In the wake of Suella Braverman’s “sorry not sorry” apology to asylum seekers, in this film, we look at the social impacts of Brexit, including things like immigration, social care, the cost of living, freedom and various other things, lest they be forgotten by the sheer pace of Government gaslighting and dead cattery.
This follows our economic stock take film:
Write to your MP to tell them that enough is enough !!
I was delighted to attend a superb event hosted by Professor Anand Menon of UK in a Changing Europe. Even more delighted to meet Michel Barnier and present him with copies of the books Reboot Britain and Private Eyelines.
Here are my takeaways from the event. It was necessary to attend in person to gain the full value of the conversation between these two giants. Just click the link to Twitter below or go direct to the the full article on Linkedin.
Merci beaucoup pour tout ce que vous avez fait pour essayer de sauver notre pays de lui-même. Le Brexit est perdant. Nous allons nous réveiller doucement.
Whilst we are here, do check out my riotous conversation with James O’Brien on LBC re Rishi Sunak’s motivational strategy.
Life long Tory voter Rod Stewart has just declared that the country is a mess and the Tories need to hand over power to someone more competent. This prompted me to think of the song he covered on his Atlantic Crossing album. Apologies for the lyrical changes which are occasionally grating !! 🙂
Some will know that, in 2016, Britain voted to become an isolated country via the Brexit vote. The marginal 52:48 popular vote was pumped up by:
It then took five years to leave our membership of the club we call the European Union, mostly because nobody in our Government could agree what Brexit meant. Some wanted total isolation with free market capitalism on steroids, a kind of ‘Singapore on Thames’. Others wished to retain all the benefits of trade and co-operation from Europe without any of the responsibilities of club membership. The battle raged on between the various factions, consuming four Prime Ministers in the process, with our fifth currently sitting in the departure lounge. Ultimately, it seems that Brexit consumes all its offspring.
Two years on from our departure, it is possible to see the beginnings of the realities of Brexit. In this film, I have taken what could be described as a ‘Brexit Stock Take’. This piece deals with the economic realities of Brexit. Others in the series will deal with Social effects, Political futures, Legal outcomes, Environmental impacts and Technological effects.
Please take a look at the film and subscribe to our EU TUBE channel. The film is 17 minutes long but well worth your time as a case study in populism which is sweeping Brazil, the USA, India, Russia and several other places. Paradoxically, the world needs collaborative leadership and joined up thinking to face climate change and the many other global issues we must address if we are to survive. Instead, many think that ‘strong men’ are the answers to such problems. We shall see who prevails.
Write to Lee Anderson MP (e-mail lee.anderson.mp@parliament.uk) to help him understand his failings. Here is a sample letter from a good friend:
Dear Mr. Anderson,
Just in case you missed it all – I think you’ve decided to take a break from Twitter after your last car crash pronouncements – you’ve really thrown Katy under the bus and are now trending like no other MP since Matt Hancock was filmed grabbing his assistant’s bum in his office.
In particular, you may wish to find the clips from James O’Brien’s radio show on LBC this morning. It’s a corker.
MP Dawn Butler has a bit to say about you on Twitter as well, as does Mike Galsworthy. You should make an effort to read these, if no others.
#PoorKaty is trending on Twitter as well, due to your poor judgement.
You have made a huge mistake by doubling down on your original ‘30p’ message, first with ‘own brand’ Weetabix, and now by using Katy. Did you not think that she would come under the microscope? The whole country knows about her background now.
You should feel ashamed of yourself. You have once again showed the country, in fact the World, what an ignorant fool you are.
Keep digging
Michael and Alan are angry about Brexit. So they have decided to turn their fire on me in their own version of the ‘Daily Mail v Prince Harry’ moment. I had published a post about my books on Rebooting Britain in response to a facebook post by Led By Donkeys. Alan immediately tries to ‘look for a motive for my crime’ and assumes incorrectly that writing books on Brexit is a money spinner. That’s the only reason he can come up with, based on zero knowledge of how publishing works:
Later on, Alan runs away when asked about the benefits of Brexit. Again this is typical in an online exchange and is one of the reasons why I don’t bother with online Brexorcisms, except when I need some entertainment.
Michael is made of stronger stuff. He wants free copies of my books, but he is not a reviewer, a media person or anyone with reach and influence. He finds it hard to understand why I refuse to give 6 months of work away for free to someone with no track record or profile. This trait is not just reserved for Brexiteers. I know plenty of Remainers that refuse to learn the skills needed to change the game. On the one hand they are happy to buy badges and tat and pay Andrew Adonis et al for their writing, they are affronted when I ask that they value my efforts. Oh well. So much for not being an elitist. No wonder we lost three times.
Michael pleads for the book whilst simultaneously pointing out that he already knows what’s in it. Some of our chat on facebook is out of chronological order in what follows below, but I think you will get the gist of Michael’s beef.
It was emotional Michael. Learn the skills of Brexorcism here.
This from Don Adamson, once in Kent, now in Yorkshire, with some reflections on the march to Rejoin:
I arrived at the rendezvous at seven bells in the forenoon, that is 1130 for landlubbers and when the big hand is on the 6 and the little hand is on the 11 for Gammons and Flagshaggers. I took the last leg of the journey by underground. A charming young lady offered me her seat. I explained that I would be getting off in a couple of stops but it was nice of her to offer. I get a lot of that these days. I must be showing my age.
At the rendezvous I noticed about 30 motorcycle cops loitering. It was not clear to me how that would assist in the matter of crowd control. I found a park bench near the statue of the Duke of Wellington and ate my sandwich. The first thing I noticed was that we did not have the numbers that we used to have before lockdown. I assumed this was something to do with cancelling the September protest and rearranging another protest at short notice. Does this add substance that Thick Lizzie and her horrible friends assassinated HMQ?
I got to talking with a young man named Fouad (not his real name). He was British born but his parents took him to Qatar as a child from whence he had recently returned. He was concerned about events in the Middle East. Qatar’s economy was in trouble because of the country’s involvement in wars in the Horn of Africa and the region. He believed that young people were getting restless and pressure was building up for change. I hoped he was right. I reminded him that Lawrence of Arabia felt strongly that the post WW1 arrangements would cause endless trouble in the Middle East. That was still happening. Perhaps the Duke of Wellington’s greatest achievement was his involvement in the Treaty of Vienna (1816). From 1702 till 1815 there had been a succession of major wars in Europe. The Treaty of Vienna brought a century of relative peace to Europe. It was not a perfect peace (Crimea, Franco-Prussian War) but it was an improvement on the century preceding 1816.
The Treaty of Versailles (1919), by contrast, was a disaster. It practically guaranteed another terrible war barely 20 years later and, as stated above, the consequences in the Middle East rumble on. Do not underestimate the damage that incompetent politicians can do.
We set off at the appointed time. We chanted obscene slogans to the evident approval of the crowd. I saw the flags of Ireland, Scotland Wales, Cornwall, Devon and various European countries. A band planted the banner of the White Rose of York and bellowed out ‘Ilkley Moor bar t’hat.” I not sure what the anti Brexit connection might be but perhaps they wanted Londoners to know they were there. Some people carried banners demanded ‘Vote out Tory Scum.’ I mentioned that ‘Scum’ was took kind a word for Johnson, Thick Lizzie and their scumbag supporters. We turned down St James’ St past Davidoff’s. That is a cigar store that, the last time I checked, sold 18’ Cuban cigars at £1,000 a time. I shudder to think how much Cuban cigars cost nowadays. Then we went on to Trafalgar Square and down Whitehall. We made a lot of noise as we passed the entrance to Downing St.
A contingent of Gammons and Flagshaggers loitered outside the Red Lion and shouted abuse at their betters. I made it to Parliament Square. Cops had erected crowd barriers to prevent people from sitting on the walls. I can walk for miles but standing around plays havoc with my old knee injuries. I hung around for about an hour then headed for Victoria Station. According to the cops and the neo Nazi newspapers the crowd numbered about 10,000 people. The organisers counted 50,000. Thick Lizzie has gone and been replaced by the robber baron capitalist who was partly responsible for the 2008 financial crash. Thanks, Tories.
The Brexit Balderdash Conspiracy and other TV broadcasters made no mention of the protest but they did cover the Hero’s welcome Johnson got at the airport. They made no mention of the sneers, jeers and booing when the other passengers on the aircraft learned that Johnson was on board. Apparently Johnson heard Gammons and Flagshaggers singing ‘Will ye no’ come back again.’ Johnson had returned to get his old job back and replace Thick Lizzie. Something tells me that not all Scottish people would approve of Gammons and Flagshaggers singing a Jacobite sing. Johnson has since decided that the time was not right to attempt a return to politics.
Any excuse to visit Rohan is a good excuse. He is a little bit further on every time we see him. He knows more words; most of them to give orders to his parents and other willing slaves. When Jim was learning to play football I had him outclassed, at first, but that did not last. James had me outclassed at an even earlier stage. William runs me ragged. I shudder to think what Rohan will do to me when he is a bit older and I am even more decrepit than I am now. It was wonderful to see Rohan. It would be nice to see more of all my grandchildren.
The journey home was interesting. Traffic tends to be heavy on a Sunday afternoon and that weekend was no different. We had minor delays, nothing to get worked up about but tiresome just the same. The M62 is not my favourite stretch of road at the best of times. There seems to be some kind of technological black hole around here that confuses our Satnav. We spent a lot of time wandering around South Bradford before we finally got home. For all that it was a good weekend. We do not see enough of Rohan and his parents.
I have said before that when Management Consultants are good they are very good. The bad ones are dire. Robert Townsend believed that the one person consultancies are the best but the large, bureaucratic consultancies are a menace. The South African Government called in a consultancy to modernise their tax and revenue raising. It was disastrous. The consultancy goes by the name of Bain. I had the misfortune to have a South African called Bain p******g in my soup. He imagined himself to be a financial and commercial genius; despite all the evidence to the contrary. He was forever meddling in matters that were not his responsibility and which he was too thick to understand. In fact he was so thick he did not get it even when the issues were explained to him (carefully and in words of one syllable). His masterpiece was when he demanded that I put the organisation’s pension and medical insurance into a Ponzi. He was a commercial and financial genius who did not recognise a Ponzi scheme when he saw one. I wonder if he is at all connected with the Consultancy that did so much damage to the SARC.
Warmth tip for the winter: You lose a lot of heat through your mattress. Spread you summer weight duvet over the mattress, fit your sheet over that and put your winter weight duvet on top. It warms things up nicely.
This week’s quotes: “If Thick Lizzie wants to present herself as the voice of sensible reconciliation she will be shocked to hear about the Tory Parity Conference …MPs trying to outperform each other with hare-brained schemes. Top prize to anybody who would come out with an idea that would not work … would make things worse but would be sold as a triumph to rabidly anti EU Tories … data gathering may seem like an obscure branch of computer science but is vital to every business … The EU may simply refuse to accept British changes … there is a limit to how much divergence you can have before it becomes counter-productive …massive delays and costs that far outweigh any benefits … Minister says the GDPR system will be adequate. Nothing could be further from the truth … shows how pointless and counterproductive this whole exercise is … current system is useful … changing it will be disruptive, time consuming, expensive and pointless … any attempt to make British legislation weaker will hit a brick wall … Red Tape will double … there is no room to manoeuvre, little to be gained and much to be lost … The PM’s growth strategy is a fraud… In the Thick Lizzie era we learn that after a storm you get another storm … we have yet to see the worst consequences … It does not look good for anybody … Thick Lizzie’s emergency budget did not need to happen … numerous extra factors complicate the picture … bizarre situation .. an administration’s complete lack of competence … Even Rupert Murdoch could see that Rothermere’s Mail titles were making an unforgivable blunder … Murdoch was incredulous that his fellow non dom could not see that in making Thick Lizzie PM he ‘laid out the red carpet for Starmer who is committed to outlawing non dom status … The options are death if we stick with Thick Lizzie and ridicule if we get somebody else … Doreen Lawrence, Elton John, Prince Henry have begun legal proceedings against Rothermere … ‘abhorrent criminal activity and gross breaches of privacy’ … disheartening for Brexit die hards to learn that Michael Gove has been wondering ‘if Brexit was the right thing to do’ … That is up there with Karl Marx wondering if Communism wasn’t a boo boo … Gove was ‘deeply troubled with a darkness inside him that corrupts the soul’ … Nigel Garbage praised Toilet Kwarteng’s budget … ‘best Conservative Budget since 1986’ … Garbage launched his own brand of gin … no distiller will admit to making it … An extinction level event for the Tory Party … UK has become the biggest money laundering criminal enterprise in the world … the ‘anti-growth coalition’ consists of everybody except Thick Lizzie … increasingly shambolic vestigial administration … Tory party’s rapidly dissolving morale … a country that is economically imploding and literally up to its knees in its own effluent … if policies are to be pursued as religious doctrine it follows that all who reject that doctrine must be unbelievers … Having a leader who hates to make mistakes makes it harder to correct them… Thick Lizzie wilts in a mess of her own making … has already secured her place in history … the PM whose grip on power was the shortest … roughly the shelf life of a lettuce … Investors have decided that Britain has become riskier … will probably try a great dollop of fudge … Premiership is already fatally spoiled … a lesson about the importance of sums adding up … turbulence has proved more persistent and more ominous … Trader’s nerves are jangling … underlying questions remain unchanged … vicious circle … downward spiral … credit outlook ‘negative’ … risk of prolonged inflationary pressures … limits to the amount of fudging they can get away with … MPs are in no mood to unload pain on their constituents … political feasibility diminishing by the minute … government has no good options … Britain has not helped itself … overconfident and underprepared Brexiters assumed they could hoodwink the EU into granting the benefits of membership without the costs … EU resents having to renegotiate a deal the UK agreed to …Macron came to distrust Johnson deeply … not even extreme populists in Italy or Poland talk of leaving the EU … Brexit is less a blueprint and more a cautionary tale … attempts at deregulation and tax cuts resulted in market meltdown … that the proponents of the doomed economic course are the most ardent Brexiters has not gone unnoticed … Three Prime Ministers have failed to make Brexit work. Why keep trying? … What we see is not just collapse of UK fiscal credibility. It is the evisceration of a cadre of Tories capable of doing the job … Each of these politicians has tried to make Brexit work. It will not work … Tory debacle … you can wing it as an amateur at DEFRA … as Home Secretary you can make sarky comments about the police, or, like Boris Johnson, you can simply lie. In monetary and fiscal policy you are dealing with reality … all other options to make Brexit work were tried … The magnitude of the Tory debacle does not lie simply in the damage it has done or the damage it will bequeath to a Labour Government. It lies in the ideological dead end the party has reached … a chimera, the Tories face a moment of ideological reckoning … out of the wreckage must crawl a new cadre of politicians who believe in fiscal realism … the pound has lost nearly a third of its value since 2016 … the strategic choice is the reversal of Brexit … a whole generation of Tories leapt over the parapet to be mown down. Hopefully we will not see their like again …a desperate winter looms with a forecast of high inflation, an NHS crisis … people are deeply worried … even Tories not famed for sensitivity, such as Rees Mogg, grasped this to some extent … the vision came attached to a serious flaw .. ecologically dismaying … politically insane … Tory grandees warned Truss of the dangers … we have had four Tory PM in just over six chaotic years, triggered by Brexit … Tory MPs mainly do not like Thick Lizzie or respect her and dread the idea of her leading them into an election … that is a tits-up tale if ever there was one … Thick Lizzie believed she had found the Holy Grail … found buried treasure … the pain was instant and severe … George Osborne remedies did not work then … disastrous … the Shambles in Downing St … the markets looked aghast … £60B whole in public finances … financial fiasco .. Leaving the EU was a strong negative … Johnson’s infamous ‘F*** Business ‘remark … Business confidence in the UK is totally shattered … is it any wonder investment is flowing out of the UK? … Impossible to imagine how this promise can be fulfilled … the damage has been done … projects that might get the country going will be beyond available resources … Collapse of Thick Lizzie’s authority is the logical conclusion of the anti EU cult that has wrecked Britain’s economy … in 2016 British economy was 90% the size of Germany’s, it is now less than 70% … Brexit … at each step has made things worse … May destroyed the bargaining position of the UK and its economy … negotiations were mishandled by David Davis … the damage will continue for a long time … still the ultras try to make things worse instead of better … six years of failure, lies and fantasies were just too much … Tory Party has been taken over by a Death Cult … most politically prudent thing might be to lose an election and watch Labour try to sort it out … “
Pip Pip Medway Delta (Retired) Saboteur and Brexorcist First Class
I occasionally write about the lack of strategy, structure, cohesion, collective capability and leadership in the Remain / Rejoin movements. Once again, with a heavy heart, I must report that the chronic organisation development issues which divide us remain (sic) alive and kicking. This article concerns senior members of Grassroots for Europe, overseen by the CEO of The European Movement and its chair Lord Andrew Adonis. For some months I have attempted to resolve a worrying problem with a concerted smear campaign against me by senior people at Grassroots for Europe and The European Movement. I have had no reply in private from CEO Anna Bird, so I have reluctantly decided to go public. Here is a summary in the form of my letter to the EM CEO:
The WhatsApp group where much of this smearing takes place is overseen by Anna Bird and Lord Andrew Adonis, thus they are complicit in the campaign, by ‘letting it happen’. Andrew does not like uncomfortable truths and blocks people who he disagrees with. Thus I have no route to resolution with him.
The ‘mob’ also follow the leader, sometimes without knowledge of the facts of a given cased. This is not without consequence. For example, I have been blocked from attending the March to Rejoin. I was blocked from attending a meeting with Gavin Esler. The ‘mob’ also asked that professional EM groups and affiliates in Sussex and Merseyside ‘deplatform’ me from speaking at events and so on. I mean, WTF are they frightened of?
I actively promote pro-European and anti-Brexit views and am perhaps more vigorous than many at a grassroots and strategy level, so I cannot understand their desire to silence me. Then again, I have worked on Brexit for 6 + years and I ‘get’ organisational illnesses etc. from my professional life as a business and organisational consultant. I’m hoping that Anna Bird will now make this nonsense stop and remove Richard Wilson and the other ringleaders from power. Here are some examples of the online smearing below – it is persistent and wearing. I cannot write to Richard Wilson to deal with the matter quietly, as he also adopts the Vote Leave strategy of blocking people he does not agree with.
It’s possible to see the level of confusion in these groups. For example, Lynne Armstrong manages to confuse me with Peter Corr, the leader of the March to Rejoin, but it does not stop her from condemning my / his work. In fact it’s unclear exactly who she is condemning. Other European Movement execs appear to join in with the ‘herd impunity’. For example, Emma Knaggs admits that she knows nothing about my work, but, of course, feels she must agree with those in power. She is also badly informed: Despite her assertion to the contrary, I remain Chair of The European Movement Mid Kent. Following a review by the Council chaired by Dominic Grieve QC I was confirmed in the position. My removal was an exec decision made by Anna Bird, without approval or authority of the EM. This, of course, mirrors the approach of The Conservatives re Brexit. It is quite surprising from an organisation that promotes transparency, open-ness and diversity.
In my professional life, I work with chronic organisational problems like this. When politics / egos and so on are added to the complexity, these issues become insoluble. I had offered my services for free to EM way back to help make them match fit, but they refused to accept professional help. Ostrich thinking and silos are not good enough if we are to build a movement fit to take Vote Leave on. As a result I have little confidence in Grassroots / EM’s abilities. Help can still be given but I’m not hopeful that they are in listening mode. One of their groundfloor troops, Magdalena Williams has recently stepped into the fray on Twitter.
There is a long list of people who have actively initiated and / or amplified this campaign. Others have passively supported or allowed the campaign to spread. In no particular order: Richard Wilson, Colin Gordon, Yvonne Wancke, Chris Hammond, Anna Bird, Lord Adonis, Robina Jacobson, Peter Packham, NE for Europe, SSTIE, Sue Wilson, Bremain in Spain, Doug at SODEM, Magdalena Williams, some of the SODEM gang, Lynne Armstrong, Emma Knaggs, Patrick Reynolds. There is a longer list of people who hide in the shadows … come out into the light please.
Letters work. Write your letter to King Charles III and or your MP using the template we provided. Here’s a graphic example as to why letters work from an anonymous source:
To Tom Pursglove MP
So you’re backing the return of a known corrupt liar. Well done. Are your family proud of you?
Dr R
Dear Dr R
Thank you for your email.
However, as someone who no doubt considers themselves to be a ‘professional’ person – hence your ‘Dr’ title – your email is beneath you and lacks any sort of integrity. Don’t you dare bring my family into it.
After all, it is perfectly possible to disagree respectfully, without being downright rude and personal.
Yours sincerely,
Tom
Tom Pursglove MP Member of Parliament for Corby & East Northamptonshire
Dear Mr Pursglove,
Please don’t talk about integrity whilst voicing support for Boris Johnson, who is a confirmed liar. May I remind you that he was forced out of office for just that.As for ‘bringing your family into it’, my question remains. It appears to have touched a nerve with you.
As for being rude – really?
Dr R
Dear Dr R,
Yes, I’m afraid you’re being consistently rude – and I suspect you wouldn’t like me involving your family in matters in such a way either.
This correspondence is now closed.
With best wishes,
Tom
Tom Pursglove MP Member of Parliament for Corby & East Northamptonshire
Whilst we are here please read our post on why backing Boris Johnson is a really good idea. Find out more about the gentle art of Brexorcism here.
Some cold unemotional analysis for Remainers and Rejoiners who are hard of thinking. If we accept :
1. That all the Tory candidates are essentially the same in terms of their short term impact on the economy (shades of badness etc.). Morduant is another ERG puppet and Rishi is mistrusted by ERG because he is a prudent brown economist by TP members, having shown his credentials already.
2. That the next Brexit / Kwasi Recession is more or less “baked in”, thus the impact of leadership in the next few months has an NPV of zero. So the choice of leader is an irrelevant issue in ‘accountancy’ terms. Note that Liz Truss’s departure did nothing to the value of the pound. The city is not fooled by replacement headstones.
Then we move on to the next level of analysis. Which leader is worst for the Tories and Brexit?
1. If Boris loses, he loses any opportunity to return to politics. There would be no need for a judicial review etc. It’s a slam dunk success. This is probably why he’s hesitating as he is not a losing kind of guy.
2. If Boris wins, a new bloodbath will open up in the Tory party – with those who wrote letters resigning, writing more letters and so on and members leaving. Roger Gale has already written his letter!!
So, basically it’s a win win win win win win …. In short, if the ERG don’t want Johnson, and 1/3 of the Tories don’t like it, we should support it.
None of the above appears to be apparent to most Remainers / Rejoiners who are gaslit by the Johnson persona and his sins. We must set that aside. If Johnson gets elected, it will be tragic for the Tories and the Brexit bubble will be popped, like a very nasty boil.
Cold analysis is far more important than hot emotional reactions to the ghost of Johnson. Think about it. Put your head before your hedonic response.
The best outcomes at this time re Tory destruction are in order of desirability:
1. A General Election – However, I don’t yet see the mechanism for this, as the English don’t riot. The Tory argument that they were elected may well stand unless it faces significant parliamentary and public pressure. This, however is why we wrote the letter to King Charles. Now the Remainers are complaining about that for a host of bizarre reasons.
2. Boris wins – Vote of No Confidence, resignations and more mayhem.
3. Boris loses – they limp on with another lame duck.
