I attended the local church hustings recently to face down lies from the Reform party and the Conservatives, who had fled the scene of the crime. Here are my answers to questions levied by the public. Click on You Tube to view. The whole hustings were two hours and this summary is the shortest I could make it with some annotations of the questions.
The film covers a wide range of issues and I’m available to answer others on request. More below on Food Banks.
I offer five key points of difference compared with the mainstream parties:
100% independent so no party whips to obey. My stakeholders are our citizens.
Brexit must be ended as a priority. No-nonsense trying to “Make Brexit Work” or mealy mouthed accommodations which fail to address the elephant in the room. We stand to gain £140 BILLION per annum as a start from making a commitment to rejoin the EU. Money which can be spent on healing the damage of 14 years of Tory chaos. All talk of growth by other parties is vacuous nonsense without dealing with Brexit.
An acceleration of our efforts towards net zero and the climate crisis in general.
An immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a Northern Ireland styled dialogue to resolve the mess.
Reforms to our democracy, truth, trust and transparency in politics.
We have just been ranked as five stars by Stay European, above all the major parties. If you want to Rejoin EU in Gillingham and Rainham, please vote Independent.
I bumped into someone I used to know at open mic jam sessions the other week. I knew him as ‘shy Elvis’. A diffident individual who would only perform Elvis songs and then only after extensive rehearsal. At the time (maybe 10 years ago), he seemed intensely nervous and rather shy. He inhabited the persona of Elvis Presley with brylcreemed hair, sideburns and a rockabilly sense of fashion. Rooted in the 1950s but probably born in the late 70s or early 80s, he was something of an enigma.
Pump it up
I was in a local pharmacy where a much older Elvis was haranguing the local pharmacist. I could not help but listen as he had raised his voice considerably. It was clear that he was on a whole cocktail of medicines for anxiety, depression and a palette of what could be described as 21st century malaises. Several items of his medication were unavailable and the pharmacist was patiently explaining this to him. He was shouting “but I have to have medicine x, I have to have medicine y”. He became more aggressive towards the female pharmacist and she went off to investigate the possibility of securing supplies.
Micro Brexorcism
I interjected: “Hello Elvis”.
He did a double take. I reminded him about our acquaintance at jam sessions. He recognised me, so we had just a sliver of rapport.
I went on “Just to explain, she cannot get you the medicines as there are massive shortages due to Brexit”.
He barked back, having not really listened “I don’t care, I just want my drugs”.
I repeated calmly “Brexit is causing your shortages. She cannot help that”. The pharmacist had returned by that time and nodded privately to me.
Elvis then shouted again at her “I just came to get my drugs and I’m now getting a lecture about politics”.
I replied “I’m just trying to explain why you cannot get your medication”. The pharmacist nodded and then asked him to come back in a few days.
I would hazard an educated guess from my previous contact with “Elvis” that he probably voted for Brexit or perhaps did not vote at all and became cross that I had in effect connected his lived experience to the root cause of his problems. This is what we must do as part of a much longer Brexorcism process.
Ask Elvis …
Keep asking Brexiteers difficult questions using every opportunity.
There’s a lot to be done in the next six weeks in the run up to the General Election aka Independence Day. We have a one time opportunity to change the course of the future … this will not wait !! I am spreading my effort across a number of initiatives to meet several goals :
To remove the Tory majority and end the chaos of 14 years of Tory disaster capitalism jet propelled by Brexit.
To introduce more plurality in Parliament and make sure that Brexit and Joining the EU anew remains on the agenda.
To this end, we have several collaborative projects which you must join:
Getleafletting
To get a minimum of 500 000 of our ABC (Anyone But Conservative) leaflets out to various constituencies. Please order yours NOW by mailing me at reboot@brexitrage.com Guide prices : 500 = £42, 2000 = £67, 5000 £100 etc. These are non-party campaigning leaflets, perfectly legal to use alongside regular campaigning. We need a small army of people to get these leaflets out. If you cannot deliver leaflets but want to get the Tories out, please send money so that we can buy the needed leaflets and resource distribution. By sponsoring others, you will get digital copies of the leaflet to use on social media and in other communications.
Mail us to get your leaflets.Mail us to get your leaflets.
Boots on the ground – Epsom, Ewell and Leatherhead
We will support Helen Maguire on the ground and online in Epsom, Ewell and Leatherhead. The area is Chris “Failing” Grayling’s constituency and the new Tory candidate is a Trump supporter with a reliable track record of losing elections!! Having worked on the ground in Epsom, Ewell and Leatherhead for Gina Miller, I have determined that the area is a two horse race between The Lib Dems and one nation Tories. As such and having done some due diligence on the situation I can no longer support Gina Miller’s party in Epsom, as I believe it will split the vote to stop the Tories. To help the Lib Dems to win this seat in the blue wall on the ground, online or both, please mail me at reboot@brexitrage.com
Helen Maguire’s pitch.
I plan a meeting to discuss the GE at the Ewell Tap on Thursday May 30th. This is the same day as BBC Question Time.
Boots on the ground – Rejoin Party
We will support the Rejoin Party in Sidcup and Bexley and in other places where they are standing. Rejoin are fresh from a massive vote in the London Assembly Elections and will publish their target seats soon. Who’s in for this?
Rejoin EU.
Boots on the ground – The Climate Party
The Climate Party are a small party with an excellent strategy to target centre-right voters who are concerned about sustainable development and environment but with a pragmatic view of how Britain may seize the initiative from zero carbon politics. Ed Gemmill leads the party. They seek candidates and volunteers and are willing to pay the deposit for standing in July 4th. See Change the Climate. Ed is himself targeting “Brexit Hardman” Steve Baker’s constituency of High Wycombe, a worthy target for a man who has done so much damage to Britain. If you can help in target seats below, get in touch via info@theclimate.party We are especially interested in candidates in the following areas below but if you have vim and vigour, please apply anyway.
One mission, One vision.
Target Seats,
Swap My Vote
Maximise your vote in an unfair system by swapping it. It’s perfectly legal and decent in a broken FPTP system. Find our more at Swap My Vote.
Collaborate to win
Join us at 8 pm Monday 27 May on ZOOM via this link to discuss plans to change the course of history at the election.
The Labour Party knocked on my door at the weekend. An extremely pleasant man began the canvassing by introducing himself and then asked me if I had any local issues that were troubling me. I replied with one word : BREXIT. I also apologised later on for telling him things he probably did not want to hear. He seemed fine with that and our conversation was cordial. Some of the hoops we jumped through are here for the record.
I began by explaining that I was finding it hard to vote for a Brexit party and revealed that I knew some senior Labour people who had told me that they would commence Rejoining in 2032. I explained that nobody would know what Brexit was by then and, in any case, the damage wreaked by Brexit would be mostly complete and much of it irreversible. I went through my usual argument that growth was for the birds, with a 4.5% resilience knock from Brexit, akin to trying to swim the English Channel with a 4.5 kg block of concrete around one’s neck.
Brexit resilence concrete
He listened carefully and then tried a few gentle pieces of pushback:
“Well the Conservatives won’t reverse Brexit” … I replied that I was not so sure, citing the fact that there was evidence of incremental movement to undo some of the worst elements of Johnson’s Brexit deal via the Windsor framework and our rejoining the Horizon science scheme. I went to point out that David Cameron had not come back to politics for a game of tennis and that one scenario would see Cameron pivoting towards the centre leaving the ERG loons in a boat on the Channel. I pointed him towards our articles Tectonic Plates and Cameron.
He went on to say “But the Tories will pivot towards the far right” … Again, I had to disagree, citing my appearance on James ‘O Brien, where I said that the votes were in the centre and that whilst it may appear that the far right are in ascendancy, this was only due to the loudest voices on MSM, such as Braverman and was not supported by the numbers. He nodded. I went on to say that Labour now have a major PR problem, having decided to partner with someone who supports sex pests and who relishes the thought of drowning children in the English Channel.
He found it very hard to argue against this recent development with Nathalie Elf Thick, but did ask me “What was Keir Starmer supposed to do?” … I replied that he should have simply thanked her for her kind offer and politely declined. Elphicke’s arrival in Labour offers them few advantages but also may cause them significant problems. I have wondered if she has actually been sent in under a false flag. We shall see. It seems rather fishy that the Tories instantly denounced her. Smells like a double bluff to me.
My canvasser’s parting shot was that he’d put me down as a floating voter, after I said that I may even have to hold my nose and vote Tory if Labour would not change its position on Brexit. I explained that Brexit was at the heart of many of the things he was hoping I might talk about (cost of living, NHS, migration etc.) and showed him my Brexit iceberg in the window of my house. It was a bit like doing a slightly nerdy keynote address with a poster in my window instead of a PowerPoint visual !!
The Brexit Iceberg.
I am hoping that he’ll report all of this back up the channels to Labour strategists. I was really impressed at our dialogue and how well he listened and constructively challenged me.
On the other hand, I heard from one of our group that Labour are banning posts on their Facebook groups that mention words like Erasmus, Horizon, ULEZ, Brexit etc. Labour are just as bad as the Tories in terms of censorship. I’m pleased to say that this has not extended to my local fb group, although the levels of misinformation are beyond comparison in the group. Some examples are below:
There are still industrial levels of misinformation out there. Don’t be like Steve.
Never give your voting intention away as you lose power to influence policy by doing so. I am still contemplating standing a candidate for the Rejoin party or possibly a cat again.
I note empirically from loads of conversations in real life and on Linkedin that the last remaining Brexiteers really only have one issue left. It’s their illusion that the EU is an unelected, bloated dictatorship. Although online Brexorcisms are essentially a waste of time for a host of reasons, other people do notice the whining desperation of these people and therefore I spend a little time on this artform. Here’s a sadly amusing sequence from Steve Rimmington, who today admitted that he was diagnosed with mental health problems but refused to get treatment. I am left wondering if this influenced his Brexit vote (only joking of course – mental health problems, particularly untreated as in Steve’s case, are something that the Government and everyone need to take seriously). I always seek an answer from such people about the benefits of Brexit. None ever came during our exchange and instead Steve tried distraction and gaslighting. None of these work as someone who wrote the book on Brexorcism. Here is some of our exchange, as a series of responses to a post from Sir Keir Starmer.
Steve’s valid objection is that I have not worked as an employee in the service sector. It’s true. Yet I have met plenty of people who do. One does not need to have committed suicide to be a suicide counsellor and so on. More importantly, Steve does not seem to understand that Zero Hours Contracts are particularly a UK phenomenon, with many European countries outlawing them. Zero-hours contracts are NOT permitted in: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Spain. So, UK was able to operate these bad HR arrangements whilst it was a member of the EU. This rather debunks his notion of a controlling EU superstate. Exploitation of workers is a feature of bad management and that’s what a decent Government might address in a decent political system. Our Brexit government has failed to do so and the direction of travel is back to the workhouse. Although ZHC are currently running at a rate of 3.6% the trend is upwards in Brexit Britain and I agree with Steve that they are a bad feature of our employment landscape.
Steve decides to take offence at this point. As a self employed person of 30 years I have effectively always been on zero hours, having juggled clients over this time. So, I do understand the uncertainty that this can produce. Having said that, I chose my employment arrangement which makes an enormous difference. As a former CIPD Council member, I can confirm that Brexit will gradually lead to poorer employee protection.
Steve attempts to suggest that I blame everything on Brexit. He has not seen my multiple causation / correction iceberg model that includes COVID and Ukraine as causation factors for our malaise. However COVID is a short term effect and Ukraine has only really had a dramatic effect on oil prices and, to some extent, food. Brexit has affected our resilience to the tune of 4.5% GDP loss into the future. Like trying to swim the channel with a 20kg block of concrete round your neck.
The Brexit iceberg – a simplified multiple cause / correlation model.
Brexit’s Breaking Britain.
Steve then tries more shapeshifting to avoid answering the simple question about the ‘many benefits’ of Brexit. In a very usual trick he tries to blame the EU for OUR decision to leave the EU. He appears to have forgotten the promises of zero friction, only sunny uplands and no downsides with immediate benefits. In a real life Brexorcisms I never let people pass to a new subject until they have answered the set question. Rather than explain the benefits of Brexit, Steve suggests that I have insulted him. An insult might be something like “you smell”, but as is clear here I have kept to the simple question of asking him to explain Brexit benefits. In real life, this very occasionally leads to violence. Despite this, I always advocate real life rather than online Brexorcisms due to the factors mentioned below. Steve demonstrates these well.
The perils of working online with people who have quasi religious beliefs about Brexit.
Steve has worked out that I’m getting bored so he attempts to cough up some benefits. The COVID vaccine story is a verified LIE. And the Australian deal heavily favours Australia being worth just £11 bn as compared with £550 bn with EU. To put this in plain terms, the Australian trade deal offers a potential saving of just £1 per household. How will you spend yours? Steve was right when he stated that he was humouring me. Sadly the self-inflicted slow decline of a once proud nation is not funny.
Steve does not understand that we were so desperate to secure Brexit deals that we effectively are in a Brexit fire sale. The Australian deal crucially threatens our farming and farmers. And the CPTPP deal is worth LESS than 0.08% over a decade. Even Nigerian Fraudster Kemi Badenoch has admitted this. Steve does not understand negotiation strategy. All the more reason for Steve to read Reboot Britain. I know he won’t. He will just get more angry with his Brexit buyers’ remorse and attempt to blame others for his decision. And finally on the questions raised at the outset of this article:
BLOATED : The EU has around 30 000 Civil servants to serve 500 million people whereas Britain has 502,710to serve 67 million people. I will leave you to do the math. This has increased by 19,260 in recent times. It is the UK who score most highly on bureaucracy.
UNELECTED : Contrary to headlines in the Daily Mail / Express, EU officials are elected.
DICTATORSHIP : The EU sets guidelines for high standards of behaviour in many areas of global governance, but individual nations are free to address national issues. If it were a dictatorship, everyone would rive on the same side of the road, bullfighting and fox hunting would be banned and so on. The accusation is quite simply barking mad. In many areas the EU is way ahead of Britain in terms of democratic processes such as Citizens’ Assemblies and so on. For dictatorship see Belarus and North Korea.
At this point I concluded that Steve was really a waste of my time online. I left him with the option of calling me for a proper conversation or an online debate. I much prefer real life conversation as a medium for Brexorcism. I do offer crayons with all direct purchases of my books by the way. Steve left me with the view that nobody could predict the future. Of course, he’s right, if we are talking about the precision of forecasting methods, scenario planning and so on, but it is entirely false to say that Brexit futures cannot be predicted. Most of the predictions made by the Remain movement have come to pass and the worst is yet to come. I am not King Canute either. At this point, Steve does not realise that the Bank of England have withheld an evaluation report on Brexit. I can only presume it makes for uncomfortable reading …
Not only have we had five Prime Ministers since Brexit, we have also had five lecterns. Each of them have a different character, like each PM and each has cost the taxpayer more than Angela Rayner’s alleged tax scam. Liz Truss’ Jenga lectern cost an uncool £4175, seemingly appropriate, as, no doubt it could be rebuilt into something else 49 days later … In this article we look at the emerging “academic discipline” of lecternology inspired by Peter Hurst and Peter Stefanovic.
Cameron
Cameron’s lectern was designed by his head of operations to appear “statesmanlike”. Cameron was the youngest PM and, as such, the wood for his lectern was sourced from B&Q, using freshly cut pine with a curved, flared column, signifying agility and smoothness, and a glossy finish to signify superficiality. Read more on Cameron at Cameron.
May
The simple religious cross style of Theresa’s oak lectern symbolises her victimhood as the Prime Minister who felt a sense of duty to serve but who ultimately would be hoist by her own inner conflict. In the end, the ERG and Remainers placed her on a cross for sacrifice in favour of someone more malleable. That person would be the fatberg formerly known as Boris Johnson.
Johnson
Johnson’s lectern column and base are the thickest of the five, matching the intelligence and heft of the incumbent. “The Johnson” as it was referred to in No 10 was constructed of teak for strength, as it doubled as a shagging plinth for internal use. It is believed that Carrie’s children were conceived on “The Johnson” along with other random offspring from the Brexit staffers during Partygate.
Truss
The Truss lectern is perhaps the most interesting in so far that it is constructed using Jenga. This would enable quick breakdown and reassembly after her 49 days tenure. We have an authentic woodchip replica of The Truss ceremonial lectern available on e-bay for the bargain price of £30 000. This would enable us to stand a lettuce for election in her South West Norfolk constituency. Tony Hanlon commented on the spiral construction “Its a treasured memory of her death spiralling of the economy”.
Truss has since blamed the failure of her Brexonomics budget on the infiltration of left-wing Norwegian wood into her lectern at a cost of £70 billion to the taxpayer and the ruination of young people’s hopes of home ownership. John Lennon, Kate Bush, Chris Witty and Angela Rayner have been blamed by The Truss, along with left wing lawyers, left wing carpenters, carping judges, civil servants, punk rockers, classicists, MDF, lettuce, homosexuals, trannies, the blob, layabouts, drug users, climate protesters, smoking bans, Potter Heigham, Brundall, The A47, The Bank of England, The OBR, UN, The Queen, charities, do-gooders, poets, artists, piss artists, vegans, Christians, Moslems, London, wood carvers, carvery owners, wood workers, sex workers, sex swappers, The Lib Dems, brie, gorgonzola, camembert, left wing cheese, real ale drinkers, real world thinkers, Remoaners, men, women, children, animals, plants, left wing micro-organisms, algae, fungi, Liz’s parents and all members of the deep state who sought to bring her down. The Jenga lectern proved to be her downfall and it was nothing to do with her incompetence, social ineptitude and the triumph of confidence over competence. That is a disgrace. In Liz’s own words “Liz Truss is best ignored”.
Click on the description to buy The Truss on e-bay.
Sunakered
The Sunak lectern is paradoxical. It is bigger than the other lecterns although Sunak is possibly the shortest Prime Minister in history. The upright section is designed to obscure both of Rishi’s legs for reasons of modesty and as support in case he were to break one. Just like its user, the Sunak lectern has no integrity, professionalism or accountability, being made from offcuts from the “previous administration”.
All of the above are, of course, pathetic attempts to look in control by people who are easily persuaded by presentation over content.
The only good Brexit … is a dead Brexit … it has become painfully clear that Brexit has not delivered any of the so-called freedoms, nor solved any of Britain’s problems or opened up opportunities of any equivalent value when compared with our previous membership of the ‘club’. Yet, even the Financial Times find it necessary to court proven liars such as Matthew Elliot in their recent film on the subject. Elliot attempts to make the argument that Brexit has not delivered because our mainstream politicians are not willing to seize opportunities, but then fails to identify any. It’s a thinly disguised argument to invite the Brexit ultras to the table, and with it, full fat fascism to Little Britain. Watch the FT film at the end of this article. Before that, watch this two minute short piece which sums up what Brexit was really about. My film is devoid of academic references as these tend to need much more time, but the supporting facts and validation can be found at the accompanying article Populism will eat itself.
Music soundtrack by Peter Cook. Available on Bandcamp.
Brexit has failed
The film has already produced a visceral reaction from a leave voter who has clearly been affected by the film’s dystopian machine-styled soundtrack (deliberate) and the speed / brevity of the messages. He appears to have been somewhat triggered by the experience, which is good. Sadly, ‘Alan the Hat’ has no collateral in terms of his own research, content etc. Nor does he have any followers on his You Tube channel. I aim to provide a good (free) service and admittedly packed a lot of text into two minutes. Alan clearly has problems reading big words and sentences that are more difficult than “the cat bit the dog”, so I have provided a summary of the points below so he may study them in greater detail.
Brexit in 2024 – a summary
Tory gaslighting on an industrial scale fuelled Brexit. It continues via a daily stream of dead cats to take people off the scent of Brexit. Examples incude the need to incarcerate legal migrants, identity politics, constant scandals etc.
Brexit delivered 4.5% GDP LOSS into perpetuityand a broken NHS which Boris Johnson promised to fix, with the fabled £350 million per week on the bus. Brexit has damaged our resilience as a nation and therefore our ability to settle strikes with public sector workers and so on. Growth is for the birds in such circumstances. We are once again the sick man of Europe.
Cost of living impacts have Brexit as a major contribution. Food inflation has reached 20% There are more to come once border checks come in later in 2024 … In the next 28 days we will see further inflation on goods imported from Europe and barriers to trade for exporters. See Brexit Inflation. The Brexiteers’ explanation of this is that Brussels are ‘punishing’ us. Get real, we are now no longer a member of the golf club hence there are associated costs and barriers.The Golf Club analogy I made in 2018 is prescient here:
We are now a third country. Membership had benefits.
Brexit has delivered broken businesses, broken promises, broken lives and broken livelihoods. It is not true to say that Brexit Breaks Britain as this implies that Brexit is done. It is not and I deliberately choose the phrase Brexit’s Breaking Britain as it is more accurate.
Brexit weaponised an increase in racial tension from Brexit extremists such as Patel, Braverman, Badenoch, Anderson, Gullis, Mordaunt, Mogg, Farage, Tice Truss et al. They are responsible for killing people seeking safety from warzones.
Brexit has meant broken promises to farmers, fishermen, police, teachers, social carers et al. As a small example, the British replacement for the Common Agricultural Policy does not compare in any way to what we had, faults and all. Listen to the farmer in the FT film below for more on his topic.
Perhaps one of the real reasons for Brexit is yet to materialise … ‘Singapore on Thames’ beckons, with the ‘sale of the century’ via SEZs and a return to a feudal society. If you want to understand what an SEZ is, read @EuropeanPowell’s explanation of what you are about to receive whilst you are being gaslit by tales of royal cancers and gender reassignment..
Extract from @EuropeanPowell’s work. Follow him on Twitter.
Brexit is not done per Boris Johnson’s lie of an ‘oven ready deal’. Impacts will continue for the next decade.
Liz Truss’ experiment in Brexonomics cost an uncool £70 billion and ruined young people’s hopes of home ownership in just 49 days. Just imagine what the Brexit hardcore could achieve.
Boris Johnson used COVID to literally ‘mask’ Brexit impacts … what I termed a ‘Britastrophe‘.
Johnson must have jumped for joy when COVID hit. It was an opportunity to kill 30 000 OAPs in care homes whilst operating as a mass distraction for ‘getting Brexit done’. Click the image for more on our Britastrophe.
Brexit means a loss of freedom of movement, student exchange scheme and more travel friction / costs. All of this is self inflicted as part of our so-called democratic referendum.
Both the Tories and Labour are presently engaged in distraction, distortion and dead cattery, in their attempts to erase the mistake of Brexit and secure votes. Brexit has so far claimed five Prime Ministers. It will also claim Keir Starmer.
Brexit will continue to break Britain unless we Join the EU anew. We can do this. The door remains open and even The Telegraph are now recommending it.
All the while, Labour are asleep at the wheel of Brexit misfortune. Keir Starmer cannot deliver his transformation without recovering our resilience.
‘Stop the boats’ has failed. It was yet another dead cat to channel people’s anger in the Daily Mail / Excess. In any case, better answers to migration are available. See our immigration algorithm.
The damage of Brexit is cumulative and much of it irreversible.Labour’s talk of rejoining from 2032 is therefore disingenuous and despicable.
We are essentially Sunakered. Listen to our dialogue with James O’Brien on this point.
Brexorcisms still needed
Do have a look at the FT film which overall gives a good coverage of the state of our Brexit nation. I am disappointed at the lack of fact checking of some of the statements by Matthew Elliot. Where the film falls short is in the area of leadership, preferring instead to look for incremental adjustments which will not address the elephant in the room. A few mealy mouthed journalists apologise for Keir Starmer’s “management by focus groups”. Peter Foster makes the error that, since nobody wants to talk about Brexit, it will go away as an issue dividing families. Perhaps he needs to study the psychology of ‘closure’ a bit more carefully. Sure, the word Brexit can be airbrushed out of public discourse and there has been a concerted effort by politicians on most sides to do so, but the ‘dark mark’ of Brexit will be left on society unless the issue is resolved. Resolution can come through a number of means and not just another referendum. As I said in 2019, “Let’s Talk About Brexit“, maybe the title of their film acknowledges this need. Martin Wolf comes out head and shoulders above the rest of the journos and politicos with an honest appraisal of the mess that we’re in. We do need to talk about Brexit. Conduct a Brexorcism today.
Worth 30 minutes of your time.
Don’t just take my word for it. Here’s Brexit in numbers from official Government figures and other trusted sources:
Some of our books. Click the image to check them out on Amazon.
We recently went to Dover to find out what people really think about Brexit. Most now realise that they were lied to and Brexit has not delivered on the promises from the 2016 ‘brochure’. Write to your MP to demand an end to Brexit carnage. Contrary to what people believe, Brexit is far from done and it’s possible to Rejoin if we apply enough pressure. The Rejoin Party are standing 11 candidates in the London Mayoral Election, in non-competitive seats under a proportional system, so it is possible to express your view without damaging Mayor. Watch our video account of the day:
The most insightful part of our day was not recorded, when we came upon the station staff at Dover Priory rail station. Three men and one woman. The woman was born and bred in the area, had a mining family from Shepherdswell, probably voted Labour originally, but voted for Boris in 2019 on the promise of stopping immigration. She planned to vote for Reform as she felt betrayed by the Tories. As usual she was resistant to questions about being lied to (time was very short for a decent Brexorcism) and said she did not care about future generations (again this is typical of the residual hardcore Brexiteer). Her colleagues were most amused as we asked questions and gently prodded her about her underlying xenophobia (one of the other station staff was black).
This list will probably be out of date by the time it is published. Thank you to my musical chum Dr Mike Alexander for sending me this list. Fear of losing one’s seat is a powerful motivator and the Tories have run to the hills to quote Iron Maiden. Order our leaflets to end Tory rule.
Douglas Ross – Moray (announced 14/10/21)
Charles Walker – Broxbourne (announced 2/2/22)
Crispin Blunt – Reigate (announced 1/5/2022)
Mike Penning – Hemel Hempstead (announced 17/5/2022)
Adam Afriyie – Windsor (announced 22/7/2022)
Andrew Percy – Brigg and Goole (announced 8/11/2022)
Chloe Smith – Norwich North (announced 22/11/2022)
William Wragg – Hazel Grove (announced 22/11/2022)
Gary Streeter – South West Devon (announced 25/11/2022)
The popular view of Theresa May in the wake of her decision to stand down as an MP is ‘good riddance’. As always, I wish to put forward a more nuanced view. My title does not wish her dead by the way, just that she now has some peace from the swivel-headed loons on both sides of the Brexit debate. Here’s a few inconvenient facts for Remoaners and Brexiteers alike:
Sure, yes, May’s record at the Home Office was pretty terrible. The hostile environment and so on. Not as terrible as Patel, Braverman et al, but terrible. Then there was Windrush …
However, May appointed a 52:48 cabinet to respect the Brexit vote, whereas Johnson reduced the gene pool to far right nutters and sycophants. See my interview on the BBC for more on this point.
I spoke with Michel Barnier a little while back. He pointed out that May had two battles to fight. The one on Brexit and the bigger one of her own party fighting like cats in a sack. Eventually they killed her. Paul Witts nails the leadership difficulty in one pithy paragraph:
“The second most difficult thing in the world is to admit to someone that you made a mistake … that you were wrong. The most difficult thing in the world is to admit that to yourself. But as time and pandemics pass, an ever-growing number of people who voted for Brexit after being duped by dopes with red buses, are running out of other things to blame. They were promised the Nirvana of a “global Britain”. Slowly the reality is dawning, and that Nirvana is beginning to look like a scene from a gritty 1970s inner-city gangster movie … complete with outside toilets, spam fritters, rickets, and pints of warm brown ale with suspicious-looking white floaters, served in pubs with sticky carpets.” Paul Witts.
Although the only good Brexit remains (sic) a dead Brexit, Theresa May’s deal was the ‘high water mark’ of Brexit deals. Crucially it covered the economic relationship, security co-operation, cross-cutting issues and institutional arrangements that would preserve the future relationship. if you cannot now remember the details, see Institute for Government. Johnson systematically degraded May’s deal to get it through Parliament. He allowed no scrutiny of the deal using Christmas and COVID as a distraction and not even reading the contract himself. Rishi Sunak has quietly tried to restore elements of Theresa May’s deal through what I called a Pay as EU go rejoin strategy. However, ‘Logical incrementalism’ has many faults, as I pointed out in conversation with the BBC’s Jonty Bloom.
May fought her own party, saying that they would end up with no Brexit deal at all if they did not unite on more than one occasion. Mr Bullion is always on point (and pints) with points about strategy:
“My view was always that May was a fundamentally strategic establishment appointment in case Cameron lost the referendum. Hence her nickname the Submarine. My conclusion was that she was genuine and understood what was happening both to politics in general and her own party, but both Remain and Brexit ultras over played their hands, and the Brexit ultras played the Trump card.” Alan Bullion.
The illusion of control Johnson style – a fancy slogan but totally vacuous.
May did not indulge in public backstabbing of her own party. I’m pretty sure she was a tough opponent in the back rooms though.
May was socially inept. Yet, did you prefer Johnson, Truss or Sunak? What exactly is so wrong about being good at the strategy and details but rather less good at the presentation? Please write to me when you have found the perfect leader.
She was however rubbish at Grenfell and I’m not saying in any way that she was perfect before the attacks on my analysis begin.
I was shot down in flames when I suggested that Remainers should support Theresa in her last months as PM. I pointed out that we’d end up with Boris and a hard Brexit. Look what happened … ? !! The European Movement and other large Remoan groups were consumed by the visceral reactions of the mob. May stayed in the party when others fled. Can anyone imagine how hard that might be?
Theresa. You are not Mother Theresa. Nadine Dorries even pointed out that you are not a mother. However I feel you are owed some thanks for trying to hold back the tide of the swivel-headed Brexiteers.
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