message and a promise to make a Better Britain in a Better Europe through Better Politics. This included plans for electoral reform. It had become clear that the European Union felt they were better off without Britain at the table and, although they had left the door open to rejoining the EU, it would come with some important pre-conditions. The most important one was for a complete removal of the Brexit ultras from power, to avoid a “Hokey Cokey Brexit” i.e. in/ou/shake it all about approach to EU membership. Other items such as Schengen and Euro membership were negotiable depending on whether they felt that our standards of democracy were acceptable and the degree to which English exceptionalism had been removed from the political culture.
Breadline Britain tipped over in September 2021, when children were seen crying in the aisles of Dudley Tesco, as their parents fought over the last packets of frozen chicken nuggets. An angry woman was heard to say “I voted to get my country back, but not for a chicken shortage. I was duped”. Once Brexit food import restrictions kicked in on October 1st 2021, the situation rapidly deteriorated. Shortages were not limited, sporadic and selected. They were continuous, deep and they touched everyone in strangely different ways. Still one or two leave voters celebrated the Blitz spirit. Laura from Basildon won a prize on “Come Dine Without Me” and went to No 10 Downing Street. She was reported as saying “I’m actually not that hungry”, when having an austerity Christmas lunch with Boris Johnson.
Government plans to mitigate foreign lorry driver shortages due to Brexit backfired badly into 2022. The 2000 army HGV drivers diverted to deal with the 100 000 foreign lorry driver shortage were quickly rediverted to deal with the Autumn of Discontent, which emerged because of the food shortages and rationing of specific items. Attempts by food retailers to up HGV driver wages to £55 000 were of course welcomed by lorry drivers. However, it quickly became apparent that this would “drive traffic” around the supply chain of drivers, as some ambulance drivers, HGV drivers in other sectors etc. decided that they fancied a better wage. It simply created deficits in other areas. The initial reaction of the public to the “Keep on Trucking for Britain” campaign was positive but turned sour quickly, as people realised impacts on prices and NHS services.
A tipping point in the Brexit debate was the so-called “Pigs in Blankets” famine of December 2021 where frantic parents fought for Turkeys and the trimmings in supermarkets after the supply chain broke down. Preceded by a number of marches for and wildcat disturbances at food depots in Britain, Bernard Matthews was asked to join a Government taskforce with Ian Botham and Roger Daltrey on the future of turkeys for Christmas. Botham promptly attempted to blame farmers for the problem and was squewered by Matthews who was heard to say “Bootiful”. Meanwhile M&S Chair and former Conservative Party MP Archie Norman pointed out “This is totally down to Brexit. Nothing to do with COVID and the product of a party I was once proud of, but which has now put Brexit ideology above pragmatism”.
But Britain was not beaten. Boris Johnson, buoyed up by the birth of his second son, Aristotle, whipped up enthusiasm for British Bulldog Spirit and initiated a new scheme called Grow for Britain, where house owners were given a £50 grant to convert their gardens to allotments, using Afghans as live-in labour as part of their cultural conversion. Johnson appeared on Gardener’s World just before Christmas in a project with Monty Don to convert the Rose Garden into a cabbage patch just before Carrie delivered Aristotle to offset people’s thoughts about food shortages at Christmas. In real life however, the British people found that micro farming was not popular, especially in the middle of winter.
Brits, freed from lockdown restrictions and loaded with cash sought to unload their excess financial baggage by holidaying in Europe and beyond in 2022 and 2023. But they faced a new problem. Sterling. In 2022, Sterling had parity with the Euro and in 2023, with the dollar, due to Britain’s new standing in the world as a third country. Although some continued with their holidays, Rishi Sunak introduced restrictions limiting the amount of money taken on holidays to curb the Sterling crisis. The Daily Express was unable to blame the problem on Johnny Foreigner and used the headline “Pounded by Brexit”. Queues at passport control when the EU channel was absolutely empty made holiday makers irate, aside from the hassle and £6 charge to go into Europe. But most staycation holidays in Britain were out of reach financially for many people, as prices were hiked due to supply and demand considerations.
Can’t get no
Shortages continued at a deep level for two more years until 2024, but they never actually went away completely. Some items simply disappeared from shelves. Many were unexpected, such as bleach, diagnostic tests, tonic water and some medicines for rare conditions. As with all crises, human ingenuity finds a way. If an out-of-stock item was discovered in a particular town on a given morning, all the stock would be gone by 9 am and then sold on the black market. “Only Fools and Horses” became the reality in trading scarce goods and every village had a character known as Del Boy. Clandestine banana trading was used as a kind of proxy to preserve community spirit as Del liked to say “’Ave a Banana” to keep the neighbours sweet. The Police noted a small rise in looting, not of money or property, but of vegetables from gardens. All the while Boris Johnson refused to accept humanitarian aid from the EU during the UK “hungry gap”. This is the few weeks, usually in April, May and early June, after the winter crops have ended but before the new season’s plantings are ready to harvest. Boris Johnson continued his campaign of deflection into 2023 after he swapped Carrie up for a debutante who was working as a media relations executive at The Daily Express. This followed Carrie’s failure to host a third child for the Johnson dynasty.
Little things seem to irritate more than the big-ticket items. Whilst people were prepared to forget the £37 billion wasted on fictional PPE and the 150 000 unnecessary COVID deaths, they found it extremely annoying that the EU’s new satellite system Galileo made GPS navigation much more accurate with implications for driverless cars and HGV’s into 2027. Insurance companies started to insist on the use of Galileo as the gold standard for driverless vehicles and people were able to access Galileo on a paid for basis.
Although Boris Johnson attempted to deflect the fact that Britain has systematically degraded its levels of food security over decades, people were more persuaded by the continuing food shortages in 2022 and the so called “Andrex Wars”. Strategies to pay lorry drivers extra by commercial companies are seen to backfire after it becomes obvious that these were taking staff away from NHS ambulance drivers and critical services. In any case smart young people who saw the future did not want to take up careers as lorry drivers as they saw the advent of driverless trucks in 2028. Some hauliers upgraded to LHV rather than training new HGV drivers. The trucks were more efficient, lower GHG emissions per tonne transported.
After a complete meltdown of the Conservative party in 2027 and the removal of the Brexit ultras from power with some being imprisoned, the PPP finally got elected in 2028 and began the business of Rejoining the EU. This was preceded by riots by pensioners after free prescriptions were removed in 2026 on the road to privatisation of the NHS.
Join us on Wed 8th September to discuss Rejoining the EU with Professor AC Grayling – Click picture for your ticket
I came across a Linkedin post that wrote just before the referendum in May 2016 entitled “Should I Stay or Should I Go“. It attracted a lot of commentary including a 2916 word essay from one chap who outlined all the benefits of Brexit. I was reminded of the article and struck by just how inaccurate his predictions were. I reminded the chap of this, an HR professional, now retired. He replied that it was a casual comment and not an essay. He then became angry as I called him to account and phoned me up to tell me to ‘lighten up”. Why would I when he has ruined future generations’ futures? Later on he removed his comment and left Linkedin to cover his tracks. I confess that this was not my finest act of Brexorcism, but nonetheless, I’m sure his essay will have appeared to have weight. I’ve summarised it here as an interesting record of Brexit illusions. The trouble is, he still believes them!! Here is a summary of the main illusions that Paul has swallowed:
TRUE : We are not leaving NATO et al
FALSE : Security implications of Brexit remain unclear
FALSE : Border and travel issues are a major source of Brexit problems
FALSE : The UK economy will benefit by Billions – in fact the reverse is true
FALSE : Farming is a shitshow under Brexit and has hardly begun. Fishing the same
FALSE : Human rights are significantly reduced under Brexit
FALSE : European workers have not continued to flock here under Brexit. We are yet to see the full impacts in transport, NHS, care, hospitality, construction and so on
FALSE : Jobs and production will not move out of UK. We have seen a steady stream of jobs leaving the UK under Brexit and again this is just the beginning
TRUE : We never lost our sovereignty. The withdrawal act stated it on the first page of the document
The European Movement has an election coming up for Branches Forum Chair and I have been encouraged to apply for it. Here is my 500 word pitch. Do call me on 07725 927585 to ask me why I deserve your vote.
Peter Cook
A Better Britain in a Better Europe for a Better World
As the UK’s leading pro-European group, with 73 years of history, nationwide membership, European-wide reach and unique international links, The European Movement can transform our nation’s fortunes. By uniting pro-EU and anti-Brexit branches and affiliates, we will return to the heart of Europe.
Having written 12 business leadership books, my career spans science, business consultancy, MBA academia, professional speaking and music. At 18 I joined The Wellcome Foundation, a philanthropic pharmaceutical company, working internationally, developing human insulin, novel medicines for herpes and bringing the first HIV / AIDS treatment to the world in record time. My business background gives me the skills to tackle so-called “wicked problems” in decision-making and problem-solving. With 18 years teaching MBA’s, 27 years running a business and all my life playing music, I bring a scientific mind, creative spark and business discipline to The European Movement.
I am an unparalleled pro-EU/anti-Brexit campaigner around the UK/EU focused on engaging people of all persuasions on their own terms. I have done considerable media work on Brexit on TV/Radio/MSM in the UK and around the world. Please check my profile at LinkedIn or via Re-Boot Britain.
I see the Chair role as that of a “gardener”, helping germinate ideas, providing nutrients to convert embryonic ideas into action, cross-pollination of initiatives and so on to help branch chairs and committees develop, grow and strengthen their groups. I will work with you full-time to:
Attract, engage and unite younger and more diverse audiences to address our demographic time bomb. By targeting universities, embracing different lifestyle groups and harnessing popular culture, we can re-ignite the spark of what it means to be a citizen of the world.
Resolve complex challenges and fixing “unfinished business” on key issues such as NationBuilder; completing the BARNS reforms; defining organisational direction; promoting a shared vision for Re-joining the EU; protecting the constitutional relationship between the centre, our membership and local groups etc.
Reach outside the bubbles of our disunited Kingdom. We need to build on superb initiatives such as the Euro Cafés. By working with business communities in all sectors and local politicians from all parties we can deliver powerful, authoritative messages in the mainstream media. My book Let’s talk about BREX..it, based on thousands of hours interviewing people, also shows how therapeutic interventions on a 1:1 and small group basis are highly effective in changing minds.
Help our Movement’s branches and affiliates shift the Brexit narrative by reaching parts of the media that others cannot. Much social opinion is embedded in what people consume in local papers and from resulting social media conversations. Through well-placed letters, phone-ins, commentaries on articles, op-ed pieces in newspapers, radio and TV, our groups’ amplification can change the “diet” of what people consume in the media on Brexit. We are experts on this and we must multiply our impact.
Any questions? Call me on 07725 927585. To sample our work, join us every Monday at 8pm on Zoom. We are presently working on short and longer term scenarios for Rejoin – see the work in progress below. Please register for our special event with Professor AC Grayling.
Peter
Short term event strings
The longer view – join us to refine the scenarios every Monday at 8pm
Whilst you are here please support our audacious tour of the UK by clicking the link
We are also going to the Reading Festival with grassroots groups at the end of August
JOHNSON & JAVID PROCLAIM FREEDOM DAY –LET COVID SPREAD FREELY !
This decade has produced several examples of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Brexit, for example, is reversing the economic recovery arduously achieved during our membership of the EU, from being the sick man of Europe in the 1970s up to 2016, by when we had become the top European recipient of foreign investment. (That is no longer the case). The handling of the Covid pandemic under Johnson’s incompetent Brexiteer regime is becoming a further case.
On his appointment as health minister, Javid announced that July 19 would be the end of the line for Covid restrictions, that this date would be “the start of an exciting new journey for our country”, and even that the nation would be healthier without the restrictions ! While the number of cases was “ticking up”, the number of deaths remained mercifully low. The number of hospital admissions had doubled by then but he saw no reason to delay beyond July 19 because no date we chose came with zero risk. Knowing we simply cannot eliminate the virus, we had to learn to live with it. This was an extraordinary statement, coming from a new appointee with a background in banking and politics but no experience of healthcare. It was contrary to the views of virtually the whole of the medical profession and NHS. Javid either did not bother to take the advice of his scientific advisers or chose to ignore it.
He and Johnson think that, with the older generation doubly vaccinated, the Covid effect will be reduced to little more than a severe cold, complacently assuming 100,000 cases per day to be acceptable. However, whilst deaths and intensive care cases have been relatively low so far, the Delta variant of the virus has had a more serious effect on the younger generations than a cold. With cases at 30,000 per day and surging , the pressure on hospitals is now approaching the levels of the earlier Covid waves, when beds and treatment were unavailable except to Covid patients. Javid apparently ignores deaths from failure to diagnose and treat diseases such as cancer through lack of facilities, which, it is estimated, matched those from Covid in the previous waves.
There are other consequences which our new health minister fails to understand. New Covid variants arise in conditions where the virus is able to spread freely, and in a partially vaccinated population will promote the emergence of vaccine-resistant variants. The Javid/Johnson policy of “living with the virus” thus opens the door to a stream of new variants, up to omega, with the likelihood that those with greater resistance to vaccines will emerge. Another aspect is the serious after-effect of Covid, known as ‘Long Covid”, on a sizeable proportion of sufferers.These may include damage to breathing, muscles, joints and other organs as well as brain fog, all for an indeterminate period and irrespective of age of the sufferers or the severity of the attack itself. The risk of Long Covid falls particularly on young people and children, who are mostly still unvaccinated.
Johnson’s retort to critics is to ask; “If not now, then when should we open up?” The obvious answer is “NOT NOW”. The vaccination programme needs more time, for all the reasons given above. Johnson’s ”Freedom Day” is a piece of ballyhoo to gain cheap publicity, welcome only to those with no concern for the health of others. His exhortation is to the public to “behave responsibly” is not credible from a man whose own career has been marked by irresponsibility, rule breaking and self-indulgence. Its purpose is to enable him place the blame of any catastrophic fourth wave on the failure by the people to follow his guidance rather than on his government’s neglect of its duty to protect them. Don’t be duped !
Paul Bowers, our parliamentary lobbyist has produced an excellent letter to promote All-Party Parliamentary action on the EU which we may customise (attached).
We seek to target wobbling Tories as a first tranche and, of course, opposition parties.
Please go to the Google sheet and populate the sheet with details of relevant MPs and add your name if you plan to write to your MP.
Here is the letter to customise:
[Name] MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
Dear [MP]
All-Party Parliamentary Group on European Union
I am writing as a constituent to ask you to consider setting up an All-Party Parliamentary Group on the European Union.
[I am a member of {name of activist group}]. I voted Remain in the 2016 referendum, and I have campaigned on the issue ever since.
[Insert personal connection here – In addition, my husband is Estonian; I have fond memories of studying at the Sorbonne; I once ate a croissant … ]
As you know, leaving the EU has damaged the UK’s fishing communities, threatens our farmers and food security, has cost eye-watering sums for financial services, harmed our creative industries, and forced many exporters either to scale down or to relocate. The Government’s encouragement of relocation is as much an admission of failed policy as are its plans to support retraining for farmers. Brexit has also damaged UK democracy, reduced our standing in the world, stigmatised EU nationals, and divided our country.
I believe that membership of the European Union is a necessity for the UK.
However, the response of the major political parties to the result of the 2019 general election risks creating a vicious circle of despair. Many voters wish to rejoin the EU, but feel that this is not possible because politicians are not showing leadership to that end. They feel politically homeless.
If no voice in Parliament even addresses the damage of our loss of membership, nor points out the opportunities presented by new developments within the EU, such as the growth of the green and digital sectors from the ambitious NextGenerationEU recovery and transformation plan, we will not be in a position to take advantage promptly of any opportunity to promote membership that might arise.
According to the APPG Register of 2 June 2021, there are Groups on individual European countries, on Erasmus and on Reuniting Britain Post-Brexit, but not on the EU itself.
As you may know, Article 11 of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement provides that the European Parliament and the UK Parliament may establish a Parliamentary Partnership Assembly “to exchange views on the partnership.”
In its Resolution 2021/2658(RSP) of 28 April 2021, the European Parliament endorsed this, envisaging an Assembly which would monitor implementation of the TCA, and suggesting that its remit include “the right to submit recommendations for areas where improved cooperation could be beneficial for both parties and to take joint initiatives to promote close relations.”
An APPG could support this work, and undertake a number of other roles:
Raising awareness of the damage caused by Brexit and the broken promises of Brexiteers
Channelling constituents’ views on policies that might reconcile them to EU membership
Creating a basis for lobbying within your own party in an effort to shift the leadership towards Rejoin
Representing the experiences of EU national constituents and their children
Providing scrutiny of the TCA, now that the Government has abolished the Commons Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union
Commissioning research, providing spokespeople to the media and promoting an informed view of the EU, life outside, and the accession process
Providing a conduit to Parliament, through external membership, for informed activists
Contacting the Conference on the Future of Europe to discuss reforms that might help reconcile UK voters to a future return, and to stay in touch with new developments in the EU
I hope you will consider this suggestion positively, and speak to other Members about the possibility of creating an APPG on the EU. The longer we go on without one, the more glaring the omission, and the harder it will be for politicians to break the silence on this most vital of issues.
Brexit : they think it’s all over. But it’s far from done. As the COVID umbrella lifts, Brexit is beginning to show its ugly heads. And, in the vernacular of Priti Patel, it’s all kickin’ off on Saturday 12th June with the worldwide premiere of Rage Against The Brexit Machine’s new song Alo’ Vera – Football’s Comin’ ‘Ome Euro Mix.
Saturday marks the start of the Euros and an exclusive live performance of the song at Chesham to celebrate Rejoin EU’s campaign in Chesham and Amersham. As with the Eurovision song contest, it rather seems that Global Britain’s attitude to aid and trade will leave us with “nil points” when it comes to re-booting Britain.Having asked for extra time for the transition period to mask Brexit carnage, Johnson is now losing trillions of pounds on “penalties” and he no longer knows where the goal is. But has Britain got the legs? Or will it crash out of the Euros, and of being a serious player on the world economic pitch?
Rage Against The Brexit Machine (RATBM) aims for the Premiere League, lining up for a Number One on Friday June 18th. Alo’ Vera latest release in our Pop versus Populism series, a rousing football-inspired pop pathos marching tune. A match for any match, it’s a tale of what’s finally comin’ ‘ome, and it ain’t Priti Patel’s fruit pickin’ teams, the European Corona care nurses or the easiest deal in history.
“Brexit was a game of two halves … but now the players are off the pitch, we wonder whether we should be supporting another team?”
Peter Cook, Brexorcist in Chief, RATBM.
Alo’ Vera – Football’s Comin’ ‘Ome is the follow up to “The Brexit Party” album” – the party album to end all parties. This includes other Brexit classics, which we will be performing from 11.00 am in Chesham, an unlikely location for a worldwide song release!
• A Chas & Dave Cockney Brexit Knees-Up “Bollocks to Brexit”.
• The punk-metal-trance-funk grind “Nigel Farage’s Garage”.
• The unforgettable Bojo French sex anthem “Take Back Control”, a fusion of “Je T’Aime” and AC/DC.
• A poignant dance floor track called “In Limbo”. An epic project with 20 voices from all over Europe.
• An 18th Century Tory Trance Floor Acid House Groove “Jacob Rees-Moog”.
“Music reaches our heads, hearts and souls in ways that politicians only dream of. The art of protest just found its 21st century voice. Corona Crisis + Brexit Disaster = Britastrophe”.
For an exclusive interview on Rejoining the EU, contact me and we will arrange with the Rejoin party leader / candidate.
Please join us in Chesham/Amersham this weekend to support The Rejoin EU Party from 10 am each day and tbc Batley and Spen. The economic reasons to rejoin the EU are now so widely published, given the disasters that have unfolded for so many industries since Brexit day (the fishing industry, the farming industry, the finance industry, the entertainment industry, the list goes on!) that I do feel that for many of us on the Rejoin EU side of the argument it’s become low hanging fruit.
But let’s remind ourselves there are so many more reasons to be part of the European Union than the economic ones.
The EU has been the biggest and most successful peace project in history, taking a continent that has an almost non-stop history of war for two-and-a-half millenia and forging an unprecedented peace. Some will argue that this is a product of a higher level of civilisation we have now reached, and it would be simply unthinkable to go back to our warlike roots. But when you consider the speed with which Britain despatched its warships to a protest by small fishing boats recently, you have to wonder.
People of my generation (mid 50s) were also able to take advantage of educational, cultural and lifestyle choices within the EU unrivalled by any other generation in history. The Erasmus scheme (which the current government spitefully chose to jettison, even though we could have continued whilst being outside the EU) opened the door for hundreds of thousands of UK young people to travel the continent. Many of whom chose to go on and base their lives within the city of their choice only to have it cruelly ripped away from them with Brexit.
As for the UK itself, it now finds itself in an existential crisis with the future of Scotland and Northern Ireland more uncertain than at any point in recent history.
And then there’s the science projects, the global environmental activism, the protection of food standards, the safeguards on dignity of lifestyle for those of us in the LGBTIQA+ community. All gone in a heartbeat, with total power over all our lives now in the hands of a hard right government with no obvious moral values (and I certainly don’t need to remind anyone where that can lead to).
So, to a question I often find myself turning to these days : “where is the opposition to this”?
When I was persuaded that establishing the Rejoin EU party as a registered political party as well as a pressure group was appropriate, I thought we’d spend more time supporting other opposition parties and their candidates then standing ourselves. We are pledged to provide a rejoin EU voice in any by election where one doesn’t otherwise exist.
In Scotland, that means very little work on our part. With the Scottish Greens and the SNP unashamedly arguing for our return to the top table, all our party has to do is be as supportive as possible.
Sadly, we don’t have the same options in English by elections. The Labour Party are calling on us to “embrace Brexit”, the Liberal Democrats have a leader who’s stated they are “not a rejoin party” and shows no sign of retracting this statement, whilst the Lib Dem conference supports only a “long term aim” of rejoining the EU (i.e. WON’T be giving voters that choice in the next general election) and the Green Party limit their discussions to rejoining the customs union.
Whilst many firm pro-EU advocates within these parties are trying hard to get stronger commitments, the collective narrative that “Brexit is done” becomes harder and harder to shift. Which is why we are lucky to have two amazing candidates in Brendan Donnelly for Chesham & Amersham and Andrew Smith for Batley & Spen in the upcoming by elections.
And even if, as Private Eye have phrased it so eloquently in the past, we end up as the only folks “sitting on the fruit cake stall” whilst the political mainstream ignore the issue so be it. I regularly ask myself, am I just crazy being the only one who can’t see the benefits of Brexit? Perhaps it’s part of the arrogance that comes with being a middle aged white dude, but in this instance, to quote Lily Allen, : “it’s not me, it’s you”.
Every day, people of all persuasions tell me “Brexit is done – we can do no more”. More than many, I understand just how wearing nearly five years of gaslighting, shapeshifting and obfuscation is on the soul. But, in spite of it all, we can and we must:
Re-Boot Britain is a pan-political advocacy and lobbying network. Let’s restore humanity, humility, democracy and truth in politics to Britain. Nearly five years of lying, gaslighting, shapeshifting and obfuscation gave us Brexit. Lets’s put the populist genie back in the bottle, by bettering the populists at their own wicked games:
* Reform politics towards representative democracy.
* Break the parliamentary paralysis that broke Britain.
* Take back control (sic) of populist media across our divided nations by making our case for a Better Britain in a Better Europe for a Better World
* Create mind-shifts to move popular opinion about Britain’s role in the world.
Brexit has consumed Britain : 3 elections, 3 Prime Ministers and 3 failed attempts to Brexit. It has left us weak and vulnerable in our response to COVID.
A political backbone has been absent in Britain for nearly five years and probably longer. The diverse and disparate Remain movements have sometimes gold-plated the strategy that lost them the referendum, albeit with the best of intentions. Various attempts to build cohesion and collaboration into our movement have failed, rather like one of the biggest silo-based monolith public sector organisations.
Yet we cannot allow the greatest disaster next to climate change to threaten the next generation’s futures to continue. Our continued resistance is both moral, a fight worth having and certainly not a waste of tiWatch the video below for a quick overview of the project:
Read more about the background to this in our paper “Brexit Futures“. Although the paper was published in January 2020 and is therefore out of date, much of what it says remains relevant, especially the second half, on the question of reforming our fragmented movement. The paper has been adopted by Grassroots for Europe and a number of other large pro EU institutions including the Federal Trust and Hendrik Klassens, the originator of the #FBPE hashtag.
The panic buying associated with the Corona outbreak gave us a sneak preview of what Brexit will look like. This is merely an hors d’ouevre for Britain, if we allow things to continue. As I write on Jan 04 2021, people are beginning to work out the impact of our thin deal via companies who are refusing to supply UK with goods and services, problems with Amazon / ebay etc.
THE WHY : OUR AIMS
THE HOW – STRATEGY
We are building a full time professional advocacy movement with the aim of breaking the deadlock of our “dead cat” politics:
1. Breaking Parliamentary Paralysis – via lobbying MPs using a variety of means.
2. “Taking Back Control” of populist media via press and media activity in national and local print / radio and TV media.
3. Develop much better reach into social media, in terms of honesty, depth of penetration and reach across Britain.
4. Changing minds on Brexit via 1:1 conversations and / or en masse via online leaders’ debates and other grassroots strategies.
HOW II – OUR ORGANISATION
We have a team-based network structure across Britain and Europe. What we cannot do ourselves, we do with others e.g. The European Movement, Grassroots for Europe, EU Flag Mafia, UKPEN and so on. We invite you to join one or more of these bubbles, giving consideration to your skills and will. We run weekly ZOOM meetings. Please drop me a message to join an induction meeting or one of our regular tactical meetings where we create campaigns and media.
HOW CAN YOU HELP?
We ask that you join us with a suggested donation of £10 per month or £100 pa for Silver membership. If you can spare more, please consider higher level donations of £25 pm / £250 pa or £50 pm / £500 pa. Or please just give what you can afford on an ad hoc basis. Everything helps.
Silver : Gives you basic early access to our daily stream of writing and media
Gold : Gain copies of our work in advance of release (books, music, media). Exclusive invites to our regular series of conference calls and seminars
Platinum : 1:1 coaching in the art and discipline of changing minds on Brexit plus all other benefits above
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Isn’t Brexit already done? A piece of paper was signed
We had our “Chamberlain moment” on 31.01.20 plus Boris Johnson some time spent in a gulag (fridge), finally getting Brexit done through using COVID and Christmas as a weapon to distract us from the realities of the “oven-ruined Brexit deal”. But Brexit is a political process and the law is merely a servant to the politicians. We now face a winter of discontent, as the realities start to bite. Anything is possible in such a climate, including the dramatic fragmentation of an 80 strong majority and / or the slow removal of the populist culture carriers from power, just as Trump has been leavened gradually. If you are not sure on the relative powers of politics versus the law, just think of ONE occasion when the Government obeyed the rule of law in the last five years, or other precedents. Here’s a few where they didn’t:
1. Gina Miller’s Supreme Court Case 2. The Cooper No Deal amendment – No Deal was deemed illegal, yet it was used in 2020 as a threat to secure Brexit 3. Pro-rogation of Parliament 4. The 6 million petition was ignored 5. Planning to break international law to get Brexit done 6. Allowing rapists to continue acting as MPs 7. Re-introduction of the death penalty, which threatens our trade agreement with the EU
… and so on. Our Government is beyond the law. We should not be so keen to give them excuses to continue doing this.
If political will changed, the law would be made to fit the circumstances and lawyers would spend years and earn a lot of money re-arranging the law to fit the circumstances.
Is it too late? We finalised things?
We have now exited the EU via a highly compressed timetable and limited scrutiny of the trade deal. Mark Francois has already declared that the fight for a hard Brexit will continue and negotiations will continue for many years as contradictions and conflicts emerge. We can use various legal devices such as Article 49 and or the formal review process built into the trade agreement. We live in a disruptive political climate with the toxic mixture of Corona + Brexit = Britastrophe and we have no idea whether Boris Johnson’s Government will survive the oncoming tsunami.
What will we do with the money?
We will hire a small organisation – A PA, fundraising team, professional web platform and so on. Also allocate up to 50% of the funds to support our full-time input. Voluntary activity is fine but we need full time professional help to be agile and able to react. I am prepared to set my work aside to do this but I also need to live. Of late we have had to install security and surveillance measures due to death threats and actual attacks on my property from angry people who claim that continuing to talk about Brexit is anti-democratic.
What is our organising structure?
Strategy and Leadership team – Members of this team are established strategists and people who can lead and manage others. All leaders of the other teams are automatically part of this team and we invite people from other Remain / Rejoin organisations for collaboration purposes.
Fundraising team – Members of this team understand how to raise funds for a cause or are willing and able to amplify the efforts of the leader of the fundraising team.
Social media amplification team – We need a team of people who have time to give across the major social media – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram etc. either in content generation or pure amplification of our social media footprint. Our ABV (Anti-Brexit Virus) Super Spreader networks are already established on Facebook and Twitter. Our real enemy is not Corona, it is the populist politics that offer “easy answers” to complex problems.
Mainstream media team – Members of this team write great letters, articles and / or conduct credible interviews with MSM across print, radio and television. You may be members of the public with media skills, business leaders, political pundits, journalists, celebrities and so on. We must punch above our weight in MSM using colourful material with gravitas added.
People, Parliament and Power team – You will likely possess skills of influence and persuasion, both in terms of positive advocacy and possibly the “dark side of the force” e.g. Machiavellian and Sun Tzu type strategies to deal with opponents. European Movements liaison team – Our strength is the extent to which we are able to operate as ‘boundary crossers’ to minimise the silo-based structure of Remain. You will be an avid and capable networker, able to gain co-operation from the main organisations.
Scotland, Ireland, Wales and The EU team – Brexit means that there will be significant moves towards independent nations and regions of the UK. We will support local elections and other activities to help others gain independence. You may live in England. Website and media production team – We’re looking for people with skills to upgrade the website and produce video and other media.
Events team – Working with other national groups such as EU Flag Mafia, Grassroots for Europe, we support other grassroots groups in delivering impactful events. We have already staged a Festival of Brexit and other events and plan more. Administration team – We are looking for a team to assist our professional PA to smooth communication and co-ordination. We plan a weekly briefing to members and our networks to help bridge the many silos in the Remain organisation.
Holding Brexit to account team – Essentially, you will be a good analyst and someone who can interrogate data and convert it into powerful information via reports and other media.
Oh, no, not another anti Brexit movement?
Our difference comes from the fact that we will be more direct than professional politicians, outsmarting Nigel Farage et al. at their own wicked games. We will also rely more on professionals in their field rather than volunteers. This will give us the edge in terms of responsiveness and agility. At the same time we will collaborate with other pro EU and anti-Brexit groups across the board, acting to amplify their efforts. Despite best efforts of the many local grass roots EU organisations and various central quangos which have now folded, much of our work has suffered from “initiative constipation” – see Brexit Futures for more insights on this. In brief:
* We collaborate with the major national and international Remain movements.
* We have no party politics but work with people across parties.
* We allocate full-time professional effort to our organisation. Voluntary effort alone, whilst welcome, has not given us sufficient energy, agility and focus.
When I was five years old, I wanted to be in The Beatles, but all the jobs were taken … By the age of 12, I wanted to be a scientist and I became one. At the age of 18 I took a job with a philanthropic pharmaceutical company, working around the world and developing the first human insulin, novel medicines for herpes and to bring the first HIV / AIDS treatment to the world in record time. This means that I bring a scientific mind, curiosity and rigour to your enterprise.
By the age of 30 I had developed an interest in business leadership and began teaching MBA programmes, having completed 3.5 degrees myself. At 34, I took myself out of a paid job and, for the last 28 years, I have worked independently as a consultant, author and speaker with people at all levels all over the world, helping them to transform their enterprises. My clients seek to balance their passions, purposes and profit for a more responsible and sustainable form of capitalism in the 4th industrial age. I also help leaders digest what we call “wicked problems and opportunities”, in other words, the issues that keep them awake at night, using a unique mixture of divergent and convergent thinking skills. My 28 years of consultancy experience bring a wealth of expertise and wisdom to you, in enterprises as diverse as Unilever to the United Nations.
Along the way, I have written 12 books on leadership, innovation and creativity, gaining a prize for my work from Sir Richard Branson and various accolades from Professors Charles Handy, Adrian Furnham, Tom Peters et al. Over some 50 years, I have gradually combined my three passions of science, business and music into a potent mixture which reaches the head, heart and soul of your enterprise.
In combination, your enterprise benefits from rigour, analytics and curiosity due to my science and business background, plus the emotional intelligence, creativity and improvisation skills that come from my life as a music composer and producer. As a musician I have been privileged to interview world class musicians such as Roberta Flack, John Mayall, AC / DC, members of Prince’s ensembles, Queen’s production team and Meatloaf’s singing partners for their insights into leadership, innovation and success.
I am a passionate advocate for better politics and better business for a better world, fighting populist politicians and short-termism in our global affairs. I am an “HR” person, i.e. a “Hippy Realist”: green by ideals, but pragmatic by actions to change the world towards more sustainable behaviour.
Anti-Brexit activism
On terms of my work over the last five years, I have led the Rage Against The Brexit Machine project, having written three albums of anti-Brexit protest songs and got one of them to Number One on the Amazon chart. “Brexorcist in Chief” for Mid Kent 4 EU, I wrote a book on the subject of having difficult conversations with Leave voters from many thousands of hours of activity on the street, in cafes and bars. Out of all this time, on one occasion I gained two black eyes for misjudging an interaction with angry leave voters. I was also arrested by Essex Police for driving a Mini Cooper with “B*llocks to Brexit” on the side. They asked me to remove the signage on the hard shoulder of the M25. Sadly for Essex Police I called 999 to have the officer arrested. 250 000 Tweets later, Essex Police had to retreat with an apology for putting their lives and ours at risk. I should emphasise that the vast majority of our dealings with the Police and public have been cordial and uneventful.
I stood a stuffed cat in the 2019 General Election. Although the cat was only there to create tactical voting, to my surprise, Stan the Cat did not come last in the ratings, beating the Christian People’s Alliance who had been campaigning for 15 years with a budget !! Aside from the above sensationalism, I’ve managed to get our cause into the BBC, ITV, Sky, LBC and all major print media from The Guardian to The Express without ANY media agency or budget, just by using a professional approach. Whilst some Remainers consider me “underground”, my approach is much more effective than the blowhards in committees who simply watch things happen.
For nearly 5 years I have acted to dispel the illusions of Brexit. At 62 I am at some risk from Corona and consider that a fitting epitaph for my life would be the destruction of Brexit populism for the sake of future generations.
I need your help. Please write to YouTube. It’s not just for me. It’s about ALL of our rights to freedom of speech. As some of you will know I compose music and produce videos that speak truth to power on Brexit and our sleepwalk into fascism in Brexit Britain. I make no apology that some of them are “edgy”, reaching the parts that other people’s work do not. However, I do NOT use nudity, violence, drugs or pornography to make my point. As art reflects culture and our society slips deeper into sleaze, lies and cronyism, the means of my video production have followed this trend. It seems that I have upset the Conservative party and we believe that they set their bot farms on me recently. The result of this has been an outright ban of my material on YouTube. I use the site for my business activities as I don’t hide my day job from my activism. As a result I have lost some 15 years of work from the site with massive impact on my ability to continue working.
Please write to YouTube about the freedoms of speech issues that this raises (they only have a complaints channel so use that) and contact them on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and other social media channels. You will need this link to identify the channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs79-V9-2F36d2hjti4-p0Q If not for me, for future generations who will lose their rights to speak about human wrongs. You can begin here with this Twitter thread. Please retweet the whole of it, add people who care and reply to the tweets. An algorithm caused this to happen and they need to see the other side of the story. At the moment, I am still talking to robots at YouTube and we must break through to a human being.
Dear YouTube
I am a well-known activist against Britain's Brexit which undermines our children's rights freedoms and futures. Doubtless you will be aware of Brexit albeit from a distance. @YouTubeCreators@YouTube
— Re-Boot Britain – Rage Against The Brexit Machine (@BrexitRage) May 31, 2021
In case you are wondering about the “ITV Testicle”, here is the video “wot dun it”, with the testicle removed for Facebook:
Some good news. Here is the AC BC track that caused all the fuss. Download Whole Lotta Brexit to support our continuing work.
Click to download. Don’t just steal the music, buy it please
This is what I have already tried below. YouTube are extremely busy and so they use robots to make automated responses within minutes. It becomes clear that they don’t do any overall analysis of accounts during that time. We must reach a human being. My attack by Tory bot farms on YouTube is not just about the loss of a few satirical videos. All my business content over 15 years is there and this has effectively killed my business. Brexit really has broken my will to continue at this point.
YouTube appear to think that the words to La Marseillaise is full of nudity and sexual content – who knew?
Please help. In the words of The Manic Street Preachers:
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