Wednesday September 8 2021 – from 19.00 – 21.00 – The first hour is the seminar plus questions. The second hour is a participative opportunity to reflect upon Professor Grayling’s seminar, an opportunity for dialogue and an event to update our draft scenarios for rejoin. Here is our working draft:
Click on the images to get your ticket
Please attend our induction events every Monday at 8 pm on ZOOM. We will be considering scenarios to Rejoin EU in August in preparation for Professor Grayling’s input.
In case you are not familiar with Scenario Planning, it can be summarised as “a history of the future”. We will consider a long time horizon of at least 10 years and then identify plausible events along that time line. These will be the PESTLE factors: political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental events. From this we construct the most likely scenarios, bearing in mind that our politics are in flux, so disruptions must be examined. I will be leading you through the process. You can read a little on the process at Scenarios although our time horizons will be longer than the example given.
So, please give some thoughts as to the likely events coming up in the next decade.
The first 100 tickets were free and now we need support to help cover our costs in increasing our ZOOM contract. We aim to run more events and need £480 to cover a yearly upgrade on ZOOM. Once we reach this, all our events into 2022 will be free.
Professor Grayling will speak on what we need to do to rejoin the EU sooner rather than later with some very practical suggestions for all of us to act upon.Anthony Grayling is the author of about 30 books on philosophy, biography, history of ideas, human rights and ethics, including The Refutation of Scepticism (1985), The Future of Moral Values (1997), Wittgenstein (1992), What Is Good? (2000), The Meaning of Things (2001), The Good Book (2011), The God Argument (2013), The Age of Genius: The Seventeenth Century and the Birth of the Modern Mind (2016) and Democracy and its Crises (2017).He has been a stalwart campaigner for our continuing membership of the European Union.
The event is co-promoted by Re-Boot Britain, Mid Kent European Movement, East Kent European Movement, Alliance4Europe and Dorset European Movement. Alliance4Europe is a non-profit working to activate citizens for a more democratic, inclusive and sustainable Europe. It builds coalitions for pro-European action for more impactful campaigning. Omri Preiss is a co-founder and managing director of A4E, with a background in EU policy-making and human rights advocacy.
Re-Boot Britain – Please support our work by clicking the image
It was not until late Match 2020 that the UK Government began to arrange for protective equipment (PPE) for hospital staff and care workers. The EU had done so in early January. By then Britain had to do so in emergency conditions, and a tightening global market for PPE.
In order to speed up procurement, it set up a up a high-priority channel to assess and process tenders and grant contracts, without going through normal procedures. To maintain transparency, the government was required to declare details of such contracts within 30 days of awarding them. Lord Bethel, a junior health minister, promised that suppliers would be evaluated by officials on their financial standing. On 27 March Government began to invite tenders for PPE.
By the end of 2020, following a report by National Audit Office (NAO) and court cases brought by the Good Law Project, it was clear that the the new system had resulted in setting aside safeguards ensuring good value for public money and against corruption. Suppliers with political connections (such as Ministers, Tory MPs and Cabinet Office officials) were being directed to a “VIP” lane where their tenders for lucrative contracts were automatically treated as credible and prioritised by officials. Such bids were 10 times more likely to succeed than those of non-favoured suppliers. VIP tenderers also got very favourable terms. Despite Government efforts to cover up VIP profits, it is known they received inflated margins of 35% – 45% or more , on contracts up to hundreds of millions of pounds. By comparison, a normal profit margin was 10-20%
The NAO also criticised government for other failures, including lack of transparency, and conflicts of interest. In particular, it noted that the Cabinet Office and Health Ministry had failed to explain why companies with government connections and poor due diligence records were chosen to provide crucial services such as supplying PPE, consulting and policy advice. Some lacked any experience of PPE; NAO disclosed that 195m pieces of PPE had proved to be unusable.
A further report in April 2021 by Transparency International, (TI), a respected anti-corruption organisation, stated that 1 in 5 government COVID contracts awarded between February and November 2020 were marked with 1 or more red flags indicating a need for investigation for possible corruption. 27 PPE or testing contracts worth £2.1bn had been awarded to firms with clear connections to the Tory party. £255m of contracts had been awarded to companies that had only been formed within the previous 60 days. (Such a short lifespan suggests no track record of actual business). As for the Government’s claim that the system was a form of triage, to prioritise serious companies over chancers, a senior TI researcher commented :. “Triage fine, bur why on earth ask politicians to do it? Did they even ask any medical experts? Or was it just prioritised on the basis of who managed to ring the right person at the right time?” TI concluded that there was “apparent systemic bias in the award of PPE contracts that favoured those with political connections to the governing party”. It called on the Government to disclose the identities of companies awarded public money through the VIP lane urgently, a request which the government has so far illegally refused.
All in all, the Government spent £17.3bn on contracts awarded to private companies without competitive tender to tackle the crisis . The total awarded in all COVID contracts was more than the capital expenditure budgets of major government departments such as Defence, Transport and Housing. Although Government regulations require all contracts valued more than £10,000 to be published and sent for publication within 30 days, the procurement consultancy Tussell found although the Health Ministry had spent about £15 bn on PPE by 1 October, only £2.68bn worth of contracts had been published.
This scandalous record of deceit and misuse of public money should be viewed against the PM’s Ministerial Code of conduct, issued in August 2019:
Johnson went on to say:
“There must be no bullying and no harassment; no leaking; no breach of collective responsibility. No misuse of taxpayer money and no actual or perceived conflicts of interest.; the precious principles of public life enshrined in this document – integrity, objectivity, accountability, transparency, honesty and leadership in the public interest – must be honoured at all times as must the political impartiality of our much admired civil service.”
As a business consultant and author of 12 books on leadership, I was asked to explain how a model for change offered valuable insights on how we might change minds on Brexit. The Gleicher formula offers a model for thinking about change. You can find a full treatment of the model and my modification in my 2016 book for Bloomsbury “Leading Innovation, Creativity and Enterprise“.
When applied to our strategy for change, some observations may be made:
A – CREATIVE TENSION Whereas there is massive creative tension (dissatisfaction) with the present situation re Brexit, it is by no means shared. Our fieldwork on the ground shows that many people who previously described themselves as remainers no longer believe that Brexit can or should be reversed. This is what I called “Learned Helplessness” in the book “Let’s Talk About Brex it“. For example many young people at the Reading Festival last week think that Brexit is irreversible. Some were surprised to learn that we are still attempting to renegotiate the Brexit deal as it has been airbrushed out of the media by all political parties.
ACTION : We must work on awareness that Brexit is not done, with individuals, communities and of course political parties. See communications strategies below.
B – SHARED VISION This is the area where Remainers struggle the most. There are multiple diagnoses of the routes to rejoin. Some think it can never be done, others think it will take 20-30 years, others much shorter timescales. Some think it can only be done by working on politicians, others on voting systems, others on the ground, and so on. A lack of leadership and shared vision is a hardy perennial in the Remain movement and our work on Scenarios to Rejoin could be used to help focus people on the more viable pathways to Rejoin.
ACTION : This is the most urgent area for attention. It requires leadership, strategy and structure. It is itself a major obstacle to progress. In the first instance, please join us every Monday to help refine our Scenarios for Rejoin. Longer term we must convert these into strategies and persuade leaders and opinion formers of the value of having a shared vision of the routes to Rejoin.
C – ACTIONABLE FIRST STEPS In the absence of a shared vision, we have a scattergun approach to C. Some say we cannot wait for strategy and we must do something, almost anything to change the situation. Others say we must wait for the needed clarity, yet it has not been forthcoming in the last five years. Purposeful action arises when there is clarity on item B. In the meantime our four objectives at Re-Boot Britain are a useful interim set of goals. Others have similar ambitions, expressed differently but there is good coherence amongst grassroots groups about what needs to be done. It is a case of gathering, harvesting and multiplying that work. Interim goals such as the Customs Union and Single Market may be stepping stones on the journey, but one must also be minded of the fact that such things will radically reduce the pool of people and interest groups that want Brexit stopped. For example, once industry is satisfied about the way things are, reclaiming the rights of 68 million people may be much more difficult. The goal of “logical incrementalism” versus an “all or nothing” strategy must be thought deeply about. Our Government understand this, hence attempts to buy off sectors with inducements, in order to reduce the pool of people who remain unhappy about Brexit. Play this forward five years and it is not clear that a Rejoin movement of any size would exist at all. The time is now in terms of working on all elements of the change model, even if some of the actions are preparatory.
ACTION : We can all act to call Brexit to account, by continuing the conversation about Brexit Carnage and the lack of benefits coming through. What are your top five daily actions as an individual? What can you do with others in your local area?
D – COST OF CHANGE Undoing something is always harder than doing it. As we diverge further from EU alignment, it becomes more and more difficult to Rejoin. This is perhaps one of the reasons why the Brexit ultras wish to do this. Never forget that Brexit was won on emotion and not a plethora of facts. Rejoiners need to think more about how we can talk Leave voters down from the mountain. At an individual level, the book Let’s Talk About Brex it is a how-to guide on changing beliefs and even identities on the Brexit debate. We plan a series of masterclasses on the processes of change. Join us every Monday via ZOOM to find out more.
ACTIONS : Your call
Please write to me to flesh this short piece out. I am happy to expand upon this article with your views.
Part of our work on element C is changing the view that we cannot expect better than Brexit – join us by clicking the image
Two areas of Medway have elections coming up and a better Medway is needed. It seems that people are rejecting the cosy coalition of the two-party system in the towns, now that the effects of Brexit + COVID are becoming apparent in what has been termed a “Britastrophe”. The UN red alert on climate has flagged up the long-term impact of Brexit on climate change:
More disaster capitalism means tax avoidance and non-payment of taxes in nation states. This is bad for our environmental stewardship and our reputation as a world leader in ethical politics
A bonfire on standards leads to moral hazard in product manufacture, with a return to shoddy products made in sweatshops and environmentally damaging materials. One hairdresser in Chatham told me that she was looking forward to the day when she could once again used banned chemicals on her clients’ hair. She seemed unconcerned that the chemicals are carcinogens when I explained as a Chemist.
More global trade = more carbon footprint. You may say, I don’t care, but what legacy do we hand on to future generations.
Locally in Strood North, overdevelopment of the Hoo Peninsula is leading to the destruction of sensitive environments and threatens to gridlock residents in the Medway towns. Residents also have concerns about schools, lack of social housing, overdevelopment, litter, public transport and the capacity of the NHS to cope under Johnson’s sale of the century. It also seems that the issue that dare not speak its name aka Brexit is also causing residents real concerns. It starts to become clear that Brexit was not really about taking back control except in the sense that it has enabled Boris Johnson to give unprecedented amounts of taxpayers money to his cronies and blame all economic, social and political problems on COVID. Closer to home, food shortages are becoming visible as people realise that we are no longer self-sufficient in food. With a shortage of 100 000 foreign lorry drivers, the supply of 2000 HGV army drivers from the “Royal Cucumber Corps” is not going to make up the difference. Walking into Aldi in Strood lettuces are already brown in the displays. Yes, I know Aldi operate a Just in Time system system, but the food is not supposed to be rotten in the supermarket. This is just an hors d’ouevre …
Brands Hatch in Strood
Peter Bonney, an ex-deputy headteacher is a local activist for a 20 MPH speed limit in the rat runs along these roads in a congested part of Strood Weston, Cromer, Gordon, Jersey, Bryant, Brompton Lane, Cliffe Road etc. Peter is the model of an activist, having organised petitions, letters and been given airtime at the local council with his proposal. He thought all was well when he gained a warm reception across the political spectrum, but then the views of councillors were crushed by Councillor Alan Jarrett for no reason. Jarrett is a seasoned professional who I have dealt with. Prospective Green Councillor Cat Jamieson is to take the issue up. There are many schools in the area and the use of the rat runs presents both a safety issue for children and an environmental issue for all the residents.
People driving at 40 miles and hour up the road is an accident waiting to happen
Overdevelopment
Residents in Brompton Farm Road are concerned about the issue of overdevelopment on the Hoo Peninsula with houses for 30 000 people proposed in a sensitive natural habitat for birds and other wildlife. One resident described the problem:
“Boris the Builder just wants to build, build, build and the local Tory Councillors support this so they can line their pockets. Meanwhile Labour are just supine. We need an independent voice to hold Medway Council to account”.
It’s not just the people on the periphery of Hoo that are concerned. The housing development will also put pressure on the arterial roads into Strood centre, placing still more pressure on the rat runs. There are also issues with the lack of social housing in the new Riverside developments around the area of Strood Station.
Transport connectivity is key if we are to reduce our reliance on cars
Cat responded to the call from residents:
“Greenwashing won’t wash. We need to plan development within the towns in ways that are sustainable and sensitive to residents’ needs. In some cases, that means just saying NO. In other cases, it will be about finding much better ways to think about our natural resources in consultation with community leaders. What we have now is local government by diktat. We must Act Now, before the Green Belt turns Brown”.
The Green Party will hold the Conservatives (and the “official” opposition) to account if elected. Since there is already one Conservative and one Labour candidate, voters can cast their vote for a truly independent voice in the knowledge that they are not eliminating one of the parties, but simply enriching the mixture of views to make better decisions.
I am presently applying for Branches Forum Chair at The European Movement with an election on September 04 on ZOOM. Here is my short and longer pitch:
Some thoughts on the challenges ahead as final nominations for The European Movement branches forum chair close this afternoon Monday 09 August. You will have a choice of at least two candidates.
Yvonne Wanke and I have spoken about the needs of The European Movement going forward. Having campaigned together at events in London and Barnard Castle, I’m glad to have friendly competition. Free and fair elections will strengthen our Movement by making it more accountable to you and your groups. Mass membership means making our Movement fully accountable to our members.
Over the past few days people have rung me with questions, suggestions and comments. Please feel free to call with any issues anytime on 07725 927585 – it will be great to hear your views and to get to know your concerns.
Ageing The average age of our Movement is over seventy. We must also engage with a younger and more diverse audience. This is very much in the hands of your branches and affiliates: you and your groups are our Movement’s bedrock. My own branch has recruited a wider audience via various activities involving music, stunts, writing and regular online events. Most recently, I engaged a rapper and a soul singer in our call to action titled “We Are Everywhere”. We need to unite and work together to attract more people to our cause.
Organising Our Movement faces necessary organisational development issues to make us stronger. Some complex issues will require skilful facilitation and navigation of differing viewpoints, but with shared will we can find common ground. The recent BARNS report vote has left “unfinished business” and it’s vital we resolve this constitutionally. We cannot keep dodging difficult choices. For example, to campaign effectively and highlight Britain’s Brexit failings, we need to fix Nationbuilder together with our invaluable staff.
With over twenty-five years of dealing with so-called “wicked problems” across the world – in organisations as diverse as the Metropolitan Police, the NHS, Pfizer, United Nations, Unilever – I pledge to you my undivided focus and energy as we enlarge our Movement and build on past successes. As the oldest pro-European Movement in the country, we have a history to be proud of. I will uphold our Movement’s traditions and ensure those at the centre do likewise.
Strategies to Rejoin We recently started a project producing scenarios to re-apply for EU membership, aiming for a shared vision on the most probable routes. Already we have a series of event strings, which need further input and consolidating into narratives to engage and unite our activities. If you would like to contribute, please call for a chat on 07725 927585, write in, or join our weekly ZOOM event every Monday at 8pm. Please note the items in blue are not entirely serious! 😊. Such blue sky brainstorming helps create a unity of spirit and purpose as people share ideas and solutions in an engaging and relaxing way.
Beyond the bubble We cannot shift minds on Brexit merely by preaching to the converted, nor can we rely on demographic changes alone. We must reach outside of the bubble that has been created as a result of our disunited Kingdom. Superb initiatives such as the Euro Cafés reflect what I have also done locally. Our Movement has developed many great approaches across the country. Now we must build on these to deal with sensitivity and grace with the concerns and beliefs of leave voters. I feel honoured to have worked on such grassroots projects with branches and affiliates alike from the North to the South. We need to share the good will around so that groups can adapt approaches to local contexts.
Media Branches and affiliates can shift the Brexit narrative by reaching parts of the media national organisations cannot. Much social opinion is embedded in what people consume in local papers and from the resulting social media comments. Through well placed letters, commentaries on articles, op-ed pieces in local newspapers, radio and TV interviews plus phone-ins, our groups’ social media amplification can change the “diet” of what people consume in the media on Brexit. Some of our branches and affiliates are experts on this and we should spread the word.
The Branches Forum is a vital part of our operations. We have opportunities to extend our impact within communities, sectors and regions by uniting in diversity to power our movement forward in every street, village, town and city. I write to you to introduce myself as a candidate for Branches Forum Chair at The European Movement. I have included a one page synopsis of my offer below. A longer document is available on request which explains my full background for those who perhaps don’t know so much of my work for the pro-European cause and you can always check out my Linkedin profile if you wish. For several years now, my personal mission is one that embraces everyone and which is consistent with Object 2 of the EM constitution and which relies crucially on our Branch network.
A Better Britain in a Better Europe for a Better World
I intend to make a valuable contribution to groups (branches and affiliates alike), Chairs and the wider EM UK membership, based on significant experience as a business leader, strategic adviser, grassroots activist and prolific writer / presenter across the mainstream media for our common cause.
I see the Branches Forum Chair role as that of a “gardener”, helping to germinate ideas, providing nutrients to convert embryonic ideas into action, cross-pollination of initiatives and so on to help branch chairs and committees develop, grow and strengthen their groups. I will contribute significant time to branch development, to increase meaningful collaboration and connections between groups. At the same time, an imperative for our movement is to engage a younger more diverse demographic and that relies on a strong network of Branches, suitably resourced, trained and equipped to engage people from outside our traditional demographic.
If you and or your committee members would like to meet me, to ask questions and so on, just call me on 07725 927585, or we can set up an informal meet and greet via Zoom. I have reserved every Monday evening at 7 pm to host consultations and Q&A if you wish to join me, or directly experience one of our events at 8 pm every Monday.
We have commenced an exploration of a number of scenarios to Rejoin the EU. Have your say by joining us every Monday at 8pm via ZOOM. Our first outputs are shown below:
Event Strings V III – short term
Event strings V III – Mid term
Our next stages are to write narratives describing pathways through the scenarios and finally to identify short, medium and longer term campaigning goals that take account of a disruptive and fast moving political environment. We must be agile and adaptive as well as focused on long term strategy to succeed.
We have also just released our latest series of visuals to compare Brexit realities with Brexit unicorns. Please support our work via Patreon or Paypal.
We have a full feature in the Islington Gazette, part of the iconic Ham and High imprint – a cultural icon of North London, which remains alive and kicking under the “death of culture” under Brexit populism.
The journalist asked what should happen to Cummings now. Here was my full answer:
“Bearing in mind that Cummings wants the civil service to run more like a business, I suggest that he receive similar treatment from my expertise as a business consultant and leadership author. Let Cummings be subject to SMART objectives, long and short-term performance goals, critical success factors, milestones and a personal balanced scorecard. With monthly appraisals, mentoring, spot bonuses and awards for targets achieved and sackings for major transgressions of his job description. By these measures Cummings should already be down the job centre”.
Saturday 10 July 7 am at Stonehenge, then Salisbury, Blandford Forum, Dorchester (10 am), Bournemouth 12 ish, Poole, Weymouth, plus other stops on the way.
Sunday 11 July – Wiltshire, including Chippenham, Devizes, Cricklade, Swindon then Berkshire, London and Kent.
Tuesday 13 July – Medway in Kent from 2 pm onwards including Jools Holland’s place.
If you cannot attend in person, please support us via Go Fund Me.
Our Tunbridge Wells correspondent, formerly a staunch Tory supporter, reports from the G7 summit in Biarritz, France this time last year where Boris Johnson began his career as British prime minister on the international stage with a lie which was massive even by his standards. On 26 July 2019 he said:
“We asked the people to vote on whether to stay in or out of the EU. They voted overwhelmingly, they voted substantially to leave by a big majority”
WRONG
Only a minority of UK registered voters voted for leave – just 37%. 17.4 million Leave voters are NOT a majority in a country with 46.5 million registered voters, or a country with a population of 67 million. The margin for Leave’s win was wafer thin, just 3.8%
That’s NOT substantial, overwhelming or big.
By comparison the amount to remain in the 1975 referendum was 34.5%. That was substantial, overwhelming and big.
Moreover
Many people directly affected by the referendum results were denied a vote.
Two of the four members of the United Kingdom – Scotland and Northern Ireland – voted against Brexit
Leave won by lying cheating and breaking the law. The Prime Minister’s own Counsel agreed, in a case before the Supreme Court concerning the referendum’s validity, that it was ’notorious’.
A Prime Minister who lies to the world is a liability to the British People … all 67 million of us
Write to your MP to demand honesty in politics and the removal of liars. Use Adrian’s article to help you.
Johnson further discredited our country’s reputation for honesty and reliability when, having reached an agreement with the EU on fundamental principles for our future trading relationship, he went back on his word after the 2019 election on the key issue of a level playing field As matters stand today, this issue may well result in “No Deal” with the EU which, combined with coronavirus, can only result in total “Britastrophe“.
I’m really sick of Brexit. I’m even more sick of Remainers! Well, not all of them of course. Just the ones that waste their and my time telling me we cannot stop Brexit or that we must have a Brexit deal, even if it is shit. My angst extends to some of the key culture carriers of Remain, such as Femi Oluwole, Mike Galsworthy, People’s Vote rebadged and the self-appointed Byline Times leaders, who are merely gold-plating the reasons why we lost three elections and behave like an outreach group of the Labour Party rather than an apolitical coalition devoted to saving the UK from itself.
However, we are all on the same train in one respect, but these people have satisficed themselves with a longer term unicorn of some vague renaissance of a United Kingdom in a reformed EU at some point between 2024 and 2029. This MAY happen, but the probability is low, especially if we get a Brexit deal, as Brexit will be settled for a generation, with no-one wishing to re-open the toxic issue.
See also our article that explains why rejoining is probably a unicorn at Fool Britannia
There is a short-term imperative that these people are not addressing. That of Suspending Brexit altogether. I was gutted to listen to Femi “drinking the Johnson Kool Aid” last week, laying out options for future resistance but not listing the goal of suspending Brexit as one of them. Sadly, 500 Remainers listened to this and because we are largely a law abiding lot, most of them probably believed it. Here I set out the rationale as to why Suspending Brexit in the next 2-3 months remains a viable strategy.
Ball of Confusion OCT – DEC 2020
We can foresee a veritable shitshow in the next few months, an Autumn of Discontent. Here’s just a few of the things coming over the hill in terms of psycho-socio-economic and political factors:
Will Johnson do another U-Turn on Brexit? It’s possible if we act upon moderate MPs and embolden the opposition to grow backbones. He is possibly one of the few people who could do this AND get away with it.
I broke the law
When Remainers tell me that we passed a law to get Brexit done, they seem to forget that our Government break the law on a daily basis. They have just withdrawn the withdrawal agreement, the very law that would “Get Brexit Done”. And just recall all the other laws they have broken of late:
No Deal was ruled illegal. We are still pursing it.
Gina Miller won a case in the Supreme Court. It was ignored.
The Government have just voted down the findings from the Grenfell inquiry in a shameful reversal of their promise – in effect they are saying “Burn, Baby, Burn”.
We have an alleged rapist in the House of Commons, yet nothing has been done about it.
Breaking international law is the most recent example of the plain fact that politicians consider themselves above the law.
Since our Government break the law and do U-Turns on a daily basis, they can also suspend Brexit or do a U-Turn on it. There are plenty of good “excuses”, with COVID at the top of the charts.
How would it be done?
In simple terms, all that is needed is a phone call from Boris Johnson to Ursula Von Der Leyen. The EU have always left the door ajar for this. This opportunity will not prevail forever, but it is still possible at this time via whatever excuse Johnson can create and whatever mechanism the legal profession can manufacture.
Of course the phone call is not enough. But lawyers would make millions providing the “legal theatre” necessary to “christen” the decision by writing hundreds of documents to validate the decision and make it look difficult. More work for the legal profession.
Paradoxically the removal of a Brexit deal from the mix of negotiations would actually help create the chasm between No Deal + Corona i.e. a Britastrophe:
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