I’ve put this in the order of urgency and importance as the situation requires. This update contains several items to help everyone stand with Ukraine. Firstly an urgent practical call for supplies of clothing, medical equipment etc. Secondly a meeting on Monday 28 Feb at 8 pm GMT to come up with more practical actions on an individual and collective basis. Thirdly, a revelation about our own Government’s involvement via the unredacted Russia report and finally things you can do to face down the scandal of Priti Patel’s refusal to accept refugees due to her need to play to the racist gallery. Read on and act
1. URGENT and VERY IMPORTANT: Please contribute to these initiatives to supply vital supplies to Ukranians in Kent. Find out where your own schemes are in UK and help support them:
Click image to go to Ela’s Cakes fb page
Canterbury and East Kent – Riverside Vineyard Church Thanet Way Whitstable CT5 3JQ from 9.5 pm
2. URGENT and IMPORTANT: Join us on Monday 28 Feb at 8 pm GMT via ZOOM to consider what each of us can do individually and collectively to support Ukraine.
3. IMPORTANT: Please write to your MP, asking for the removal of MPs who were / are involved in supporting Putin’s regime.
Find the UNREDACTED Russia report at Google Drive. A summary of the salient points can be found in this tweet below:
This is the full text of The Russia Report.
This thread contains extracts. It is truly shocking and very scary. Our government and security services have been 'asleep at the wheel'.
— Shouting into the void 🇬🇧 🇱🇰 ⚒ (@VoxLibero) August 28, 2020
Here’s a letter you may use or adapt:
Dear [MP’s Name]
As a constituent of [YOUR CONSTITUENCY], I am writing to you to express my deep concerns with regard to the disarray and incompetence displayed by our current government.
Having read the Russia Report it is clear that the lives of millions of UK citizens are at grave risk not just from Covid-19 but from the infiltration of British politics and business by actors for the Russian state.
I’m sure you will agree with me that this is an extremely serious national issue and need addressing quickly and permanently. The Prime Minister has publicly stated that the ‘first duty of government is to protect British citizens’. He and his government are clearly not up to the job. I ask you to introduce a vote of ‘no confidence’ in this government and reforms to our political system.
The gravity of this situation is clear. Please take immediate action to ensure the views and concerns of the citizens that elected you are reflected in Parliament and in government policy.
I appreciate your understanding of my concerns as your constituent, and look forward to seeing my concerns represented.
Thank you in anticipation,
[YOUR NAME, YOUR ADDRESS]
4. IMPORTANT: Please write to Priti Patel at withammp@parliament.uk Ask her to reform the arrangements for asylum seekers. Her policies are quite simply killing children and families. She has lied about accepting Ukrainian refugees in order to play to the galley of knuckle-dragging racists in England, simply due to the need to pray on the altar of Brexit xenophobia. Stand with Ukraine.
Your own link proves you wrong.
Ukrainians without family ties to the UK have to get to a nearby country and go through a normal route. And even people applying under the close family route still have to meet conditions including on salaries and language. pic.twitter.com/dBeeT3PV8z
This is a kind of “end of term” report for Boris Johnson and the Conservative party. The Prime Minister has gone off for another summer rest. Well deserved? Adrian Ekins-Dauke’s invites you to judge for yourself:
THE RUSSIA REPORT: FUNDING AND MISINFORMATION
Ex-Russian intelligence staff say 85% of their work is not spying, but “political funding and misinformation”. Since 2012, the Tory party has received almost £3m in donations from members of Putin’s cabinets and 14 current ministers have had donations from individuals or companies connected to the Russian leadership
The government delayed the release of the Intelligence Committee’s report on Russian interference in Brexit for 9 months. The reasons given for the delay were described as “simply not true” by the Committee. Our Home Secretary, Priti Patel said the Russia Report could be ignored because it was now 9 months old and “out of date” (One wonders whether she takes a similar view of unresolved murder, rape and other serious cases which become “out of date” after 9 months).
COVID 19
Matt Hancock boasted he had met the targets on his “six tests” on COVID-19. In fact 4 of the 6 targets were missed, one target couldn’t be met because it had never been defined, and one “relied on a definition [that] does not reflect practice”.
The cross-party Public Accounts Committee found there was an “astonishing failure to plan for the economic impact” of COVID-19. It also said the policy of discharging patients into care homes was a “reckless and appalling policy error”. It called the government “slow, inconsistent [and] negligent”. The Committee chair said “A competent government does not run a country on the hoof”.
DIRTY DEEDS
Now for PPE contracts …
£252m to Ayanda Capital, registered in Mauritius for tax purposes. PPE not delivered. £186m to Uniserve. PPE not delivered. £116m to P14 Medical Supplies, with assets of just £145. PPE not delivered.
£108m to PestFix, with just 16 employees. PPE not delivered.
£107m to Clandeboye Agencies, a sweet wholesaler. Yes, a sweet wholesaler. PPE not delivered. £40m to Medicine Box Ltd, with assets of just £6000. PPE not delivered. £48m to Initia Ventures Ltd, which registered itself as “dormant” in March. PPE not delivered.
£28m to Monarch Acoustics, which makes shop furniture. PPE not delivered.
£25m to Luxe Lifestyle, which has no employees, no assets, and no turnover. PPE not delivered. £18m to Aventis Solutions, which has total assets of £332. Not a typo, £332! PPE not delivered.
£10m to Medco Solutions, incorporated just 3 days after lockdown, with share capital of (not a typo) £2. PPE not delivered.
In all, approx £1 bn to inexplicable suppliers for PPE that hasn’t been delivered. This of course costs lives.
A Nuffield Health study found after 10 years of “chronic underinvestment”, UK is at the bottom of the league table for health resources, diagnostics and surgery by the NHS will take 4 years to return to pre-COVID levels.
The government’s “world beating” test-and-trace programme was described as “scandalous” by the British Medical Journal, and found to miss its 80% target in every COVID hotspot announced last week
A report from London School of Economics has shown a WTO Brexit will shrink 16 out of the UK’s 24 industry sectors by up to 15% each. Permanently. A Tory MP tweeted:
“? WTO here we come!”
Another pro-Brexit Tory MP with a grasp of what’s to come tweeted:
“my strong advice is: “take the chance to live abroad”.
MISCELLANEOUS
The cross-party Media & Culture Committee has reported that “government has consistently failed to recognise scale of challenge facing culture, sport and tourism and had been ‘too slow’ to respond to their needs during COVID-19.
Boris Johnson launched a “Fix Your Bike” voucher website. It broke within an hour. The editor applied and found that the website did not work. I called the people and was promised vouchers. On following up I was told the scheme was closed.
Johnson also said we should all lose weight. This is certainly true in his case at 17 Stone. However, Johnson is still issuing vouchers to help us buy burgers.
Boris Johnson would not get a job as a WeightWatchers coach
It was revealed the government spent £400m buying a bankrupt satellite company, OneWeb, to replace the Euro GPS system we have lost due to Brexit. Months before, a study by MIT found that OneWeb’s tech is 6 times less efficient than the EU solution: the worst of the technologies studied.
In June, the government guaranteed that there would be no cuts in overseas aid when the Foreign Office and International Development Dept merged. It announced cuts of £2.9 bn in aid on the day Parliament broke up for the summer, thus avoiding questions on broken their promises.
The government has permitted your health records to be given to Palantir, a large US data-mining company and to Faculty, owned by an associate of Dominic Cummings and said to have worked with Cambridge Analytica on Brexit.
Our overall assessment of the Government is 2/10. What’s yours?
Write to your MP and make these points. Ask them not to add the man made disaster of Brexit to Corona Crisis.
Not only does the UK have the “best” deaths from COVID of the G7 countries. We now have the deepest recession in Europe. Boris Johnson is mystified as to why, but we here at Let’s Re-Boot Britain can help – the UK’s resilience is at an all time low due to four years of Brexit decline. It’s time to boot Brexit and build a better Britain in a better Europe.
“The Sun”
Our work is unsupported during COVID. To help out, please find us at Let’s Re-Boot Britain.
I am bombarded on a daily basis by people who tell me that Brexit cannot be stopped. These are not leave voters but weary remainers who suffer from the condition known as learned helplessness. I concur that it has been a long battle, and many saw the General Election victory as a turning point and an opinion poll on Brexit. However, I must also make the uncomfortable point that Vote Leave would not have given up so easily.
Students have demonstrated that effective protest works. We must continue for our children’s sake. There is no Brexit deal that will deliver the promises made by Vote Leave and, in any case, all Brexit deals will destroy the four freedoms of EU membership leading to the destruction of the EU itself over time. The 27 members are more important than any single country.
So, here is a long list of things we can do to resist by effective protest under COVID safe protocols. No more objections please. Just get out and do something.
1. Write to your MP to explain why Corona + Brexit = Britastrophe … if you have written, write again … and again – if you are not a letter writer, ask for help.
2. Ask to meet your MP and interview them. Publish the results as a video so they can see you are serious and make more ripples in the pond. Alternatively ask to make a video to your MP with us.
3. Write to the media, making a powerful case – help can be given.
4. Brexorcise your friends – if you need help, read the book.
5. Restart the conversation on social media. Open your timelines up so that your Brexit friends can see you and Brexit have not gone away.
The negative impact over 10 years of the kind of EU deal now being negotiated by the Johnson regime would be around 6.4% of GDP. This contrasts with 4.9% for May’s deal and 8.1% for No Deal. On an optimistic scenario, such a deal will leave public finances £16 billion worse off, £49 billion under the most pessimistic. (Source: UK in a Changing Europe).
Much has been written about the catastrophic effects of leaving the single market, and the strangling of our European trade in goods with customs bureaucracy, particularly on our once flourishing car sector. But less has been said about services, which make up 80% of our economy. 40% of the UK’s services exports go to the EU, and the impact of Brexit here looks likely to be even greater.
To maintain free trade in services, governments need to align their domestic regulations. Thus, British financial services firms can operate across the Continent through “Passporting” (control exercised solely by UK authorities applying universally recognised rules). Mutual recognition of professional qualifications means a British architect, for example, can get a job in Lisbon as easily as in Liverpool. Freedom of movement allows firms to send their staff to work in other member states. However, negotiations with the EU have become deadlocked since Johnson reneged on an agreement reached on the level playing field (which includes alignment) before the general election. Unless bigotry and dogma are replaced in No 10 by a concern for the national interest, these arrangements will come to an end on 31 December 2020.
Whilst Johnson wants us to focus on glamping and the sunny uplands, his Government have not made any plans for Brexit Britain. The EU however have published impact statements for all to see:
If you like this article, please support us with a regular donation via GoFundMe or Patreon. Give us a tip viaPaypal.We need support to continue doing this. It takes considerable time. Thank you in advance.
I was gobsmacked to note that The Sun reported the possibility of water shortages under Brexit the other day. Yes, water shortages !! Also food and electricity. Well it’s all going well …
Don’t buy The Sun
The more subtle story that The Sun did not report concerns the watering down of the water regulations (pun intended) under Brexit. This means that we will have dirtier rivers again, polluted beaches, etc. The EU are largely responsible for environmental improvements such as clean beaches and there are clear public health consequences for such policies.
Winter of discontent
Don’t buy The Sun
Bordering on the insane
Aside from clean water, another assumption that Vote Leave played under Brexit was that it would enable us to take back control of our border and therefore immigration. This is yet another piece of blind faith.
Once Brexit is done, our “border” will be on British soil / waters, whereas before it was on French soil. Since migrants have essentially no economic value to the French, it’s really quite likely that the French will not seek to stop them travelling to Britain, as it relieves France of the “problem”. Equally, we will not be able to send them back to Calais and will have to repatriate them to their country of origin, effectively sending them to their deaths in some cases. I am left wondering how happy the brave keyboard warriors will be to know that they have put children to death in order to “take back control” of their blue passports?
I coined the phrase “Britastrophe” a while back to explain the toxic combination of Corona Crisis + Brexit Disaster. Today sees the launch of the song “Britastrophe” by “Mutant Algorithm”. Download the mini album with three tracks and a free ringtone here. Here’s the trailer video:
Please GIFT the song to MP’s – both to ConservativeMPs in order to persuade them to pull back from breaking international law and to Opposition MPs on all sides, to persuade them to grow a backbone and suspend Brexit in the wake of a Britastrophe.
Please send your gift with a personal message – a template is below for your use or adaptation. Personal messages work best.
Dear xxx,
I write to you with the gift of “Britastrophe”, a song which explains the toxic combination of Corona Crisis + Brexit Disaster. I ask you to exert your influence to suspend Brexit by voting against the UK Internal Markets Bill, currently passing through Parliament. The bill breaks international and domestic law and represents a new low point in our reputation as a great nation. Of course, your own reputation as an MP and that of your party goes hand in hand with this.
You will be aware that even Theresa May, Lord Howard, Sajid Javid, Norman Lamont, former Attorney General Geoffrey Cox QC and many others have raised serious objections to the bill as well as six former Prime Ministers on all sides of our politics from Sir John Major to Gordon Brown and even David Cameron. It has also gained international condemnation from world leaders across the globe, for its parallels with the 1933 Enabling Act. I need not remind you where that led. Our membership of the EU costs us 37 pence a day for 70+ years of peace and offers us opportunities for our children and country to be world leaders through the membership of the most successful experiment in collaboration on the planet. I write this letter as we learn that Kent is about to have a hard border in order to deliver Brexit chaos.
I ask you to restore trust and decency in politics and pull back from the brink of this Dominic Cummings inspired initiative. I am aware that MPs on all sides find the power grab by Cummings and Johnson extremely unacceptable with extremely worrying implications for democracy in the UK as Britain slides into a banana republic. Is that what you really want on your Wikipedia page as a legacy?
Corona Crisis + Brexit Disaster = a Britastrophe
Silence is complicit behaviour. Will you act to suspend Brexit before it’s too late?
Yours sincerely
Your name
If you like this article, please support us with a regular donation via GoFundMe or Patreon. Give us a tip viaPaypal.We need support to continue doing this. It takes considerable time. Thank you in advance.
In case of doubt, here are some real headlines from the Daily Mail for comparison purposes:
And, just in case you were sleeping, Brexit Reich negotiator David Frost has conceded that Britain will not be able to brand car parts made in other countries as being British to evade taxation and tariffs. It’s kind of obvious really. Just why have we been told lies for so long?
Write to your MP. Demand a suspension of Brexit in the wake of Corona.
If you like this article, please support us with a regular donation via GoFundMe or Patreon. Give us a tip viaPaypal.We need support to continue doing this. It takes considerable time. Thank you in advance.
It’s Sunday. Normally a time for a visit to church and some light chatter in England’s green and pleasant land. No talk of sex, death and politics. But this is Brexit Britain, so I’ll break that rule with a Sunday Roasting of our Government.
This is the official message being given out by Government agencies to businesses who want to trade with Europe. Businesses are being told to open offices in Europe if they want to continue in business. Remember when Johnson said “Fuck Business”? It was one of his rare moments of telling the truth.
Oh wait a minute, did we not get a Brexit deal for frictionless trade?
How are small businesses going to maintain two headquarters just to avoid non-tariff barriers and other delays?
Who is paying for this?
Thom Yorke of Radiohead sums up the Brexit carnage nicely:
Move to EU to avoid Brexit costs, Uk firms told by government. Makes sense … can we go too? https://t.co/Agu9tapF8x
Boris Johnson is NOT taking the doctor’s advice by extending the time between COVID vaccinations. I have the burden of having worked on life saving medicines. We don’t recommend treatment regimes just for a laugh. The impact of Johnson’s careless approach is that vulnerable people who have had one dose of the COVID vaccine are becoming infected. Here is a story from one of my friends who prefers to remain anon, as her mum’s story is too painful to face in public. Her mum went for her first COVID injection in December but then had to attend hospital for a minor issue, returning with COVID:
“The following is what everyone who thinks the vaccine means life can return to normal needs to understand: My mum was admitted to hospital two weeks ago with a severe respiratory infection and related heart and blood sugar problems as she is also diabetic. She has now contracted COVID in hospital, but she doesn’t seem to have any additional symptoms as a result. So it would seem that having had the vaccination has protected her against developing COVID symptoms, but not against catching it, or being able to transmit it. Most importantly, because she is now COVID positive she has had to be transferred from the elderly acute ward to a COVID ward, even though she doesn’t actually have COVID symptoms. She is now surrounded by severely ill people who are gasping for breath and she is being cared for by medical staff in full PPE, so she can’t see their faces. She is utterly traumatised and nobody can visit her, which is also traumatising her husband. I can cope with losing my mother to old age and ill health, it’s the normal cycle of life. But this is no way to go. The vaccination has protected her against developing COVID symptoms, but not against this awful situation”.
Others ignore the idea that once you have had COVID, you will be invincible. Think again. A good friend of mine has COVID for the second time. It is a new infection and not a repeat event. Her illness is just as bad if not worse than the first time some 9 months ago. To those that think that immunisation will make them invincible, think again.
Coming soon – a new 3 track album to reach heads and hearts
In the ultimate mark of shame, Grant Shapps is insisting that DVLA workers in Swansea who are infected with COVID keep going to work. I once worked for a few weeks at DVLA. I opted out from the lucrative contract, as I could not face the ‘behavioural waste’ that went on, due to incompetent management. I have never really believed in what is called ‘sick buildings’, but now Grant Shapps appears to be making DVLA into a ‘death camp’.
500+ cases in one govt building
Workers with symptoms ordered to come into work
Dept refused vulnerable peoples’ requests to isolate
Told to disable test and trace notifications
This is unbelievably bad
500+ cases in one govt building
Workers with symptoms ordered to come into work
Dept refused vulnerable peoples' requests to isolate
Brexit continues to surprise with shipping costs rising more than SIX times in some cases. Firms have the choice to either fold their businesses, pay 600% more in transport costs or relocate to Europe.
NONE of these are the sunny uplands promised by Gove, Johnson et al.
ALL of them are entirely of our OWN government’s making.
Please support our work to Re-Boot Britain – Remove the Conservatives, Renew democracy and Reform our politics
EU rules on some types of shellfish leave UK fishers ‘devastated’.
By Adrian Ekins-Daukes
Fishers around the UK have been “devastated” by fresh problems with exporting their produce to the EU, after the government admitted that exports of live mussels, oysters, scallops and certain other shellfish would be subject to ongoing restrictions.
Those are all classified as “live bivalve molluscs” – a category which also includes cockles and clams. Under longstanding EU rules, catches of live bivalve molluscs from non-EU member states can only be imported without treatment if they come from waters deemed of the highest quality. Vessels from non-EU states also cannot land live bivalve molluscs in EU ports.
These rules have closed off many exports of live bivalve molluscs from the UK, since Brexit took full effect. The market for such shellfish is a small and specialist one, valued at less than £12m a year, but for the small number of fishers who operate in it, it is often their main livelihood.
Selfish Shellfish? Click on the image to Re-Boot Britain
The rules, and the disruption their enforcement has caused for fishers, cannot be termed a “teething problem” as other red tape has been, because they will apply permanently under Brexit unless the government can forge a fresh agreement with the EU to make exceptions for UK produce.
The fishing industry called on the government to do more to try to resolve the problem. Barrie Deas, chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, said: “This is devastating for those involved, and it cannot be left as a closed issue. Those of our members who produce mussels and cockles in particular are affected and are very seriously impacted – no exports to the EU as the UK is now a third country. This has to be sorted at government-to-government level and our understanding is that talks are under way, but so far without producing a satisfactory outcome.”
Alistair Sinclair, chair of the Scottish Creel Fishermen’s Federation, blamed the French president, Emmanuel Macron, as well as the UK government for the difficulties, and warned that they were a foretaste of future negotiations. “This is possibly a demonstration of the difficulties that lie ahead Throughout the whole run-up to Brexit, our voice was not considered by the Scottish government and indeed the Tory grandees.”
Fishers could try to comply with the regulations by taking on further processing of the molluscs, to gain the health certification necessary for exports, but this can be costly and time-consuming. Many had hoped that the Brexit agreement would allow for their exports to continue. The EU is the main market for many such specialist fishers.
Brexit was sold on the promise of fish and ships
A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “Live bivalve molluscs such as oysters, mussels, clams, cockles and scallops can continue to be exported to the EU if they’re harvested from class A waters or cleaned, or have cleared end product testing in the UK. We will continue to raise the issue of live bivalve molluscs not ready for human consumption with the EU, to ensure the trade can continue securely.”
The European commission confirmed that the requirements were not temporary, and were applicable to all such shellfish imported from the UK.
Most of the fisheries affected are in England and Wales. Exports of bivalve molluscs are worth less than £12m a year, of which clams make up more than half, with oysters and mussels worth about £2.7m each. Defra said it could not estimate how much of this market would be affected as some are subject to “depuration” which would allow their export to continue.
The author
All at sea with Brexit?
If you like this article, please tip us using the Paypal button on this site or via GoFundMe
We need support to continue doing this. It takes considerable time. Thank you in advance.
