Watch our latest film on Brexit impacts in terms of science, technological and environmental damage to Britain. The film took days to make and it’s well worth 12 minutes of your time on a lazy Sunday instead of shouting at Laura Kuenssberg on the telly box. Brexit is far from done, as Johnson, Sunak, Truss and Starmer would have you believe, with 63% of people now believing that it was a mistake and 86% of young people wishing to rejoin the EU. There was a deliberate intent to ensure that we had a ‘boiled frog’ Brexit. This was so that people would not notice our slow motion sleepwalk into Brexit oblivion. Our frog is probably only at 50 degrees Celsius as there’s plenty more Brexit carnage to come. People on both sides of the Brexit chasm tell me there’s nothing we can do about it. They are wrong.
Our film covers the 4th industrial age and Brexit, science, farming and Brexit. Also environmental standards and the bonfire of EU laws made by British politicians and how Brexit impacts climate disaster in the short, medium and long term. And much more. Check it out.
Boris Johnson promised that the Brexit ‘sunlit uplands’ would make Britain a country where innovation, competition and growth would all thrive thanks to reduced red tape and costs. These have not materialised. All the indicators suggest that this will be the case going forward.
In the 4th industrial age, we need to support STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) in order to innovate, reach sustainability goals and profit from the age of AI responsibly. All the indicators suggest that instead of this, we will plunder science and technology as Brexit cash cows, until we drive innovation out of Britain’s DNA.
Financial support for science looks set to dwindle in the post-Brexit world. Since science is a team sport, we can expect our reputation to decline in the coming decades.
All of this impacts climate change. We entered the EU as the sick man of Europe and we are leaving as the dirty man of Europe. All so that a few politicians can pray at the altar of the false God of Brexit.
In the wake of the first Labour local council victory in Medway since 1998, I draw some post-election consequences for the Lib Dems, Greens, SNP, Labour and Conservatives. Undoubtedly, this was a disaster for the Tories and Brexit in terms of what was predicted. The Tories lost 1061 local council seats. The question is, is this enough to get the Tories done and Brexit undone?
My part in the Tories’ decline
At a personal level, I was delighted to play my part in the Tories’ decline in Medway, through long term campaigning, mass Brexorcisms in pubs, cafes, supermarkets, bus stops etc., and doorstepping in Tory voting areas over the last few weeks. My family loaned 8 votes from my family to Labour last week and some to the Lib Dems and Greens. However, we shall not repeat this performance in a General Election, unless Labour turn on Brexit and Europe. I have put their Councillors on notice to this effect.
My Tory MP Rehman Chishti became so desperate about the decline in his party’s fortunes that he decided to attack Suella Braverman about her recent demonisation of Pakistani Muslims in The Observer. This is significant, in so far as Mr Chishti has an impeccable record in voting with the prevailing cabinet. His unbridled attacks appear to have sprung from sheer desperation and a desire to pick up the Pakistani vote in my area rather than any serious conviction that Braverman is an evil spirit who was herself an immigrant. He failed. Given that the Tories have a stronghold in my area, I plan to stand an independent candidate in Gillingham and Rainham and need your help to do this NOW. Please click on the link below and back us.
Perhaps the story less covered in the mainstream media is that of the Lib Dems renaissance in last week’s elections. The Conservatives losses were fairly evenly distributed between Labour and the Lib Dems, with the Greens taking a very good proportion of votes as well. If this were to continue, the Lib Dems could find themselves as Kingmakers in a General Election along with the SNP. The Tories and Labour like the binary system which both believe they profit from. But we could find ourselves in a rainbow coalition in 2024. A lot can happen between now and then. Coalitions mean that politicians have to do things they really don’t like doing : listening to opposing views ; coming up with better decisions ; occasional compromises and so on. It’s all good with me. The people may just be the net winners in such a system … ?
The big winners here were the Lib Dems and Greens, with the losers being the far right (Tories) and the far right parties.
Green revolt
The Green party cleaned up, gaining a very respectable 241 seats in England and taking control of one Council in Brexity Mid Suffolk completely. Increasing awareness of sewage, climate catastrophe and possibly a protest vote against the far right parties aka Tories and UKIP may all have contributed to this. Let’s hope this continues into a General Election. Check our film out, based on our music composition ‘How do we want to be remembered‘.
Climate Crisis is the number one issue facing our planet.
How do we want to be remembered?
Rishi Sunakered
Sunak is under pressure from the ERG to go further right with his policies. As a holding statement on The BBC on Friday, Sunakered simply repeated his five priorities. He claims that people who cannot afford to eat were more interested in stopping the boats. Even James O’Brien is not sure what Sunak means by lurching to the far right. O’Brien frivolously suggested on LBC that it might involve bringing back the birch. I’d add bear bating, the rack and the drowning of witches, to take us back fully to Jacob Rees-Mogg’s 18th Century Brexit idyll.
An 18th Century Tory Synthpop Trance Floor dance groove we composed.
I called James to discuss Sunak’s options. Paradoxically, I suggested that Sunak would be better advised to move towards the centre ground of politics to pull the Swordaunt from the stone. James and I riffed away to my catchphrase ‘Sunackered’, which I coined in the summer of 2022. James said that Sunackered (or Sunakered) is worthy of a Daily Mail headline ‘if some guy wasn’t going to wear his mum’s hat and sit on a chair on Saturday’. Listen into to our riotous dialogue at LBC James O’Brien. #Sunackered is trending on Twitter as I write this.
I coined the phrase at the end of Summer 2022. Sunakered is free to use by the populist press. Please download the album to support our continuing work to banish Brexit bullshit.
Early indications suggest that Rishi Sunakered listened to my advice on LBC. Yesterday, Kemi Bad Enoch Powell announced that the Government has rowed back on its promise to have a bonfire of EU laws, 98% of which British politicians helped to make! Unusually, Jacob Rees-Mogg has called Sunak out as a traitor. Bad Enoch was sanctioned by TWFKASLH (The worm formerly known as Sir Lyndsay Hoyle) yesterday. Hoyle is a man who has allowed all sorts of bad behaviour to pass in the House of Commons but decided that enough was enough with the Nigerian Brexit fraudster. Mogg never calls the Government out. He even backs rapists. His outburst on the bonfire of EU law is clearly a smokescreen to get more than 20 Tory signatures on a letter to shaft Rich Tea Sunakered. I confidently predict that the approx 600 laws to be incinerated will be the ones with no large scale impact or connectivity to the main body of EU law. In other words, it will look as if we have taken back control of our laws, but, in reality, nothing will have changed, unless you indulge in some arcane Brexity manufacturing processes. For example, making car engines from English oak, impact-destructing cricket bats or pepper grinders without holes. Otto English sums up one of the many contradictions:
Still at least we've found a Brexit benefit this afternoon. The option to keep more arsenic in baby formula. What a win. pic.twitter.com/C8a9dmgXh6
And, once again, the ERG are fighting like cats in a sack. Andrew Bridgen has split the fascist parties by joining Lozza Fox’s Reshame party instead of Ricardo Tice’s Rebjorn Again party. It’s all good. Rishi is doing exactly what I predicted in order to save the Tory party from Brexit oblivion. Next he will steal Keir Starmer’s clothes, see Hard Labour. Perhaps Rishi is not Sunakered after all?
Sunackered or Sunakered – The theme tune – we were the first to convert the catchphrase into an EDM dance groove in 2022!!
Go now
In his weakened state, Sunak now needs some scapegoats. Given that the Select Committee has not yet reported on Boris Johnson’s multiple illegal, immoral and indecent behaviours, a convenient distraction would be for this committee to make a strong verdict against Johnson soon, such as full suspension from parliament. Accordingly, this would allow Sunak to blame the current malaise in the Conservative party on Johnson and Truss’ catastrophic mishandling of the country. It would also allow him to exorcise Johnson’s ghost without having to do anything himself. This is the way that Sunak likes to handle his HR decisions, through outsourcing to other agencies.
If Johnson is suspended for more than 10 days, The Rejoin Party have a plan to issue a recall petition to remove him from office and break the spaffer’s spell for good. Please join them in readiness.
VoterSuppression
The other big news about the election was voter id and voter suppression. For more on this read our full article on the subject. Early indications suggest that this will have disadvantaged specific demographic areas, such as ethnic minorities, the disabled and young people. The Government now runs the Electoral Commission and they decided not to record any data from polling stations. Correspondingly, it is quite likely that there is serious under-reporting on the extent of voter suppression in these elections. Edwin Hayward reports on over 70 case studies of voter suppression. They are almost certainly the very small tip of a very large electoral fraud iceberg.
These elections have demonstrated that the voter id system is totally unfit for purpose. I made my own small protest to the Electoral Commission. Above all else, please make your voice heard. Add your name to the call for action at electoral reform.
— Reboot Britain – Rage Against The Brexit Machine (@BrexitRage) May 4, 2023
Say no to voter suppression
The Scottish position
Although the local elections are a hammer blow for the Tories, they are not catastrophic. Labour needed to reach the magic number of 40% vote share in these elections to win a General Election outright. They won approximately 35%. This explains why Labour want to take 30 seats in Scotland. I predict an informal coalition of aggression between Labour and Conservative to viciously attack the SNP on any agenda and exploit the change of leadership. Admittedly, the SNP’s transition could have been smoother. However, I believe we will see some very bad behaviour from both Labour and Conservatives in the coming weeks and months. They must be dealt with accordingly.
That said, the SNP’s problems are temporary. The essence of SNP support and the values underpinning them will be largely unchanged by a few sensational tabloid headlines in the longer term. For comparison, I note that Boris Johnson’s many breaches of the law did not attract police tents in his garden and officers in fancy dress Hazmat suits. Added to this, Brexit delivers a daily stream of bad news, both in the short, medium and long term. Robert Peston reported that 86% of young people wish to rejoin the EU. In consequence, Starmer’s position on Brexit is ultimately untenable. I reported on Labour’s position on Brexit in the previous article “Hard Labour“. If Labour’s results are not good enough to win a General Election outright, a hung parliament still seems a likely outcome of the current optimism about the local elections.
Here’s some very short helpful facts about Rejoining the EU and putting Brexit to an early. The Tories are still trying to run the illusion that the will of the people must be respected. Brexit is no longer the will of the people with less than one fifth of the British population having vote for it.
61% of people in Britain now think that Brexit was a mistake
This figure is rising rapidly, as Brexit reveals its many ugly heads
STOP PRESS – it’s now 63% I predict it will be 70% by early 2024 !!
I predict between 67-74% by the beginning of 2024.
The upward curve towards the rejection of Brexit by the vast majority of people will be asymptotic, up to perhaps a residual hardcore of racists and people clutching Brexit unicorns (80% – insert your own number?), but it is climbing rapidly. There will be a huge social desirability to be on the ‘winning side’ once Brexiteers realise that they are no longer a majority. I find that they operate in herds. Quite why I always choose the leaders of social groupings in cafes and pubs for Brexorcism purposes.
Helpful facts. Keir Starmer, are you paying attention?
Nigel Farage has declared Brexit a failure
The demographic that voted leave is literally and metaphorically a dying breed
Public opinion on Brexit is now way ahead of politicians
Rejoining is possible but difficult. Clear strategy, focus and leadership is needed
Contrary to what people believe, another referendum is not the only way to settle the matter democratically.
Via Parliament: once Brexit carnage becomes more widely and deeply felt, legislative initiatives to mitigate the effects of Brexit (for example a single market or customs union application) may grow. If supported with the combined weight of opposition parties, who currently give the Government a free ride on Brexit, an incremental route back into EU membership may evolve.
General Election: the levels of Brexit carnage might become so great over time that joining becomes an election issue. Set against that possibility, people would have to conclude that Brexit was a cause or correlation with their lived experiences. This has been difficult so far, as CoVID, and now the Ukraine crisis, mask Brexit’s damage. However, that cloak is slowly being removed. For this reason, it matters that the word Brexit is not airbrushed out of the political lexicon. Labour’s collusion to date has thus far boxed it into a position that makes a U-turn difficult, but not impossible.
Another Referendum: a new referendum could be offered, even though I don’t favour using one. However, a second referendum might be considered as a ‘christening service’ once the ‘will of the people’ changes sufficiently. Despite the first referendum having been conducted by simple majority, it is likely any successor would require a super majority of 66%. This presents a very high bar, so it would be fair to use the same ground rules as in the 2016 referendum.
Government of National Unity: Things may become so bad that the idea of a Government of National Unity (GONU) becomes feasible once again. In August 2019, a GONU seemed a realistic possibility until the opposition parties responded to Boris Johnson’s temptation of a General Election. Considerable social, economic and political disruption would be needed for such a scenario to be possible, so the probability is arguably low. However, nothing can be ruled out in any disruptive political environment. Present scandals within the Tory party and Putin’s actions may reveal yet more problems. A coalition government is perhaps the latest manifestation of GONU. Perhaps this will get rid of our current GONADS Brexit government? !!
See the article from London for Europe for a full discussion on settling the democratic process:
Click on the image to read more on agile and flexible strategies to join the EU anew.
See below our five goals which we pursue with like minded people at our meetings. Join us this Wed at 8pm. Click on the image for the ZOOM link. Please add your thoughts on more helpful facts about joining the EU anew and Brexit disaster and subscribe to this platform.
Reboot Britain Goals.
Here’s three things you can do to make progress on getting Brexit gone:
Write to Keir Starmer about this. Please use the material in the Bylines article HARD LABOUR to help compose your letter.
Write to King Charles III using our template letter at KING CHARLES III – Yes, Chas has no authority, but he has massive soft power. Make him work for his privilege.
Join us on Wed 10th May at 8 pm on ZOOM to consider next steps after the local elections. JOIN HERE.
From Don Adamson, Brexorcist in Chief from Yorkshire.
This week’s quotes: “NHS waiting list has ballooned to 7.2 from 4.6M in early 2020 … only 18% of nurses said they had enough time to provide the quality of care they liked … You Gov poll found that almost two thirds of Brits supported the nurses’ strike … no amount of planning can prevent the anguish and inconvenience caused by cancelled procedures .. We are fighting for everybody… The 2021 Integrated Review … Johnson government’s ill fated attempt at designing a ‘post Brexit grand strategy” … a fantasy future for the UK … published the day after Putin began his first troop build up on the Ukrainian border … most ill timed piece of hubris … Royal Navy tasked with keeping open sea lanes rather than protecting the internet cables … that were mysteriously cut in October … no comprehensive national security risk assessment … blithely redirected our military and security resources to Asia … the challenge now is to make a handbrake turn … we cannot afford a fudge … we need politicians to level with the public … we are in a recession but Britain lives in a fantasy … it is going to be far, far worse … UK is the only G7 country that has failed to recover from COVID … UK growth will be second worst after Russia … how did we get to be such a failure? … Brexit … an amazingly inept and ideology driven budget … UK will be paying for these disasters well into the 2030s … Brexit is costing at least 4% of GDP permanently … tax burden … highest sustained level since WW2 …
Don Adamson
Daily active interventions on our tragic mistake to leave the EU are needed.
Waiting for people to die and looking away because it’s painful won’t get us there.
From Don Adamson, Brexorcist in Chief from Yorkshire.
This week’s comments: “Rape in Britain has the lowest charging rates of all crimes: less than 2% of reported rapes lead convictions (COMMENT: especially when the rapist is a Member of Parliament) … an exhausted and demoralised NHS workforce was leaving to take low paid work in the private sector putting patient safety in jeopardy … Johnson received over a £1M from a crypto mogul …. moonlighting MPs have been paid over £17M from second jobs since the last election … Over £180M has flowed into political parties since 2019 … self elected band of overly ambitious sociopaths … sadly for Britain’s politics the saints are outnumbered by the rest … National Health Service is in a poly crisis … underfunding … post Covid demand … post Brexit skills shortage … multiple systematic meltdowns … hundreds of excess deaths per week … long term impact will be more severe … outcomes way poorer than in comparable countries … ability to deliver is collapsing … not some contingent crisis triggered by Covid, inflation and incompetence … scandalous mismanagement … this government demands more productivity from people who are already working many hours a day for free …
Covid and the war in Ukraine help to make the terrible effects of Brexit … the deep, painful and avoidable damage that Brexit has done and will continue to do is becoming clearer … makes us poorer … substantial loss to the economy and the government’s revenue … the frothing Europhobes, racists and swivel eyed loons have to be fed and the country has to suffer … inevitable and painful consequences … the government knows what is happening … serious shortages worsening … crops rot in the field … Treasury is lobbied by every sector for help … the government is entirely deaf to requests … whatever the economic damage … severe shock to the economy … self harm that works directly against Downing Street’s stated aims … shameful Rwandan policy … blind indifference to economic damage … needs … would require an honest government … buggerations of Brexit … fair play to Lancashire police … in issuing a penalty charge to Richy Scumbag … perhaps take the same approach to PPE fraud, tax avoidance misconduct by Johnson … and Thick Lizzie … what a ridiculous mess Brexit has created … scandals taint No 10, business, civil service and the BBC …increasingly toxic miasma surrounding the government … states collapsing under the weight of corruption … Cabinet Secretary Simon Case displayed the intellectual and moral brilliance of Baldrick on a bad day .. seemingly endless other matters …Scumbags premiership has not imploded as spectacularly as Thick Lizzie’s but it has failed … done nothing to show he understands what is happening to the NHS … an addled King Canute sitting helplessly in front of waves he could have done something about … pledged to run a government with integrity but has some kind of personal involvement in every scandal … Johnson’s memoirs cost Murdoch £6M … sensational inside stories that will be profoundly damaging for the current PM …Zahawi demanded Johnson’s resignation because Johnson lacked integrity … Zakawi’s demonstrations of poor integrity … Telegraph’s jaw dropping admission that Tories had made a mess of Brexit …Brexit extremists again hole Britain below the waterline … sheer plodding obviousness of the corruption …
Volodymyr Zelensky cracked down on government corruption and the privileges of some Ukrainian officials (COMMENT: That would not happen here. Rupert Murdoch would not allow it) … Despite glimmers of good news a downturn is still likely … Fortune has smiled on Europe (COMMENT: might that be because Gammons and Flagshaggers are no longer around to p*** in the soup?) … car making in Britain is far graver than in decades … manufacturers are voting with their feet … if the government wants to help British industry it should focus on basic responsibilities …Six years ago British motor industry was purring like a Rolls Royce … Brexit makes it look more like a Morris Marina … 2022 was the worst year since 1956 … chances of a revival are ebbing …. Britain’s withdrawal from the EU … globalisation was good for Britain … and membership of the EU … vulnerable to government policies that reduce its allure … Brexit was that writ large … Brexit has added reams of paperwork … stymied investment at a crucial period … Richy Scumbag resembles a hapless character from Evelyn Waugh (COMMENT: Waugh was a frightful snob and professional Catholic – just like Rees Mogg) …
Scumbag is accident prone and surrounded by colleagues who cause harm … unable to escape the Bollingeresque chaos that surrounds the Tory Party … Scumbag’s inability to bring his party to heel makes him look weak … record waiting lists in A&E departments … after 12 years in power the Tories can be blamed … cuts … skimping on equipment … schemes now seem ludicrous … planners underestimated demands … Soviet fixers were called Tolkachi. In England they are known as Tory donors … Britain is vulnerable to graft … Government policies create a huge mismatch between supply and demand… Supply chain woes … unsustainable economy … projects of dubious value … jittery investors … these numbers are catastrophic for the poor… It stretches credulity to say that the Russians did not interfere in the 2016 US Presidential election and the Brexit Referendum …
Transparency International 2022 Corruption Index … The UK is a country to watch but not in a positive way … historic low … declining public trust in government … appointment of politically connected people to senior roles … attacks on democratic institutions … systematic bias …ministerial misconduct … woeful inadequacies in political integrity systems in Britain … NHS crisis has put Richy Scumbag on the ropes … swamped A &E departments … epic staff shortage … soaring numbers waiting for treatment … Like all desperate lightweights he keeps throwing one desperate counterpunch … attacking the Welsh NHS … Labour led government in Cardiff is doing more than Tory led government in Westminster … Wales spends 8% more on healthcare than England … on social services Wales spends 43% more than England … Wales has 270 hospital beds per 100,000 people compared to England’s 170 … skills gap crippling UK wide … Civitas, Right Wing Think Tank, call for Scumbag to rekindle the bonfire of income tax cuts that Thick Lizzie promised before she torched Britain’s public finances … Wales NHS performance achieved by Labour demonstrating honesty and competence … with the pandemic receding the economic effects of Brexit can no longer be blamed on Covid … polls show on 34% of British people now think UK was right to leave the EU … Brexit continues to be a major problem for the UK … the degradation the Tories have inflicted … the chasm between public opinion and the reality denying stance of the Government and the ‘make Brexit work’ stance of the opposition is growing …
Rees Mogg continued to defend on the BBC … he did not have to fight many colleagues to get the gig … corrupt and corrupting PM … a government that overlooks the damage … final nail in the coffin for the car industry … Britain is not open for business … 13 years of total incompetence … immense damage … British car industry is finished … madness of ‘Global Britain’ … overly optimistic to the point of delusion, underfunded, naive ideas … fell at the first hurdle … pathetic … a shameless attempt by the blustering buffoon … complete bullshit … completely uncompetitive … UK car industry probably doomed … industry decided to invest anywhere but the UK … just one sector that Brexit is making far worse … a harbinger of what is to come … Brexit was promoted by economically illiterate know nothings … UK gets the worst of both worlds … Rupert Murdoch fell for Johnson’s hard luck stories … agreed to £6M deal for \Johnson’s memoirs … Murdoch knows he is over paying for the book … Johnson must still be contractually bound to come up with devastating revelations … will have spooked Richy Scumbag … Johnson got Barclay at the Telegraph to £275,00 a year for 10 hours work a month, which Johnson described as ‘chickenfeed’ … British Council paid scores of teachers in Afghanistan … these individuals are on Taliban death lists … a great many of them have gone missing … they are in danger and are not allowed to come to UK … our policy is to render no assistance …Brexit has been about disrupting systems and coming up with fantasy replacements …
Telegraph says ‘Tories desperately need a Johnson comeback … delusional … all too predictable fiasco of Brexit … We give away £4B tax relief to the wealthy … Tories immoral maze … Tory cesspit … Whole edifice of the ruling class is rotten to the core … Shocking rise of something for nothing Britain bellowed the Daily Mail … far too many people are indolent and unproductive … according to Right Wing think tank Civitas … Civitas report focussed on retired households which received more in benefits than they pay in taxes … pensioners make up a substantial proportion of Daily Mail readers … decision to attack them as feckless spongers looks brave … National Health Service is littered with reforms that work inside a health secretary’s head but not in practice … Stratford on Avon residents appalled by careless tax affairs of their MP. Even Nadhim Zahawi’s Tory colleagues have tired of him … most people involved in last Autumn’s Truss disaster keep their heads down …
Middlesbrough South MP Simon Clarke explains how Thick Lizzie was fundamentally and importantly right … Royal Mail Chief Executive Simon Thompson was recently criticised for his ‘toxic inexperience’ … twitchy, blinking, toe curling performance … good at evading questions …. with every answer he gulped, recoiled and raised his eyebrows at the question … a more awkward witness had not been seen at a parliamentary hearing in many years … doubts were raised about the accuracy of the evidence he gave … Cast of weirdoes spouting conspiracy theories on GB News … Brexit induced restrictions risk impeding improvements …In December Britain borrowed £27.4B, the most for that month since records began … Many economists had similar beefs about the BBC’s coverage of Brexit, accusing it of trying to balance the overwhelming consensus in the profession a few fringe figures who suggested that leaving the? EU would boost growth … (COMMENT: BBC and Tory Party get their knowledge of economics from 1950s vintage Commando Comics) …
Family doctors in Britain see a year’s worth of accident and emergency patients in a month … 15% more patients than in 2019 with less funding and fewer doctors … fewer resources to meet rising demand and complexity … voted for a Brexit that had been burnished with the sepia tint of WW2 … nostalgia can come with a cost … less than 2% of reported rapes lead to conviction … Thick Lizzie, the shortest reigning PM ever, provided a terrifying example of how bad things can get and how quickly … a re-emergence of the miserable political paralysis that jammed Westminster 2016-2019 after Brexit triggered a nervous breakdown … “
From Don Adamson, Brexorcist in Chief from Yorkshire.
This week’s comments: “Britain left the EU on the back of dodgy promises … all over Europe leaving the EU is seen by ever more voters as a mistake after Britain’s wretched display … price of populism is becoming clearer … even Marine Le Pen has toned down her Euro bashing … voters now see that populism is long on rhetoric but short on solutions … I just do not believe a word this government says …
Richy Scumbag is briefing that the next election will be 1992 all over again … they are wrong … however bad the Tories were in 1992 they are now on another level … Richy Scumbag is more unpopular than any party leader in history after 100 days … his personal ratings have plummeted down to that of the Tories … there is no expectation of economic growth … wherever he looks there is another dead end or fundamental crisis … mired by endless allegations of sleaze … grim situation … impossible dream … truth matters … standards matter …
Rees Mogg got roundly rubbished … howls and head shaking scorn … people know that that Brexit is not working … Right wing economics have failed again … Austerity kills growth and productivity … UK fell further behind … growth lowest than any decade since the Napoleonic Wars … hard right continues to persuade people that they can have first rate public services and tax cuts … intellectual justification … low taxes create growth … no evidence this is true … state is profoundly weakened … half remembered Thatcherism … ideological drag of Brexit … UK destined to have the worst recession of the major economies, including Russia … like madman they repeat the same experiment in the hope of a different result … Johnson’s resignation honours still to be announced … always the odd preposterous name on a list … Johnson’s are all preposterous …
BBC is a place of fear and loathing … post Brexit buggerations … screams of an incompetent liar … pathetic attempts to distract attention from a dodgy loan … Floundering economy … foolish monetary policies … advice of experts ignored … corrupt and incompetent supervisors looked the other way … crackdown on asylum seekers … nothing the government has tried has worked …
Richy Scumbag’s legislation is likely to end in disappointment … impractical as well as morally dubious … shortage of experienced Home Office Staff … sloppy decision making … the longer it takes for Britain to resolve these questions the further it will fall behind EU countries … sleaze is again crippling the Tory Party … the tax burden has rarely been so high, the public services so creaky. … as for Brexit the best its backers can claim is that it is a work in progress …
Boorish Lee Anderson elevated to deputy chairmanship of the party … Westminster echoes with the chiselling of Tory epitaphs … Thick Lizzie hopes that history will eventually smile on the premiership that wrecked the Tory Party’s reputation for economic management … Johnson wishes to be remembered for helping Ukraine TV interview with Nadine Dorries, the most adoring of his erstwhile cabinet (imagine the Watergate Plumbers interrogating Richard Nixon) … “ Meanwhile Rishi Sunak has not denied the existence of aliens in Downing Street …
I recently published an article on Labour’s position (or lack of it) on Brexit. You can find the article at Bylines Scotland. It provoked an angry visceral reaction from Labour ideologues on social media. Louis told me the article was incorrect and badly written. When I asked him to point out the inaccuracies and poor writing, he couldn’t. Eventually he told me that we must all keep quiet about Brexit, deliver a crushing defeat to the Tories in the local elections and then Rishi Sunak would call a General Election. I asked him to explain his logic. He refused and drifted off into the notion that the UK will be ended if a General Election does not happen in 2023.
I share your pain, but I have to disagree with most you write. A few things you seem to overlook: Starmer is NOT pro-EU anymore, nor pro-SM/CU. He is pro-FPTP/anti-PR —->anti-democratic. If GE is not happening this year, UK will be history. And so will be Starmer and his party.
Sadly Louis refused to justify his appraisal of the article. And he claims to be a scientist.
Louis’ logic from the exchange can be summarised here:
The Tories suffer a crushing defeat on May 4th.
Sunak must then call a General Election.
He does this so that he can suffer another …. crushing defeat.
Can anyone help me figure out how this works? Call me cynical, but politicians do not call elections that they intend to lose. I agree it’s not impossible but it would require significant public and political pressure. With the nurses having caved in on a pay deal yesterday, I sense that the Tories are now over the hump of public unrest, due to the passivity of the British people. We’ll have to see …
Another chap called John simply called me a silly infant. I asked him to justify his statement. He could not. I don’t mind being called an idiot, but I do mind it when the people doing it cannot justify their insults. Several people have apologised privately on behalf of John, telling me that (a) he’s a bit old (so am I) (b) he’s a bit nutty (do I have to put up with that?) and (c) he is horrible to lots of people so that’s OK (does that make it right?). Here are some of John’s tweets:
Grow up you silly infant.
— @johnandi#FBPE#GTTO#LetsTryUBI#FollowBackFriday (@johnandi) May 1, 2023
No explanation, no apology – the same behaviours as used by Brexiteers
Brexit is done. It can't now be undone. Tory Brexit bastards did that, not Starmer. What part of that don't you understand ?
— @johnandi#FBPE#GTTO#LetsTryUBI#FollowBackFriday (@johnandi) May 2, 2023
A clear demonstration of learned helplessness
I was also schooled online by Supertanskiii that ‘now is not the time to mention Brexit’. I beg to differ Tan. Airbrushing the word Brexit out of the lexicon is a one way journey, sponsored by the Tories and Labour alike. Brexit is the single most important socio-economic, political, legal and environmental disaster of our age. Denial is not a river in Egypt.
You really think now is the time to focus on this when we have an election to win?
Supertanskiii is a potent online campaigner, but I fear she is emotionally addicted to Labour
John’s views are symptomatic of what is called in the trade ‘learned helplessness’. Remainers lost two elections and a referendum through setting low expectations, accepting rules on democracy which Brexiteers ignored them, believing that we don’t deserve any better and so on. This extract from the book Reboot Britain summarises the ‘condition’:
Learned Helplessness – Click the graphic to read more
So, it seems that we are back into the binary political trap that delivered Brexit. Tony Blair was right when he said that the Labour party often suffers from the triumph of ideology over pragmatism, a disease which caused the Tory party to cannabalise itself with Brexit. Have a look at the Scottish Bylines article and let me know what is inaccurate or stupid about it in the comments or via Twitter. To my Labour chums, I repeat my usual challenging unemotional questions:
What are the differences between a red or blue Brexit? No one will explain them and I have asked many times.
There is a clear business case to support the argument that Brexit has failed. Why won’t Keir Starmer move to this position?
Why will the right-wing media eat Starmer for breakfast if he states that Brexit isn’t working? Read the point on sunk costs in the article to understand this point better.
What makes people believe that Labour will reform the FPTP electoral system in a binary prisoner’s dilemma, all the while they believe that it benefits them? By the way, all the research evidence from UKICE points to the fact that Labour would benefit from electoral reform, in terms of votes, seats and number of terms in power.
If 70% of Labour members wanted to Remain, why are they so docile? What does this say about Labour’s approach to democracy?
Why do people believe that Keir Starmer will rejoin the Customs Union and Single Market when he has flatly refused to do so on many occasion? Surely this makes him a liar? The right wing media will certainly be all over this if he were to gain power.
Hard Labour – Click to read the article. Image by P Paton
To understand the various options for joining anew, please see London 4 Europe’s article on this.
Join us at our next Reboot Britain meeting on Wed May 10th May at 8 pm via Zoom. Find the link at Reboot Britain.
Recently, I took the new prospective local Tory Councillors to task over their inability to answer a simple question about the local impacts of Brexit. See this microblog on twitter for the background to this article:
"Venus" and I have not got off to a great start. Venus is the local Tory Councillor – what did I do wrong?
— Reboot Britain – Rage Against The Brexit Machine (@BrexitRage) April 19, 2023
The sorry tale of Ms Venus
In the course of my e-mail exchange with Tina Venus-Coppard, it transpired that she and her husband had become ‘angry birds’ due to my over familiarity, but most particularly because I explained that it was nothing to be proud of by supporting drowning children in the channel in order to ‘pray at the racist altar’ of Brexit. Of course, Ms Venus vigorously denied supporting Suella Braverman’s policy, although I pointed out that if they were Tory party members, then surely they supported the values and behaviours of that party? They did not answer. Mr Venus pretended that he wasn’t a Tory nor did he back Brexit and that was the end of the matter ….
Until today, when the local Tory MP, Rehman Chishti published an article in The Observer, yes, The OBSERVER, saying that he does not agree with Braverman’s racist remarks about Muslim grooming gangs. Chishti stopped short of criticising Braverman’s policy on racist abuse of people fleeing from terror and therefore her policy on migration and asylum via deportation to Rwanda. Chishti calls Ms Braverman’s comments ‘inaccurate’. Translated, that’s a LIE. Rehman is himself a Pakistani Muslim and the son of a preacher imam, He campaigns on various issues of cross faith religious co-operation, when he’s not taking consultancy fees for Saudi defence ‘consultancy’ and taking £22 000 pa salary for a US fundamentalist anti-abortion pressure group.
Nonetheless, I must welcome Chishti’s candour in this matter, particularly as his voting record shows that he votes with the Government on nearlyevery issue he is presented with. This is presumably a throwback to the time when he became a prefect at the local Grammar school. However, I am naturally suspicious that this is a carefully crafted stunt, simply designed to curry (sic) favour with the local Conservative party and the Pakistani community for the local elections on Thursday May 5th. Interestingly I am told that Mr Chishti’s daughter is also a local Tory candidate in my area. It is notable that Chishti did this almost immediately after I challenged Ms Venus on her immigration credentials. Last time Chishti opposed something was over the illegal pro-roguing of Parliament by Boris Johnson. He voted against the bill initially as it was safe to do so but then subsequently he voted it through. But to see the good in what he has done, this is a major contribution towards racial harmony in an area full of knuckle dragging white supremacists in Medway and Mr Chishti should be applauded for this. I wait to see what happens on Friday 5th May for my final analysis. I note that the Tories are now fighting like cats in a sack over this trumped up issue and look forward to the eventual climbdown. In case Rehman is looking, here is my answer to immigration and asylum in just two minutes. Having gone this far, it is time to lead Rehman. Who knows, Mr Chishti may well cross the floor to Labour again or The Lib Dems as he did many years ago in order to win the 2010 General Election in my area.
What should we learn from this? Click on the links to read more:
I am tired of Tories who pretend that local politics has nothing to do with national policies. In this context, I ask that you support my campaign to GET THE TORIES OUT. My campaign in 2019 demonstrated that if I’d campaigned seriously I’d have a fighting chance to wreak some serious damage. This time I will adopt a longer term and more serious approach to the matter.
I try everyday to engage members of the population in a dialogue about Brexit, what I call Brexorcism. Today’s intervention was not a dialogue but I thought it both funny and incredibly sad at the same time.
I had stopped at a cafe en route home from Maidstone on my bicycle, which has signage as a ‘conversation starter’ for people who wish to discuss Brexit and the European Union with me. In over 90% of cases, this is a hugely positive strategy, opening up the conversation anew in what was a hugely Brexity area of the country. In the last three months, I have not had one instance of pushback on Brexit. Buyer’s remorse has set in, in a very big way. Most people do not however believe there is a way back from our unique act of self-harm.
Sitting outside the cafe with my tea, I had noticed that two builders had observed my bicycle and the signage out of my peripheral vision. I decided to let them be, as it is always better to let my subjects approach me than the other way round.
Of course, I listened into their conversation whilst drinking my tea. Over the course of 15 minutes, one builder aimed to persuade the other that he should now retire and enjoy life. This was based on a longer discussion that business had collapsed in the last 6 months and lots of complaints about the escalating cost of building materials (this, of course, is a direct effect of Brexit and has been happening steadily over the last year or so). I packed my things up and cycled down the road. A few minutes later, they passed me in their truck and one of them shouted “wanker” out of the window. Clearly angered by the decline of their businesses due to Brexit, they chose to strike out at someone who could have helped their situation rather than the Government. This ‘blame game’ is typical of the few remaining Brexiteers. I repeat that, in the last three months of cycling around Kent with such things on my back or on my bicycle, I have not experienced a single piece of pushback from the public, quite the opposite in fact. I have had to work quite hard to explain that Brexit can be reversed, albeit with some difficulty.
Quite clearly, the will of the people has changed on Brexit, based on literally hundreds of miles travelled and conversations had. What has NOT changed is the belief that Brexit can somehow be undone. This is why I wrote the manual on Brexorcism and the Brexit satire book, to reach outside the bubble. We will not succeed at reversing Brexit without working on the masses. Placing hope in demographic change is simply laziness. Check the books out on ETSY. They make excellent Christmas gifts for tired Remainers or Brexiteers in regret.
This week’s comments: “Johnson seems set to make the House of Lords worse … has been described as ‘absurd’ … ‘anachronism’ … the best day care centre for the elderly in London … 4th Earl of Russell said … ‘Britain was governed by spiritless Papal bum boys’ … Johnson intends to ennoble 30 of his chums … Thatcher only ennobled 7 in her leaving list … MacMillan a minimalist 1 … others expressed alarm at the quality … Nadine Dorries, culture secretary, cabinet toady and author of soupy historical sagas … in the 1920s Lloyd George flogged honours openly … tariff … £10,000 for a knighthood … £50,000 for a peerage … Johnson’s appointments are likely to be worse … he has created peerages at a faster rate than any PM in the last 50 years … the House of Lords is odd. That does not mean it is worthless… deep seated problems … dangerous short term grandstanding … Thick Lizzie blithely ignores the fact that her government signed the NI protocol she now deems unworkable … scale of industrial unrest is massive … transport workers, nurses, doctors, lawyers … frequent assurances were flimsy ambitions … Tories still see no evil in Brexit even though it is the driver of problems … Thick Lizzie would have us believe that tax cuts would provide the loot … as likely as her assertion that barking dogs would deter drones from flying drugs into prisons … that calls for adult conversation far removed from unedifying Tory debate … Johnson was the worst PM in our history … Tories bought the Thatcher tribute act guff … quite soon we will have to acknowledge that Johnson only had the second worst cabinet of all time … Thick Lizzie does not take diplomacy and Foreign policy seriously … Braverman has defended law breaking … odd to put her in charge of law and order … as for absolute absurdity can anything match putting Rees Mogg in charge of “levelling up” ? … failed Ian Duncan Snot … failed John Deadwood … failed David Frost … a political culture gone badly wrong … a cabinet of misfits, failures, ideologues, third raters … we used to look to Britain as a role model … with respect and admiration …. not now … post truth virus that gave us Brexit and Johnson has got worse … 60% of voters think Johnson got Brexit wrong … can of worms … a growing buyer’s remorse towards Brexit … Britain is no longer a pro Brexit country … mounting disillusion towards Brexit … Labour’s ultra-cautious stance on EU is not working … Labour’s manifest weakness on the subject may cost it dear … the public mood has shifted… Johnson’s absurd narrative … betrayal of greatness … potential ministers refused to serve under him … subservient mediocrities, willing to accept humiliation after humiliation … could continue no longer … historians across the political spectrum will judge Johnson’s premiership to have been a calamity … the worst PM in UK’s history … least suited for office … persistent casual frivolity … David Cameron runs him close … UK at its most dysfunctional and economically weak since 1945 … Johnson’s conduct is mind boggling … Johnson had no idea how the Customs Union worked … weird courtier David Frost … calamitous negotiations … no evidence that he had thought through the implications … companies creak under the burden of extra red tape … queues at Dover are insanely long … all was wacky under Johnson … officials at No 10 doubt if Johnson read the deal negotiated by the hopeless Frost … historic economy wrecking deal … was almost certainly not scrutinised by Johnson … frivolity combined with instinctive mendacity … adolescent thought process that killed many in lockdown … not bothering to attend vital COBR meetings … lying …. honours to friends, party donors and powerful editors … promising much … not bothering to deliver … as UK economy teeters he enjoys two holidays and parties at Chequers …there is no evidence that Johnson had any sense of what was required to revive a divided, battered country … his successor might prove to be even worse … Johnson may have ripped apart the soul and credibility of the Tory Party … willingness not to be too picky about accepting money has been great for tory funding … octogenarian multi millionaire is the BBC’s go to person when awkward accusations are made … if anything Maitlis played down Tory bias at the BBC … Sir Harry Evans was not impressed when he met Paul Dacre … Evans fearlessly took on governments and big business … Dacre is the surly baron of Middle England … one last Johnson scandal … resignation honours list … a disgraced PM being able to fill the House of Lords with cronies is drawing widespread outrage … Johnson’s inability to tell the truth … so many lies you could not fit them into one edition of a newspaper … Johnson was known to be a liar before he became PM … the damage he has done is immense … Johnson has proved that lying wins elections and large majorities … there is no need to cover fields with solar panels; just stick them on every roof … the dimmest, meanest, most gullible and blindly tribalistic 0.3% of the population choose the PM … most economists agree that imposing tax cuts as the country heads to economic meltdown would be at best ineffectual and at worst suicidal …It is fitting that one of Johnson’s final acts as PM was to appoint his own Deputy Chief of Staff to the committee on standards … co-owner of consultancy that specialises in expensive advice to Gulf despots … weak procedures … conflicts of interest … ‘baleful consequences of family breakdown’ … thank Heaven the Daily Mail has not spent the past year hysterically supporting a politician who walked out on his first wife .. Divorced his second wife … fathered an unknown number of children … how did rationing succeed in WW2? … mostly fair … hence broad support … UK inexplicably ignoring electricity generators’ windfalls … passing most of the costs to the consumer … Keir Starmer is talking out of his hat … at least he has a plan … Thick Lizzie ignored the implosion of the NHS and social care under 12 years of Tory government … two pandemic excdrcises woefully concluded that we were woefully ill prepared … leadership candidates played to the crowds … scientists, economists and epidemiologists agonised … the biggest mistake was leaving lockdown so late … more Covid deaths occurred … South Africa banned sale of alcohol during lockdowns … greatly reduced hospital admissions (many are alcohol related) … with such a high alcohol dependency in Westminster this was never a viable option in UK … we did not have the palliative care teams, PPE protection and testing capacity to cope … if public services are poorly resourced the harm is greatly magnified … increase in deaths 21% … Covid 19 deaths this summer double seen last summer … Covid boosted private hospital chains while the NHS was in crisis … a PM equally blonde, boosterish and untethered to reality … Times acting as mouthpiece for one of the most repugnant and incompetent Home Secretaries in recent history … ‘like reading the Express’ … can get away with printing any old rubbish … Guided by a right wing Brexiter with outdated economic views Thick Lizzie is setting the UK on a disastrous course … relentless demand for tax cuts … has made a rod for her own back … she believes her own flawed rhetoric and advice from right wing pro Brexit economists … the stakes could not be higher .. Thick Lizzie could wreck the economy and do egregious damage to social fabric … Tories want to reduce debt but have increased it from 74% of GDP in 2010 to 103% in 2021 … Trussonomics are expected to blow a £60B hole in the Budget … debt to GDP ratio on an inexorable upward trend … exporters already face strong post Brexit headwinds … 12 years of inconsistent and poorly framed leadership … Minford’s economic advocacy is not appropriate to 21st century Britain … None of Thatcher’s ideas have any significance today … Thick Lizzie needs to listen to other economists … hollowing out of the Tory Party … defenestration of its brightest MPs … leaves a talent pool so shallow it is no surprise we have a duck in Downing St … some kind of Thatcher tribute act … Thick Lizzie’s cabinet cannot match the intellect, critical thinking and political skills in Thatcher’s cabinet … there has never been a period when the challenges we face and the quality of people facing them have been so vast … Johnson’s shameful and wasteful time in office … nothing even remotely resembling strategy … ‘Levelling Up in the Bullshit slogans category is a gold medal winner … Thick Lizzie plays to the crowd rather than take her responsibilities seriously … xenophobic paranoid gammons picked our PM … a Little Englander who plays to the crowd … they do not have the sense to see themselves as others see them … the reality of Britain’s position will come as a shock to her … The US Foreign Service is not stupid … the President takes a deep interest in Ireland … the people of Northern Ireland and business do not want this .. it is because of the zealots and swivel eyed loons in her party … Thick Lizzie wants a fight with the EU … patently cynical attempt to destroy the NI protocol and to break International Law … Consequences will be dire … legal and reputational damage to Britain is huge and getting worse … obeying the law and honouring commitments matter … pity the poor Brexiter … the brilliant Brexit they imagined has been stymied …May’s deal delivered everything Brexiters said they wanted so they rejected it … they are no more coherent this time than they were before … economist in name only Patrick Minford …such nonsense would be funny if those people were not so close to power and if the people in power did not seem to desperate to appease these political toddlers … what they want is impossible … beyond all reason and beyond all sanity … in the hope it will deliver the Brexit Nirvana … there is little hope the new crew will steer any better than the last … “Can Thick Lizzie fix Britain (Comment: of course; just as soon as Johnson builds his proposed bridge to Mars) … Trust must eschew pantomime radicalism if she is to succeed … an enormous job in front of her … Britain’s predicament is worse than many other places … 1,000 patients a day wait more than 12 hours in accident and emergency departments … sceptics have many reasons to be dubious … made promises she cannot keep to a tiny electorate … she maintains the fiction that Brexit is unallowyed good … Jacob Rees Mogg should be put in a museum not in charge of anything … Boris Johnson … shambolic and unlamented … cartoonish mixture of tax cuts, deregulation and Brussels bashing … commitments would keep the Brexit head bangers happy but would do little to help business … she will be remembered as a reactionary, not a radical … in 2025 or earlier she will face a deeply dissatisfied public in a general election … Suella Braverman will make Priti Patel look like a bleeding heart liberal … judges were horrified … NHS woes will be a major battleground in the next election … Truss is the fourth roll of the dice for a party squinting hard … the country may be looking for something else entirely … a repeat is about to unfold … expensive promises … economy has been bludgeoned … alarming for investors …
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