Please write to them today and every day this week. We need a veritable tsunami of letters to arrive this week on the abject stupidity and sheer irresponsibility of Brexit, rather like when Harry Potter receives his letters from Hogwarts:

Why?

To find out why you must do this please read Brexit Choices. If you are thinking Why Bother? letters work. Rachel Ashley managed to get Antoinette Sandbach to switch parties at the last General Election. Rather than argue with me on Facebook, Just Do It please.

Who?

We have three targets for our attention. Please follow the links in red to find e-mail addresses:

Boris Johnson and Conservative MP’s

Keir Starmer, Labour MP’s and the opposition

EU Leaders – Von der Leyen, Barnier, Verhofstadt et al.

What?

Please write personal letters. These work best. Be courteous even if you don’t like the person you are writing to. Please focus on the issue rather than the person or the party. To find out more on advocacy, please see the book “Reboot Britain“. Some sample letters are below for you to adapt:

LETTERS FOR BORIS AND CONSERVATIVES

Dear Boris Johnson,

I am aware that people who serve in leadership positions are often motivated by the legacy they leave behind.  No one would wish the current COVID crisis on any world leader.  However, to add the man-made project of Brexit to the natural crisis of COVID adds needless stress to a country about to have its resilience tested in ways that are unimaginable in peace time.

An 11% GDP hit from COVID x a 5-9% additional hit from Brexit will produce a lasting L-shaped (L stands for LONG) recession.  For the good of the country and in terms of how you will be viewed by history, I ask you to demonstrate true leadership and turn back from this “Britastrophe”.

I write as someone with 12 business books behind me, an original career in pharmaceutical science and business academia to ask you to reconsider Brexit at this crucial time.  I would imagine that your reputation would rise to mythical status if you were to turn back or suspend Brexit for an extended period.  This would give time to work through the COVID crisis and provide Government with the bandwidth to address the problems, economically, socially, medically and politically.  

I spend a lot of my time on the street at events and have spent thousands of hours talking with people about their attitudes towards Brexit in my vote leave area in Kent.  It becomes apparent that the “will of the people” is now largely a myth, with only a few hard-core leave voters clinging on to the idea that Brexit will be good for them and, of course, a few of your more extreme colleagues in the Conservative Party.  A credible opposition is building (I don’t vote for them, but it is always wise to change one’s mind as circumstances change) and your majority, won on the weakness of Jeremy Corbyn, is already under threat from within the NRG group in your own party.  You will be aware that five former PMs across the political spectrum have come out against the folly of Brexit.  If you have recently turned back from the extremes of your party as a one nation Conservative, please show this in practice now.

I hope that you will choose to be remembered as the Prime Minister who was big and clever enough to say “Circumstances have changed and Brexit is no longer the best option”.  Be the bigger man and ask the EU27 to readmit the UK as a global partner of choice. 

I await your considered reply.

Yours sincerely 

**************

Dear Mr Johnson

Your legacy is set to be defined by your leadership on Covid and Brexit. You are on course to be remembered as the Prime Minister who destroyed the United Kingdom and wrecked our hopes and prosperity.

It is not too late for you to turn this around so please focus on steering this country through the pandemic. Provide effective leadership – in particular ensuring the roll out of the vaccination programme does not reprise the shambles we have been subjected to this year.

You can’t do this if you’re distracted by the disruption of a no-deal Brexit in 2021. Request an extension of the transition period by two years and this time use the opportunity to secure this country’s interests: the exact same benefits we enjoyed up to 2020.

Your allies are distancing themselves from you and public disquiet will turn to rage unless you have the courage to acknowledge reality: the Brexit you are set to deliver on 1st January will be catastrophic for this once great country of ours and its people.

Yours sincerely 

Dear Mr Johnson,

Do you have any grasp of the risks you are taking with the U.K. economy by pursuing Brexit during a pandemic? You are concerned about the effect of Covid on the economy but are careless of the enormous damage Brexit has done, is doing and will continue to do for years beyond your lifetime. It is so selfish. No one has ever explained to me any benefit of Brexit that will accrue to ordinary Britons.

The wicked suggestion that you will spend £29million of taxpayers’ money celebrating this monstrosity that is Brexit is beyond belief. Have you seen your own recent YouGov polls? They show that over 70% of respondents think that leaving the EU was a mistake. You must stop, get an extension and hold a proper referendum that is not poisoned by lies. Brexit has divided the nation and you are responsible for the economic and social disaster you are bringing down on us all.

I hope that whoever reads this tells YOU, Boris Johnson what it says.

Yours sincerely 

LETTERS FOR KEIR AND THE OPPOSITION

Dear Keir,

Please demonstrate leadership by voting against any Brexit deal, if one emerges from Johnson’s microwave oven in the coming weeks. For Labour to vote in favour of a Tory deal with the EU would be to chase yesterday’s polls, with no election on the horizon. If Labour MPs abstain, they make themselves irrelevant – not just now, but in any future critique. You will be aware from history that silence = assent. Julie Ward MEP commented on the point that the vast majority of Labour voters want to remain in Europe.

An 11% GDP hit from COVID x a 5-9% additional hit from Brexit will produce a lasting L-shaped (L stands for LONG) recession.  For the good of the country and in terms of how you will be viewed by history, I ask you to demonstrate true leadership and oppose what can be termed a “Britastrophe”. There is no good Brexit, no jobs first Brexit. Substantially, a Brexit deal is virtually indistinguishable from No Deal, in terms of impacts on lives and livelihoods. It is merely a question of a slow death from a Brexit deal versus a rapid death by No Deal Brexit.

I spend a lot of my time on the street at events and have spent thousands of hours talking with people about their attitudes towards Brexit in my vote leave area in Kent.  It becomes apparent that the “will of the people” is now largely a myth, with only a few hard-core leave voters clinging on to the idea that Brexit will be good for them and, of course, a few of your more extreme colleagues in the Labour Party.  In my local area of Gillingham I campaigned for tactical voting for Labour in the last GE. The local candidate lost 33% of his votes down to circa 10 000. However, these votes did not go to the Tories. People simply refused to vote for Jeremy’s vacillation on Brexit. You will also be aware that five former PMs across the political spectrum have come out against the folly of Brexit.  I have been impressed with your work so far to galvanise the Labour party as an electable opposition. Now is the time to strike a blow for the many, not the few.

A suspension of Brexit would give time to work through the COVID crisis and provide Government with the bandwidth to address the problems, economically, socially, medically and politically.  

Yours sincerely 

*************

Dear Sir Keir

I understand from MEP Julie Ward that “the vast number of Labour voters wish to remain in Europe”. This is certainly true in my case, and that of my family and friends. In fact, Battersea, my constituency, voted overwhelmingly for Remain.

What we are looking at is, quite frankly, a mess. The UK is already in a financial black hole, partly, but not totally, due to Covid, and deals such as those proposed by Mr. Johnson will be, quite frankly, a disaster, from which we may never recover. We have absolutely no trust in what is going on in No.10.

What you have been doing since becoming Opposition Leader is admirable, and so I write in the hope that you will vote against any Brexit “deal” that is produced by Mr Johnson in the next few weeks. Any abstentions will make any Labour MPs who do so irrelevant.

Far better, given that it seems leaving the EU is inevitable, even though only a fraction over 37% of the electorate voted for it, would be suspension – two years? – to allow a breathing space. This would enable us to address the current mess and concentrate on a mass immunisation and testing programme. The lack of success of the Track and Trace and PPE supply does not inspire me with any hope that a such programme would have any chance of success, unless there are no distractions, such as Brexit.

Yours sincerely,

LETTERS FOR EU LEADERS

Dear xxx,

I urge you to hold firm this week in negotiations re Brexit. There is no good Brexit, only the choice between a slow death by a Brexit deal and a rapid death by No Deal. 62% of British people no longer want Brexit, now that they have begun to understand the implications. It is clear that the fascist tail wags our Conservative dog.

I realise that legally we have left but as you know politics can change everything, including the breaking of international law in pursuit of a narrow goal of “Singapore on Thames” by Boris Johnson’s cronies.

I am aware of some softening of the mood last week, where Mr Johnson appeared to sack his far right advisers in order to make himself more presentable as a centrist. I need hardly to remind you that he and Donald Trump have made lying and shapeshifting in politics an artform, devaluing the trust on which all political leadership rests.

Any accommodation to British demands will likely weaken the strength of the union, with the possibility of other nations then wishing to conduct their own “Brexit clinical trials”. Britain has not negotiated in good faith and it is always a mistake to give into bullies, from the school playground to the G7.

Britain needs to reform the hubris upon which Brexit was built and I realise that the culture carriers need to have their power leavened or removed. We are presently engaged in this process. Please allow us to suspend or just end Brexit, so that we can finish the work.

Thank you for your patience over the last 4.5 years. I can only imagine how hard this must have been, as I watched Michel Barnier contemplating a level playing field, the wilful destruction of the Good Friday Agreement and the creation of a rogue state on the edge of Europe. Our Government has not learned anything about its own version of English exceptionalism over this time. All of this is to be traded for some vague notions of British fish, some 50 pence coins and so on. They do say that the last thing a fish notices is the water it swims in and our Government will soon be a fish out of water now that Trump is a beached whale.

We have been badly betrayed by our Government and the collective opposition over the last 4.5 years. Please don’t forsake us in our hour of need.

Yours sincerely

*************

Email ec-president-vdl@ec.europa.eu

Dear President von der Leyen, 

As a convinced European, I was shocked by the Brexit result, and over the past four years have watched how our government not only illegally prorogued Parliament but showed it was quite ready to break International Laws.  To say I am ashamed is an understatement.

However, although 37% of our electorate originally voted to leave the EU, a recent survey shows that now 62% of the British people no longer wish to leave. Although there appears to be some softening at No. 10,  having watched the way Mr Johnson has operated over the past ten years, I believe this may only be his way of trying to make himself more presentable, more “centrist”, if you will. I should add that my brother-in-law worked for the EU in Brussels for any years, and was only too aware of Mr Johnson’s lies as regards EU regulations. Johnson  was part of the lying that led many people to vote Leave.

Thank you for your patience over the past four years and more. But please, do not give in to Mr Johnson.  Like most bullies, he will eventually see reason. Many of us are already involved in such work. It may also be that with the ousting of Donald Trump, the PM may rethink a few things.  And certainly, a suspension of one or two years would help us to get through the current health crisis. We have been betrayed; please, do not let us down.

Yours faithfully,

Write to them today

My baby just wrote me a letter.