JOHNSON & JAVID PROCLAIM FREEDOM DAY –LET COVID SPREAD FREELY !
This decade has produced several examples of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Brexit, for example, is reversing the economic recovery arduously achieved during our membership of the EU, from being the sick man of Europe in the 1970s up to 2016, by when we had become the top European recipient of foreign investment. (That is no longer the case). The handling of the Covid pandemic under Johnson’s incompetent Brexiteer regime is becoming a further case.
On his appointment as health minister, Javid announced that July 19 would be the end of the line for Covid restrictions, that this date would be “the start of an exciting new journey for our country”, and even that the nation would be healthier without the restrictions ! While the number of cases was “ticking up”, the number of deaths remained mercifully low. The number of hospital admissions had doubled by then but he saw no reason to delay beyond July 19 because no date we chose came with zero risk. Knowing we simply cannot eliminate the virus, we had to learn to live with it. This was an extraordinary statement, coming from a new appointee with a background in banking and politics but no experience of healthcare. It was contrary to the views of virtually the whole of the medical profession and NHS. Javid either did not bother to take the advice of his scientific advisers or chose to ignore it.
He and Johnson think that, with the older generation doubly vaccinated, the Covid effect will be reduced to little more than a severe cold, complacently assuming 100,000 cases per day to be acceptable. However, whilst deaths and intensive care cases have been relatively low so far, the Delta variant of the virus has had a more serious effect on the younger generations than a cold. With cases at 30,000 per day and surging , the pressure on hospitals is now approaching the levels of the earlier Covid waves, when beds and treatment were unavailable except to Covid patients. Javid apparently ignores deaths from failure to diagnose and treat diseases such as cancer through lack of facilities, which, it is estimated, matched those from Covid in the previous waves.
There are other consequences which our new health minister fails to understand. New Covid variants arise in conditions where the virus is able to spread freely, and in a partially vaccinated population will promote the emergence of vaccine-resistant variants. The Javid/Johnson policy of “living with the virus” thus opens the door to a stream of new variants, up to omega, with the likelihood that those with greater resistance to vaccines will emerge. Another aspect is the serious after-effect of Covid, known as ‘Long Covid”, on a sizeable proportion of sufferers.These may include damage to breathing, muscles, joints and other organs as well as brain fog, all for an indeterminate period and irrespective of age of the sufferers or the severity of the attack itself. The risk of Long Covid falls particularly on young people and children, who are mostly still unvaccinated.
Johnson’s retort to critics is to ask; “If not now, then when should we open up?” The obvious answer is “NOT NOW”. The vaccination programme needs more time, for all the reasons given above. Johnson’s ”Freedom Day” is a piece of ballyhoo to gain cheap publicity, welcome only to those with no concern for the health of others. His exhortation is to the public to “behave responsibly” is not credible from a man whose own career has been marked by irresponsibility, rule breaking and self-indulgence. Its purpose is to enable him place the blame of any catastrophic fourth wave on the failure by the people to follow his guidance rather than on his government’s neglect of its duty to protect them. Don’t be duped !
The repetitive “why” technique is good for getting to root causes which I’ve used extensively as a scientist and MBA tutor. Here is a vastly reduced form of the technique applied to the case of “Matt Hancock’s Half Hour”:
Q : Why is Matt Hancock being investigated?
A : Because he kissed a woman and grabbed her arse?
WRONG.
A : Because he made policy decisions that led to 150 000 Corona deaths?
WRONG.
A : Because Johnson needs a distraction from the growth of the COVID Delta variant?
In part, YES.
A : Because Johnson needs a distraction from the next stages of Brexit?
In part, YES.
Q : Should Hancock be sacked?
A : Yes, but, of course this lets Johnson, Gove, Redwood, Sunak, Leadsom, Patel, Raab, Baker, McVey, Francois, Truss, Whately, Duncan Smith, Mogg, Dacre, Murdoch, The Barclays, Foster, Davis, Jenrick, Zahawi, Coffey, Farage, Eustace, Hoey, Trump, Elliot, Cameron, Corbyn, May, Mc Cluskey, Fox, Field, Jenkin, Hannan, Cummings et al off the hook, not to mention their shadowy acolytes. Who did I miss? Sunak is an interesting example as many people think him benign. However, Julia Smith points out that Sunak deliberately ignored 3.5 million self employed people. A small number of these killed themselves as a result. Brexit extremism is not without its human consequences.
Q : What then is the root cause of Hancock? i.e. Why is Hancock Hancock?
A : Johnson.
Q : What then is the root cause of Johnson? i.e. Why is Johnson Johnson?
(a) 100,000 of those deaths could have been avoided but for this government’s inexcusable incompetence. That makes Johnson and Hancock Premier League mass murderers.
(b) Brexit was always for the benefit of tax dodgers and other criminals. It was never for the benefit of decent people.
(c) Johnson has a licence to be dictator until 2024.
The worst is yet to come.
Read our recent articles:
Five Years – A review of five years of Brexit “benefits”.
Career opportunities – Our application to work for the Cabinet Office to find the Brexit benefits.
Paul Bowers, our parliamentary lobbyist has produced an excellent letter to promote All-Party Parliamentary action on the EU which we may customise (attached).
We seek to target wobbling Tories as a first tranche and, of course, opposition parties.
Please go to the Google sheet and populate the sheet with details of relevant MPs and add your name if you plan to write to your MP.
Here is the letter to customise:
[Name] MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
Dear [MP]
All-Party Parliamentary Group on European Union
I am writing as a constituent to ask you to consider setting up an All-Party Parliamentary Group on the European Union.
[I am a member of {name of activist group}]. I voted Remain in the 2016 referendum, and I have campaigned on the issue ever since.
[Insert personal connection here – In addition, my husband is Estonian; I have fond memories of studying at the Sorbonne; I once ate a croissant … ]
As you know, leaving the EU has damaged the UK’s fishing communities, threatens our farmers and food security, has cost eye-watering sums for financial services, harmed our creative industries, and forced many exporters either to scale down or to relocate. The Government’s encouragement of relocation is as much an admission of failed policy as are its plans to support retraining for farmers. Brexit has also damaged UK democracy, reduced our standing in the world, stigmatised EU nationals, and divided our country.
I believe that membership of the European Union is a necessity for the UK.
However, the response of the major political parties to the result of the 2019 general election risks creating a vicious circle of despair. Many voters wish to rejoin the EU, but feel that this is not possible because politicians are not showing leadership to that end. They feel politically homeless.
If no voice in Parliament even addresses the damage of our loss of membership, nor points out the opportunities presented by new developments within the EU, such as the growth of the green and digital sectors from the ambitious NextGenerationEU recovery and transformation plan, we will not be in a position to take advantage promptly of any opportunity to promote membership that might arise.
According to the APPG Register of 2 June 2021, there are Groups on individual European countries, on Erasmus and on Reuniting Britain Post-Brexit, but not on the EU itself.
As you may know, Article 11 of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement provides that the European Parliament and the UK Parliament may establish a Parliamentary Partnership Assembly “to exchange views on the partnership.”
In its Resolution 2021/2658(RSP) of 28 April 2021, the European Parliament endorsed this, envisaging an Assembly which would monitor implementation of the TCA, and suggesting that its remit include “the right to submit recommendations for areas where improved cooperation could be beneficial for both parties and to take joint initiatives to promote close relations.”
An APPG could support this work, and undertake a number of other roles:
Raising awareness of the damage caused by Brexit and the broken promises of Brexiteers
Channelling constituents’ views on policies that might reconcile them to EU membership
Creating a basis for lobbying within your own party in an effort to shift the leadership towards Rejoin
Representing the experiences of EU national constituents and their children
Providing scrutiny of the TCA, now that the Government has abolished the Commons Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union
Commissioning research, providing spokespeople to the media and promoting an informed view of the EU, life outside, and the accession process
Providing a conduit to Parliament, through external membership, for informed activists
Contacting the Conference on the Future of Europe to discuss reforms that might help reconcile UK voters to a future return, and to stay in touch with new developments in the EU
I hope you will consider this suggestion positively, and speak to other Members about the possibility of creating an APPG on the EU. The longer we go on without one, the more glaring the omission, and the harder it will be for politicians to break the silence on this most vital of issues.
Every day, people of all persuasions tell me “Brexit is done – we can do no more”. More than many, I understand just how wearing nearly five years of gaslighting, shapeshifting and obfuscation is on the soul. But, in spite of it all, we can and we must:
Re-Boot Britain is a pan-political advocacy and lobbying network. Let’s restore humanity, humility, democracy and truth in politics to Britain. Nearly five years of lying, gaslighting, shapeshifting and obfuscation gave us Brexit. Lets’s put the populist genie back in the bottle, by bettering the populists at their own wicked games:
* Reform politics towards representative democracy.
* Break the parliamentary paralysis that broke Britain.
* Take back control (sic) of populist media across our divided nations by making our case for a Better Britain in a Better Europe for a Better World
* Create mind-shifts to move popular opinion about Britain’s role in the world.
Brexit has consumed Britain : 3 elections, 3 Prime Ministers and 3 failed attempts to Brexit. It has left us weak and vulnerable in our response to COVID.
A political backbone has been absent in Britain for nearly five years and probably longer. The diverse and disparate Remain movements have sometimes gold-plated the strategy that lost them the referendum, albeit with the best of intentions. Various attempts to build cohesion and collaboration into our movement have failed, rather like one of the biggest silo-based monolith public sector organisations.
Yet we cannot allow the greatest disaster next to climate change to threaten the next generation’s futures to continue. Our continued resistance is both moral, a fight worth having and certainly not a waste of tiWatch the video below for a quick overview of the project:
Read more about the background to this in our paper “Brexit Futures“. Although the paper was published in January 2020 and is therefore out of date, much of what it says remains relevant, especially the second half, on the question of reforming our fragmented movement. The paper has been adopted by Grassroots for Europe and a number of other large pro EU institutions including the Federal Trust and Hendrik Klassens, the originator of the #FBPE hashtag.
The panic buying associated with the Corona outbreak gave us a sneak preview of what Brexit will look like. This is merely an hors d’ouevre for Britain, if we allow things to continue. As I write on Jan 04 2021, people are beginning to work out the impact of our thin deal via companies who are refusing to supply UK with goods and services, problems with Amazon / ebay etc.
THE WHY : OUR AIMS
THE HOW – STRATEGY
We are building a full time professional advocacy movement with the aim of breaking the deadlock of our “dead cat” politics:
1. Breaking Parliamentary Paralysis – via lobbying MPs using a variety of means.
2. “Taking Back Control” of populist media via press and media activity in national and local print / radio and TV media.
3. Develop much better reach into social media, in terms of honesty, depth of penetration and reach across Britain.
4. Changing minds on Brexit via 1:1 conversations and / or en masse via online leaders’ debates and other grassroots strategies.
HOW II – OUR ORGANISATION
We have a team-based network structure across Britain and Europe. What we cannot do ourselves, we do with others e.g. The European Movement, Grassroots for Europe, EU Flag Mafia, UKPEN and so on. We invite you to join one or more of these bubbles, giving consideration to your skills and will. We run weekly ZOOM meetings. Please drop me a message to join an induction meeting or one of our regular tactical meetings where we create campaigns and media.
HOW CAN YOU HELP?
We ask that you join us with a suggested donation of £10 per month or £100 pa for Silver membership. If you can spare more, please consider higher level donations of £25 pm / £250 pa or £50 pm / £500 pa. Or please just give what you can afford on an ad hoc basis. Everything helps.
Silver : Gives you basic early access to our daily stream of writing and media
Gold : Gain copies of our work in advance of release (books, music, media). Exclusive invites to our regular series of conference calls and seminars
Platinum : 1:1 coaching in the art and discipline of changing minds on Brexit plus all other benefits above
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Isn’t Brexit already done? A piece of paper was signed
We had our “Chamberlain moment” on 31.01.20 plus Boris Johnson some time spent in a gulag (fridge), finally getting Brexit done through using COVID and Christmas as a weapon to distract us from the realities of the “oven-ruined Brexit deal”. But Brexit is a political process and the law is merely a servant to the politicians. We now face a winter of discontent, as the realities start to bite. Anything is possible in such a climate, including the dramatic fragmentation of an 80 strong majority and / or the slow removal of the populist culture carriers from power, just as Trump has been leavened gradually. If you are not sure on the relative powers of politics versus the law, just think of ONE occasion when the Government obeyed the rule of law in the last five years, or other precedents. Here’s a few where they didn’t:
1. Gina Miller’s Supreme Court Case 2. The Cooper No Deal amendment – No Deal was deemed illegal, yet it was used in 2020 as a threat to secure Brexit 3. Pro-rogation of Parliament 4. The 6 million petition was ignored 5. Planning to break international law to get Brexit done 6. Allowing rapists to continue acting as MPs 7. Re-introduction of the death penalty, which threatens our trade agreement with the EU
… and so on. Our Government is beyond the law. We should not be so keen to give them excuses to continue doing this.
If political will changed, the law would be made to fit the circumstances and lawyers would spend years and earn a lot of money re-arranging the law to fit the circumstances.
Is it too late? We finalised things?
We have now exited the EU via a highly compressed timetable and limited scrutiny of the trade deal. Mark Francois has already declared that the fight for a hard Brexit will continue and negotiations will continue for many years as contradictions and conflicts emerge. We can use various legal devices such as Article 49 and or the formal review process built into the trade agreement. We live in a disruptive political climate with the toxic mixture of Corona + Brexit = Britastrophe and we have no idea whether Boris Johnson’s Government will survive the oncoming tsunami.
What will we do with the money?
We will hire a small organisation – A PA, fundraising team, professional web platform and so on. Also allocate up to 50% of the funds to support our full-time input. Voluntary activity is fine but we need full time professional help to be agile and able to react. I am prepared to set my work aside to do this but I also need to live. Of late we have had to install security and surveillance measures due to death threats and actual attacks on my property from angry people who claim that continuing to talk about Brexit is anti-democratic.
What is our organising structure?
Strategy and Leadership team – Members of this team are established strategists and people who can lead and manage others. All leaders of the other teams are automatically part of this team and we invite people from other Remain / Rejoin organisations for collaboration purposes.
Fundraising team – Members of this team understand how to raise funds for a cause or are willing and able to amplify the efforts of the leader of the fundraising team.
Social media amplification team – We need a team of people who have time to give across the major social media – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram etc. either in content generation or pure amplification of our social media footprint. Our ABV (Anti-Brexit Virus) Super Spreader networks are already established on Facebook and Twitter. Our real enemy is not Corona, it is the populist politics that offer “easy answers” to complex problems.
Mainstream media team – Members of this team write great letters, articles and / or conduct credible interviews with MSM across print, radio and television. You may be members of the public with media skills, business leaders, political pundits, journalists, celebrities and so on. We must punch above our weight in MSM using colourful material with gravitas added.
People, Parliament and Power team – You will likely possess skills of influence and persuasion, both in terms of positive advocacy and possibly the “dark side of the force” e.g. Machiavellian and Sun Tzu type strategies to deal with opponents. European Movements liaison team – Our strength is the extent to which we are able to operate as ‘boundary crossers’ to minimise the silo-based structure of Remain. You will be an avid and capable networker, able to gain co-operation from the main organisations.
Scotland, Ireland, Wales and The EU team – Brexit means that there will be significant moves towards independent nations and regions of the UK. We will support local elections and other activities to help others gain independence. You may live in England. Website and media production team – We’re looking for people with skills to upgrade the website and produce video and other media.
Events team – Working with other national groups such as EU Flag Mafia, Grassroots for Europe, we support other grassroots groups in delivering impactful events. We have already staged a Festival of Brexit and other events and plan more. Administration team – We are looking for a team to assist our professional PA to smooth communication and co-ordination. We plan a weekly briefing to members and our networks to help bridge the many silos in the Remain organisation.
Holding Brexit to account team – Essentially, you will be a good analyst and someone who can interrogate data and convert it into powerful information via reports and other media.
Oh, no, not another anti Brexit movement?
Our difference comes from the fact that we will be more direct than professional politicians, outsmarting Nigel Farage et al. at their own wicked games. We will also rely more on professionals in their field rather than volunteers. This will give us the edge in terms of responsiveness and agility. At the same time we will collaborate with other pro EU and anti-Brexit groups across the board, acting to amplify their efforts. Despite best efforts of the many local grass roots EU organisations and various central quangos which have now folded, much of our work has suffered from “initiative constipation” – see Brexit Futures for more insights on this. In brief:
* We collaborate with the major national and international Remain movements.
* We have no party politics but work with people across parties.
* We allocate full-time professional effort to our organisation. Voluntary effort alone, whilst welcome, has not given us sufficient energy, agility and focus.
When I was five years old, I wanted to be in The Beatles, but all the jobs were taken … By the age of 12, I wanted to be a scientist and I became one. At the age of 18 I took a job with a philanthropic pharmaceutical company, working around the world and developing the first human insulin, novel medicines for herpes and to bring the first HIV / AIDS treatment to the world in record time. This means that I bring a scientific mind, curiosity and rigour to your enterprise.
By the age of 30 I had developed an interest in business leadership and began teaching MBA programmes, having completed 3.5 degrees myself. At 34, I took myself out of a paid job and, for the last 28 years, I have worked independently as a consultant, author and speaker with people at all levels all over the world, helping them to transform their enterprises. My clients seek to balance their passions, purposes and profit for a more responsible and sustainable form of capitalism in the 4th industrial age. I also help leaders digest what we call “wicked problems and opportunities”, in other words, the issues that keep them awake at night, using a unique mixture of divergent and convergent thinking skills. My 28 years of consultancy experience bring a wealth of expertise and wisdom to you, in enterprises as diverse as Unilever to the United Nations.
Along the way, I have written 12 books on leadership, innovation and creativity, gaining a prize for my work from Sir Richard Branson and various accolades from Professors Charles Handy, Adrian Furnham, Tom Peters et al. Over some 50 years, I have gradually combined my three passions of science, business and music into a potent mixture which reaches the head, heart and soul of your enterprise.
In combination, your enterprise benefits from rigour, analytics and curiosity due to my science and business background, plus the emotional intelligence, creativity and improvisation skills that come from my life as a music composer and producer. As a musician I have been privileged to interview world class musicians such as Roberta Flack, John Mayall, AC / DC, members of Prince’s ensembles, Queen’s production team and Meatloaf’s singing partners for their insights into leadership, innovation and success.
I am a passionate advocate for better politics and better business for a better world, fighting populist politicians and short-termism in our global affairs. I am an “HR” person, i.e. a “Hippy Realist”: green by ideals, but pragmatic by actions to change the world towards more sustainable behaviour.
Anti-Brexit activism
On terms of my work over the last five years, I have led the Rage Against The Brexit Machine project, having written three albums of anti-Brexit protest songs and got one of them to Number One on the Amazon chart. “Brexorcist in Chief” for Mid Kent 4 EU, I wrote a book on the subject of having difficult conversations with Leave voters from many thousands of hours of activity on the street, in cafes and bars. Out of all this time, on one occasion I gained two black eyes for misjudging an interaction with angry leave voters. I was also arrested by Essex Police for driving a Mini Cooper with “B*llocks to Brexit” on the side. They asked me to remove the signage on the hard shoulder of the M25. Sadly for Essex Police I called 999 to have the officer arrested. 250 000 Tweets later, Essex Police had to retreat with an apology for putting their lives and ours at risk. I should emphasise that the vast majority of our dealings with the Police and public have been cordial and uneventful.
I stood a stuffed cat in the 2019 General Election. Although the cat was only there to create tactical voting, to my surprise, Stan the Cat did not come last in the ratings, beating the Christian People’s Alliance who had been campaigning for 15 years with a budget !! Aside from the above sensationalism, I’ve managed to get our cause into the BBC, ITV, Sky, LBC and all major print media from The Guardian to The Express without ANY media agency or budget, just by using a professional approach. Whilst some Remainers consider me “underground”, my approach is much more effective than the blowhards in committees who simply watch things happen.
For nearly 5 years I have acted to dispel the illusions of Brexit. At 62 I am at some risk from Corona and consider that a fitting epitaph for my life would be the destruction of Brexit populism for the sake of future generations.
Yesterday’s “Domshell” revelations from Cummings are out there for all to see. However, Cummings managed to sidestep one vital issue. The extent to which the Government’s decisions on COVID were themselves informed by the obsessive need to “Get Brexit Done”. Here we report on the Cummings and Goings after a brief interlude from a spoof edition of “FHM Magazine” which illustrates the type of gaslighting we will be expecting in the cummings days:
To support our work please give us a tip by clicking on the image
Cummings could hardly admit that his pet project of Brexit was in any way a cause of the indecision, cronyism, delay and lies put forward to fool the public about our world beating deaths under COVID and the losses of lives and livelihoods due to stop start lockdowns and failure to use circuit breakers under the advice of scientists. However, it is plain to see that Johnson used COVID as a mask to “Get Brexit Done” last Christmas, when no-one seemed to care about anything else other than turkeys and an end to the COVID crisis. Johnson was able to railroad his own MPs and the opposition into signing a deal with zero scrutiny. We are only just beginning to see the outfall of Johnson’s decisions on Brexit, see Brexodus and to misquote a well-worn phrase “the worst is yet to come”
Brexit + COVID overload
At the most basic level, our problems with COVID deaths and emerging Brexit problems are a resourcing and time management issue in Government and The Civil Service in spite of best efforts on the part of most people. No other civilised country in the world has tried to deal with a pandemic PLUS a constitutional coup at the same time. Stretched resources meant that decisions were either not taken or delayed. Bad decisions cost lives in a pandemic, at least 150 000 unnecessary COVID-related deaths. The decisions made by Johnson’s Cabinet were masked by lies, which also grew on an exponential scale alongside pandemic deaths.
Hancock’s half hour
Although Matt Hancock has been served up to face the public, he is not the root cause of the problems with COVID deaths. They go back to the irresponsible decision to Get Brexit Done alongside the pandemic and the people who pushed for this are strangely silent. Lest we forget their names:
We warned of the problems from dither and delay over a year ago in March 2020. Cummings revelations are welcome. If he is now to clear his record, he must go further and admit that the toxic combination of Corona crisis + Brexit disaster has delivered a Britastrophe. I am not forgiving Cummings yet, but his candour is welcome and I believe his testimony. To quote some well worn phrases:
I agree with Dom
Let’s talk about BREX .. it
Decision making is a function of effective leadership
The wonderful work of Cold War Steve with an insertion of my Britastrophe banner. Find Steve’s work by clicking the image.
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Strictly Necessary Cookies
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.
