Join Extinction Rebellion to surround Parliament from Saturday 21 April. Whilst I’m sure some will wish to go at le weekend, the imperative is to keep this protest alive into the following week when MPs return to Parliament. For this reason, it is imperative that people stage their efforts to run into Monday 23rd April and beyond. Parliament must be brought to a standstill. I’m not even sure that it will make any difference to our lives on a day to day basis. They are only interested in themselves. Brexit makes climate change more pronounced with moral hazard, a bonfire on environmental laws and Tory greenwashing.
Don Adamson reviews the week – there’s not enough time to get it all done within a short article !!
This week’s homework: Discuss the following statement. We used to have a system in this country. When the Tories ran out of steam Labour would take over for a while. When Labour ran out of steam the Tories would take over. It did not make for great government but it did provide for failure. That system does not work anymore. Tories have proved themselves unfit to govern and show no indication of having learned the error of their ways. Labour has been AWOL since 2010 and shows no indication of wanting to form a government. The only answer they have for inexcusable standard of government that we have is that Labour makes vague and unconvincing promises ‘to make Brexit work.’ To quote Shakespeare: A plague on both their houses. We have local government elections coming up. Vote for anybody, repeat anybody, who wants to Rejoin the EU.
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This week’s quotes: “Thick Lizzie and Toilet Kwarteng broke the economy … this budget is returning to Trussonomics… huge benefits for the rich … higher taxes and worse public services for the rest of us … good ideas that clash with Brexit ideology … useless ideas, waste of time and money but the Brexiters like it … incomes fall by further 6% … biggest drop in living standards since records began .. worst record for any major economy … rocked by post Brexit disruption … Global Britain is a lie … £29B in lost investment … future growth is unlikely to take off … lower growth because of Brexit, higher taxes because of Brexit and worse public services because of Brexit … throwing billions at the wealthiest … Brexit has made everything worse … As always in Tory Britain, there is one rule for them and another for the rest of us … Tory MPs breathless excitement at the news that Richy Scumbag was not as totally useless as Johnson and Thick Lizzie … Daily (Once was a real newspaper) Telegraph …. in other news you are unlikely to hear … Rwanda has so far picked up £140M for the deportation scheme at the time that the number of asylum seekers sent there was zero … What Sue Ellen Braverman calls invasion has been a continuous process throughout history … there is no precise distinction between British and non British life forms … never mind the facts … atavistic fear of invasion … hard to say which is more dismaying … politicians compete as to who can be the nastiest … to the most desperate people on earth … Braverman’s nasty public image … Rwanda policy is doomed … as is Richy Scumbag’s pledge to stop boats crossing … UK is abdicating an essential responsibility under international law … Rwanda’s problematical track record on human rights … British government’s message is baffling … even more nonsensical … the site Braverman visited is nothing to do with the UK … smoke and mirrors with nothing behind them … sadistic bait … UK receives small number of asylum seekers than even most European countries … British government policy serves to enrich and empower people smugglers … do we compromise with reality or continue the current deadly charade … toxicity of the asylum debate … ridiculous backlog of claims … realism needs to enter the debate … so long as there is profit people smugglers will enable that behaviour … ridiculous … government is taking the public for fools … promising something it cannot deliver … decent economic growth has escaped the Tory government for all 13 years of its tenure … Braverman’s Rwanda policy is the worst of all the options … no PM has abused powers in such a manner in the last 50 years …
Johnson’s hypocrisy … taxpayer footing the bills … Johnson has made £3.5M and counting … Murdoch talks of being Scottish … he is whatever is expedient for tax purposes … little fraternisation between Daily Mail top brass and Richy Scumbag … Richy Scumbag is in no hurry to sign off the peerage for Dacre … he could do without yet another sleaze scandal … Braverman is awful … scandals … idiotic remarks … fault is not with her but with those who over promoted her … not up to the job … Scumbag is scared of the not sensible wing of his party … Tories have run out of ideas … out of control … desperation leads to bad choices … Braverman gets a free ride for a calculated lie … Tories abandoned the British manufacturing industry in 1979 …
Trump’s dwindling but increasingly unhinged fan base … Brexit is most embarrassing unforced error since Villa keeper let a throw in into his net … Inflation in Britain rose to 10.4% in February … machinery and structure of British government need reform …
Dump Trump
Johnson’s blustering testimony to Parliament reminded us what we had not been missing … less experienced officials acre in more senior posts … ministers have eroded the tradition that officials provide candid advice … the planning system makes quagmires look slick … taxation will reach a lost war high this year … not producing better results … bleak picture …
Pip Pip Medway Delta (Retired) Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class
Learn how to get rid of these shysters – click the link on this picture
Don Adamson’s latest update from Barnsley in Yorkshire.
This week’s quotes: “ 18 Dec 2021 Frost resigned as chief negotiator citing concerns about ‘direction of travel’ ,,, Frost is a political appointee with no proven expertise “ (COMMENT: that is why the Foreign Office made him an Ambassador) … “ (Frost) tends to bugger things up, resign before the job is finished then write astonishingly brass necked columns from the sidelines … efforts to force copies of the biography of Daily Mail founder Lord Northcliffe on hacks at the paper even as they whimper and beg for mercy … Westminster reporters must undertake not to ‘put the reputation of Parliament at risk’ (COMMENT: Tory and Labour parties have already got that covered) … Efforts to clean GB News have been supplanted by an almighty meltdown … presenters must sign new contracts that make them personally responsible for fines resulting from breaches of the broadcasting code … increasingly unhinged Neil Oliver … huge headache for Frangopoulos, the channel’s owner … whacky views … fears at TalkTV that the only possible way is down for Nadine Dorries …
BBC is in serious trouble for reporting excesses by an authoritarian government with dubious ideas on justice and efficiency. Before you get excited I should mention that the government concerned is the government of India. There is no question of the BBC reporting excesses by Richy Scumbag’s corrupt and incompetent government. Rupert Murdoch would not allow that to happen … Russia trying to overthrow the pro-EU government of Moldova … Moldova applied to join the EU … (COMMENT: Not so long ago we heard a lot of Jackanory from Gammons and Flagshaggers to the effect that the EU was on the brink of disintegration. The EU would collapse when Britain left. Yeah, right! Ukraine has also applied to join the EU and Johnson, of all people, supports the idea) …
83% rise in pubs and bars applying for insolvency … the image of Britain as a land of phlegmatic common sense has taken a beating in the last ten years … the country that voted to leave the EU without any coherent plan … simplistic answers to complex questions … Brexiters can still cause enormous damage … Richy Scumbag is surrounded by colleagues who cause him harm … waits in accident and emergency departments are gruelling … British economy will be living with the effects of the pandemic for years unlike the rest of G7 countries … damage unevenly distributed … Britain’s dismal growth over the past three years … laggard status … spending more but getting less for their money … unusually steep fall in British national income compared with peers … spending more than ever on health care but getting less for the money … crabs poisoned by chemicals … following decades of industrial activity on the Tees … recklessly expanding the Freeport … like Long Island Sound where the lobster industry has never recovered … urgency is lacking …
France has a fatal fascination with Russia .. Marine Le Pen’s campaigns have been financed by Russia … Mr Pompeo remained obsequious – ‘He is like a heat seeking missile for Trump’s a***e … Britain’s especially limp PM Richy Scumbag … So far as I am concerned Johnson can F*** off … Johnson is dreaming of a Churchillian return to 10 Downing St … Dominic Beales (Labour’s challenger to Johnson in his own constituency) … ‘we’re hitting the doorsteps’ … ‘I voted for Johnson last time; never again! … the government is hopeless … Johnson’s support seems remarkably soft … his chances of beating Jonson … a startling 92% … If Uxbridge voted today it would damningly vote against the Tories … would be a seismic event in British politics … visited Ukraine more often than his constituency … was it the visit of a genuinely concerned MP or just another photo op? … Johnson will do what is in Johnson’s interests … he does not give a damn about Oxbridge … A charlatan’s new low …
Richy Scumbag is cursed to try to pass policies while Johnson torpedoes them … Johnson screwed over the DUP … a mess that needs to be fixed … “
From Don Adamson in Yorkshire. Brexorcist First Class, campaigner, writer and impressario:
This week’s quotes: “ Brexit re-enactment society: historical re-enactments are popular in Britain … fans of the genre should go the House of Lords … scrutinising the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) bill … lawmakers know the bill is dangerous, wasteful and one of the silliest pieces of legislation ever to come before Parliament … Parliament is again galloping towards an avoidable blunder … it is like lighting a fire in a library and handing the librarians a photocopier and a marker pen to save what they can … ministers do not know how many laws are in scope … hands the executive broad powers to make laws with no idea as to how the power might be used …
Treasury fears it could lose billions in tax challenges … an almighty time sink … for the vanity of those for whom the battle to leave the EU was the highlight of their careers … parliament is imprisoned by the shrill politics of Brexit … some of the most damaging features of the Brexit process … a sane country would never allow itself to be put in this vice … familiar mix of terror and irresponsibility … blithe optimism smothers debate …
Labour is wary of opposing Brexit … terrible mistake … a clear majority of Brits believe that to Leave the EU was a mistake … Brexit causes politicians to lose their judgement … The Old Bailey focuses mainly on murder, rape and terrorism cases … the majority of terrorism cases involved people on the far right of British politics. A minority involves Islamic terrorist cases …
Thick Lizzie addressed a reception at the Japanese Embassy … the feet shuffling mood hovered between embarrassment and cringe coated pain … Thick Lizzie assumes publishers would flock to offer her big bucks for her memoirs … interest varied between minimal and zero … must be hurtful … Johnson is clocking up millions for his memoirs and after dinner speeches … while persuading Richy Scumbag to fund lawyers to help Johnson pretend that he did not lie to Parliament over Partygate …
Brexit is choking the arts and the government is doing nothing about it … touring orchestras and music sales – British culture and arts are a huge success story … Brexit means struggling with tough opposition from abroad … rivals get better tax breaks … children’s TV is suffering … movies of all kinds, music, live theatre, dance, audio books and video games … the world loves British cultural exports but Brexit makes it far harder to sell them … games firms give £7B a year to the economy … music exports are worth £3.5B … creative industries contribute £116B to the economy … yet is one of the worst hit by Brexit … government is totally indifferent … British government promised to make up any shortfall but has not done so … huge problem for the industry … harder and more expensive … a ruinously expensive waste of time … hurt an industry where Britain has huge advantages … You have to be something of a strange breed to want to be an MP in the first place …
Daily Telegraph runs pieces overtly critical of Brexit and Johnson … Johnson can only count on Daily Mail and Sunday Mail for blind loyalty … Michael Gove admitted ‘I ask myself if Brexit was the right thing to do ‘ … Gove’s loyalty lasts only so long as it suits his interests … wants to distance himself from the Brexit recriminations after the next election … frankly hilarious death spiral the governments poll numbers have been taking for months …
Thick Lizzie continues to peddle her ‘it was all the fault of communist currency traders’ … ‘le grande illusion’ encapsulates Brexit … Johnson’s audacity … ‘that is what Louis XVI did and he got the guillotine … Redevelopment at Teesside Freeport is Europe’s largest and most risky Brownfield project… highly toxic land and riverbed is churned up at breakneck speed …
Environment Secretary Therese Coffey has little interest in protecting the environment … toxic waste is taken from remediated areas and piles driven into contaminated land … ‘business partners’ make tens of millions … Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy … it was in the days of Nigel Lawson and Peter Walker that this vital industry last enjoyed civil servants with genuine energy expertise … the timing of these disruptions could not be worse … a new defence export advocate to promote arms sales … given the job to a Tory peer … under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office … there are more health professionals of Ghanaian origin working for the NHS than in Ghana … Brexit is not a complete disaster, it is an incomplete disaster … Brexit does not need fixing stormed Lord Frost to the Daily Mail …
Brexit is not a complete disaster, it is an incomplete disaster
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.
— Reboot Britain – Rage Against The Brexit Machine (@BrexitRage) February 3, 2023
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.
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:
Outlandish promises that we would fund our healthcare system with the proceeds of Brexit.
Brexit ‘freedoms’ from EU laws, 98% of which Britain helped to make.
The weaponisation of migrants ‘swarming’ into the UK, using the very same language used by the Nazis to justify the Holocaust.
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.
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.
End of communication
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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.
From Don Adamson, Brexorcist in Chief from Yorkshire.
This week’s quotes: “excess deaths have shown a marked increase in the UK … difficulty accessing emergency care is adding to avoidable deaths in the UK … Murdoch’s TalkTV is regularly recording zero audience … Murdoch has spent millions … £50M for barely viewed presenter Piers Moron alone … Johnson inherited the longest ever waiting lists and social care vacancies ever … Brexit making vacancies harder to fill … worrying reductions in the life expectancies of women … Johnson made bold promises that were never likely to succeed … no chance of delivering the 2019 Mandate and they know it … a massive lie … Scumbag has two years to deliver on Johnson’s health fantasies … Scumbag banking his future on delivering the impossible … clinical staff silenced on issues that could save lives … we will see avoidable deaths mount this winter … delay and obfuscation … staff shortages … morale rock bottom … a horrible winter awaits … Johnson’s serial dishonesty … Thick Lizzie’s fiscal recklessness … disastrous … the sense of respite is overdone … Scumbag has some qualities but many flaws … the relief is damning. Competence ought to be a given not an ambition … stability is nowhere near enough … Britain is still below pre Pandemic levels of output … the taboo that Tories are unlikely to think rationally about Brexit is unlikely to end … quickly bounced into making promises … tin ear .. tax status of his wife … talk of Tory unity is wildly premature … reappointment of Sue Ellen Braverman … is a victory of expediency over ability … this is before the real pain bites … a grim saga of high inflation and rising interest rates … his personal wealth is a lightning rod for voter discontent … tragedy … expectations so reduced that not imploding is the sign of a grown up … dysfunction … slow growth … inability to talk honestly about Brexit … economic indicators flashing red … cartoon radicalism … primary qualification is loyalty not ability … billions need to be found to balance the books … Tories have devolved a taste for sacrifice … defensive move by a PM whose party is ungovernable, may backfire … by promoting Braverman Scumbag damages his own reputation … politically naive … Scumbag’s ascendancy was more rapid than it should have been … Scumbag is a cause of the problem … tidy up a mess that he helped create … when the Tories erred in recent years Scumbag … always in favour of the mistake … supported Brexit … supported an extraordinary solution to the problem (Johnson) … can be put down to cynicism … support for Quixotic policy is the norm for Scumbag … governs in party interest rather than national interest … little evidence that Scumbag will challenge vested interests … inexperience, even with copious intelligence, is always a problem … Tories had nowhere else to turn … Scumbag does not mark a change from failed policies, he personifies them … The rot in Tory Party did not begin with Thick Lizzie … Brexit, which Scumbag supports, is the handbrake on country’s economic prospects …Johnson’s chaotic reign … more ruin … Tory failure to challenge its supporters does so much damage to the country … Richy Scumbag’s career in exploitative finance makes him unfit to be PM … will soon deploy the logic that made him rich to justify making millions of people poorer … 90% of schools face bankruptcy … catastrophic NHS failure … Scumbag has made money out of manipulating money, profited from the bankruptcy of others, ruthlessly exploited the leniency of regulators … the great Tory failed experiment in populism made the richest politician in Britain PM. Enriching the rich was ultimately what Brexit was about… British manufacturing is reeling from Brexit idiocy … the way successive administrations have gone about implementing Brexit has made things worse… manufacturing is particularly vulnerable to Brexit … cost of red tape at borders is £7B per year (government figures) … Germany now attracts more Japanese firms than the UK … decline of the car industry in the last six years … it has collapsed … new models are all going to be built abroad … Brexit problems made worse by government incompetence … it gets worse … Brigit industry is having to spend billions more … ever more ridiculous deadlines … Brexiter fantasy … Rees Mogg’s absurd law … grim picture … Brexit has done absolutely nothing to help … huge amount of damage … no sign that government recognises the problem … even 2016 Leave Voters know this is a bare faced lie … Chaos … scandal upon scandal … shutting down rather than answering legitimate problems … Richy Scumbag …. thick streak of selfishness … integrity holed below the waterline on day one … barely answers a single question … preferring bluster and evasion … no parliamentary accountability … total contempt for it … Scumbag is in the Johnson – Trump camp for standards … years of chaos and uncertainty … UK needs stability and competence … PM’s choice is save the economy or save Brexit … the absence of agreed plans hangs over government … an appallingly irresponsible fiscal event … it is not possible to make Brexit work … businesses are moving from Britain … not Project Fear, Project Reality … by far the biggest destructor is the fallout from Brexit … Scumbag’s cabinet … very few have real ability … clueless and frankly dangerous … sanity is off the menu … Brexit has poisoned our whole economic discourse … outbreak of reality seems a long way off … Cabinet should be chosen on merit not loyalty … next few years will be tough … disruptive … symptoms are bloating and egomania … vanity projects … Thick Lizzie represented the culmination of 12 years of Tory policies … income inequality, low productivity and poor public services … freaking social contract …. Sluggish economy … add Brexit to the toxic mix and you have the makings of long term decline…. those attracted to the leadership of such a party are intellectually wanting driven by hunger for personal wealth … Britain’s fiasco … this was, to put it mildly, misleading … nursing shortage of 46,828 … nearly 12% of nursing jobs unfilled … winter of discontent would pose hard questions for both parties … Thick Lizzie’s phone had been hacked … a year’s worth of messages … a similar attack on a government issue phone would have been difficult … Sue Ellen used her personal e-mail to handle classified messages … she is now back in the same job … the outlook for Britain is grim … madness in Westminster …86 profit warnings … more than in any year since 2008 … everything is getting more expensive … 3 way squeeze on households … Consumer confidence has crashed … UK is heading into a grim winter … the economic damage caused by Brexit gets ever clearer … Sue Ellen talks of ‘invasion’ … such talk is inflammatory and immoral … miserable tale of incompetence, cruelty and complacency … Sue Ellen repeatedly pledged stronger borders, lower immigration and more sovereignty … They have achieved the opposite … harebrained … paying Rwanda to take asylum seekers … slapstick version of geo-politics … rather than being a sovereign Britain is a supplicant … incompetence and cruelty of the right … every solution is impractical … the result is paralysis, misery and death … Nobody celebrates Brexit anymore … failure to deliver … we were sold a pup … we were tricked. We were deceived, they conned us, there is no way Brexit benefited us … If Johnson were to walk past I would spit on him … we were all hoodwinked … he did not deliver … shown how incompetent this government is … they should not have promised what they could not deliver … complete and utter lies … acute labour shortage … ideological stuff rushed through without considering the consequences … we have had to accept a lower work ethic … daily reminders of government failure … Chief Twit Elon Musk is determined to make the sewer even more vile … Britain needs strong economic growth … not going to happen … Richy Scumbag confronts a bleak economic landscape … biggest danger of Brexit is not the decline in trade but the hit to financial services … City of London did very well out of being in the EU … a victory that Brexit threw away … Brexit has hurt financial services in many ways …£900B has transferred from the city to the EU … City has lost 7,400 highly paid jobs … playing into your competitor’s hands is always a bad idea … there was a point when Gavin Williamson thought he could be PM … hilarity is not confined to Elon Musk tanking the already tarnished reputation of his $44B purchase … after declaring that Toilet Kwarteng’s budget ‘was the best I heard a Chancellor deliver’ … Telegraph has succumbed to deep depression … Rees Mogg is no mood to apologise for backing a succession of losers … ‘it is the dominant left wing ideology that is to blame for UK going pear shaped … Johnson clearly invoked a faux past … myth that Britain singlehandedly won WW2 … nonsense … Churchill himself advocated what he called a ‘United States of Europe’ … people who should be chastised are seen as heroes of incivility … why is Nigel Garbage not appear on Question Time now that the true reality of his lies are becoming apparent? … Trussonomics, a policy dreamed up by the extreme right of the Tory Party … who is brave enough to tell the truth: stay outside the EU and become increasingly poor or get back in and regain prosperity? …
Pip Pip Don Adamson Medway Delta (Retired) Brexorcist and Saboteur 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.
Illiberal acts from the left
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.
