Today marks the fourth anniversary of Brexit and we’ve nothing to show for it. The last remaining Brexiteers tell me that ‘it’s too soon to say’ – of course that’s rubbish, four years is plenty of time for some formative evaluation across the STEEPLE factors. They also say that people like me have thwarted Brexit … I never realised I had so much power !!… In case of amnesia, we were sold Brexit in 2016 with a brochure that promised ONLY sunny uplands and NO downsides. Neither have materialised. Meanwhile the dead cats are out in force : Vaping, Conscription, Rwanda, Cheese, Hanging … the list goes on in the Daily Excess, the Daily Maul and The Son. Brexit has failed. The only good Brexit is a dead Brexit. We can and must join EU anew as a priority.
Click to read Gina Miller’s piece in the New European today.
The comments below come from Linkedin in response to a post by The Crocodile Club. They are ‘one of a kind’ as the sum up the sheer desperation of the last remaining Brexiteers. They also bear testimony to the poverty of what I call ‘online Brexorcisms’. By definition these people are the extremists and I’m always more interested in the silent majority. Matthew deserves the chance to read what he wrote again. I pity his employer. He has become trapped by the quasi religion of Brexit.
When you lose the argument, attack the crocodile …
When you cannot answer the question, gaslight away from the question …
When you have REALLY lost the argument, just insult the messenger …
These below are some of the reasons why online Brexorcisms are often ineffective taken from my book Reboot Britain. It is a social process, not a social media process. We are fast approaching the point where a super majority believe that Brexit has failed. Once that happens, politicians have to listen or lose their seats. Labour are complicit in the radio silence on the matter, as are the Lib Dems who have copped out by saying that we’ll rejoin ‘at some time in the future. Simply dodging the question.
I watched Nick Ferrari melt when challenged by Gina Miller with astonishment on Sophy Ridge’s Politics Hub last week 18 January 2024. So should you ….
Click to view the whole programme.
Ridge did a brilliant job of roasting Tory MP Brendan Clarke Smith, the coward to stood down to object to the Rwanda bill and then came back to vote for fear of losing his seat in the House of Commons.
What was even more surprising was how Nick Ferrari melted under the force of arguments employed by Gina Miller. In the first round, Ferrari teased Miller on her powers of prediction (Mystic Miller). Yet she is right and Nick accepted her points. The Rwanda bill will eventually fail on morality, legality or practicality. As the programme went on, Ferrari found himself in the unusual position of agreeing with Miller on nearly every point she made. This was hugely generous of Nick and a measure of a man who knows the difference between right and wrong rather than left or right. Nick listens well, did not adopt the usual technique of Tory politicians by shouting Gina down and made a whole load of very valid points. It was a constructive dialogue between giants and a good example of what Parliament could be like. It was plain to see that Sophy Ridge really enjoyed the combination of the dynamic duo and she did not need to resort to the usual crowd control techniques that are the norm of our toxic politics these days.
Thank you for your candour Mr Ferrari
Imagine how much better politics could be with Gina as your MP?
If you would like Gina Miller to be your MP and build a better system of politics, join the True and Fair party today or drop me a line to reboot@brexitrage.com. If you don’t have time to watch the full programme (you should) check a few snippets out below:
A landmark judgement was made recently that allows British Citizens in Europe (EU Britizens) a vote in elections. Some 3.8 million people are affected by this decision which could have easily swung the Brexit referendum away from the tragedy of Brexit. Grateful thanks to Julien Fouchet, Grazia Valentino-Boschi and Alice Boulliez who have pursued this case relentlessly over an extended period. This from Gina Miller explains what you need to do about the opportunity.
The 2024 general election represents a real opportunity to create a movement that gives people a positive political choice including all Brits abroad.
If you are living abroad, irrespective of length of time, you are now able to register to vote in the 2024 General Election. It is more important than ever that you use this opportunity to vote, make your voice heard and ensure your interests, values and beliefs are represented.
If you’ve got all the information needed to hand, you can register in under 10 minutes! Read on:
Eligibility
In order to be eligible to register as an overseas voter for the general election you will need to:
Be a British, Irish or qualifying Commonwealth citizen.
Have been previously registered to vote in the UK and/or previously resident in the UK.
More information about eligibility can be found here.
What you need to register
To register you will need:
Proof of ID: you will need your date of birth and your National Insurance number, you may also need to give details of a current or expired British passport. If you have lost your NI number, you can search for it here.
The last UK address where you were registered to vote, or the last UK address at which you resided (if you were not registered to vote in the UK before you left). STOP PRESS : Grazia tells me that there is no need for proof of address from those who’ve already registered so it’s even easier!!
You may need to provide additional evidence to support your application if your identity/address cannot be verified. Your registration will last for 3 years before needing to be renewed.
How to register
You can register online on the GOV.UK website. If you have all the information to hand this should take under 10 minutes. You can also apply by post.
One of the few remaining arguments of the last Brexiters on planet earth is that it’s too soon to review the benefits of Brexit in 2023. It isn’t. We have had nearly eight years of intention / formulation of Brexit strategy and nearly four years of Brexecution / implementation. Formative evaluation is therefore both possible and necessary. Let’s not forget that we were told that there would be no downsides to Brexit and we would have instant wins from our independence, in terms of ‘taking back control’ of our money, borders and laws. So, how is it all going? What does it mean to the man and woman on the street? Take a look back to my Linkedin article of July 2023 for a bit of nostalgia – Hard Facts about Hard Brexit. It gets worse every month. Header image by the genius Cold War Steve.
Money
On a simple basis, Brexit did not solve our abilities to take back control of our money. Brexit inflicted the Government’s own predictions – a 4.5% resilience shock to GDP or £100 BILLION per year. This is the equivalent to trying to swim the English Channel with a 4.5 kg block of concrete round your neck. Liz Truss’ experiment in Brexonomics added a whopping £74 BILLION in just 49 days, ruining young people’s dreams of home ownership for a generation. Read the Bloomberg report on decline in foreign investment in Brexit Britain. Whilst it is clear that nobody wants to talk about Brexit in 2023 due to radio silence by politicians on all sides, the ‘offspring’ of Brexit are all around us with the cost of living, food inflation and so on. All is depicted by our Brexit iceberg below. Government gaslighting continues with ‘pints of wine’ and other bollocks. Nobody of any intelligence is fooled by this shit. Are you?
The Brexit Iceberg – what’s visible and what’s hidden.
At a more parochial level and as an example of ‘taking back control of our money’, British energy prices in 2023 are 53% more than in France. Yet Gina Miller demonstrated that we have always had our sovereignty without needing to leave the EU. French energy companies are owned by the state and still make a profit at half the prices of British energy companies. When Boris Johnson said ‘take back control’ he forgot to mention WHO would be taking back that control. Clearly it was NOT the taxpayer or the great unwashed.
Longer term, we have only just begun to see the unfolding of a return to slavery in terms of minimum wages and an unwinding of employment standards in Brexit Britain. The drive towards the return to a feudal system continues with no opposition in sight. Read Red Brexit, Blue Brexit for insights into Labour’s failed Brexit strategy. Take a look at this You Tube video below, made earlier this year for insights into Brexonomics and numbers in general.
Clearly Brexit worked from the viewpoint that it discouraged Europeans from wanting to come to Britain. We could have achieved this quite simply by having a Government sponsored campaign of racial hatred in Britain, without needing to break the economy and destroy our reputation in the world as a standard bearer. Oh, wait a minute, we did that! You will notice from the graph below that migration figures from Europe are now in negative numbers. Yet migration from Africa, India and the Far East has increased dramatically.
As well as that, Brexit did not magic away our responsibilities to take in migrants from Hong Kong, Ukraine, Afghanistan and so on. Brexit has worked in exactly the opposite way to that predicted by the Brexiters. This is the perverse law of unintended consequences that arises from shoddy strategy. In short, fail to plan, plan to fail.
For clarity, Non-EU means people OUTSIDE the EU.
Inside the non-EU figures in the graph are people who came from Ukraine, the Hong Kong refugees and other effects, so the figure is temporarily high. Nonetheless, Brexit did not solve migration, nor will it. Britain also relies on foreign students as a source of income, many of who then return to their own countries, so it is all too simple to say that we must ban students. Our Government needs to maintain the illusion of ‘the enemy outside’ in order to win the votes of xenophobic Brits, racists and general shits in elections. Watch our You Tube video on how to address immigration.
Show this to anyone who voted for Brexit to reduce legal migration to the UK.
The red section is Freedom of Movement when the UK was inside the EU.
The yellow section, shows net migration to the UK since we left the EU, where have full control of our borders, where Boris… pic.twitter.com/bk3UI3vIEN
Before Brexit, small boats were not a thing really. The weaponisation of small boats was an invention by a Tory government desperate to distract people from thinking about the real issues facing an island nation with an increasing elderly population with food, skills and other resource insecurities. It is the triumph of marketing via right wing media to feed feeble minds and fill their minds with fury. Nearly every headline in the Mail and the Express has the word FURY in it. This is exactly why I wrote Private Eyelines to highlight how we are being taken for furious fools. In a parallel universe, in 2014 nobody gave a stuff about Europe or the EU. Again, EU fury was steadily manufactured to win a referendum based on lies.
Were you sold a pup when you were told that Brexit would allow us to take back control of our borders?
Laws
In the 14th century it may have been feasible to operate your own laws in your town, fiefdom, region or country as, generally speaking, world trade and travel were not a thing. In 2023, we live in a globally connected world and it becomes increasingly difficult to become a rogue state, unless you are Belarus or North Korea. if we wish to exploit people’s lives and livelihoods we are set on a course to become international pariahs rather than guardians of law and order. People still moan at me about the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) as if it is part of the EU. It is not.
When people talk to me about taking back control of our laws, they often fail to mention which ones are troubling them. We don’t have to drive on the left hand side of the road as part of the EU, nor drink litres of beer. We are still free to conduct barbaric acts such as fox hunting as the Spanish have their bull fighting. We have pounds and the Queen on our money. Just what laws do the Brexiters mean when they claim that they want them back? The law exists to protect people from exploitation. We now see the bizarre spectacle of our Government arguing with the rule of law in order to exploit people or behave unethically.
This is not the high water mark of British justice and not my Brexit. Is it yours?
The boiling frog problem
I’m sure you know the story of the boiling frog. People tell me that “Brexit was done”. “It happened”. Sorry, Brexit was not an event, a newspaper headline or a project with an end point. It was a process. Michael Vail, a ‘farmer’ living in Brisbane, typifies the view that Brexit was an event on his Linkedin ravings. Sure there can be some winners and losers in all changes, such as in the field of disaster capitalism (Michael is a disaster capitalist cum estate agent) but, of course, Brexit was supposed to offer benefits for all not just for people who can play the financial system in the wake of a boom or bust.
Brexit hasn’t delivered the promised benefits except in the case of people who have exploited other people’s misery. I am not in a stage of grief. When someone points to the many benefits of Brexit, I will join the cause. It’s just that Michael and his few remaining Brexiters have nothing to show me socially, economically, politically, environmentally and so on for the positive impacts of Brexit nor any problems that Brexit solves. Read Brexit Freedoms.
Michael resorts to yin and yang rather than a lie on a bus to explain Brexit. I guess it’s a new take on “Que sera sera” which my Brexity sister favours. He also lies about the Cuty (city) who are quietly moving people out of London. It’s easy to say all this when you live in Australia.
In case you are still under any illusions that “Brexit is done”, please see this very long list of Brexit impacts still to come in 2024 – 2027 and beyond. from Edwin Hayward.
Here are just a few of the joys Brexit has in store for us in 2024 and beyond.
(Long tweet. Please expand. Sorry.)
== 1 January 2024 ==
Certain temporary aspects of the UK's trade deal with Canada fall away, such as the tariff-free quotas on cheese. Result? UK exporters face…
In Europe, they have agreed to use one charger to rule all our electronic devices. It means 🔌The same charger for all phones, tablets and cameras ⚡ Harmonised fast-charging technology 🔄Reduced e-waste
In Britain, we’re still talking pints. Soon, we will be introducing bakelite plugs. This brilliant video sums up the fact that Brexit and satire are now indistinguishable.
Please read the policy document on the 3Es from Gina Miller’s True and Fair party. Economy, Education, Environment. If we wish to change the state of our country and our politics, we need different and not more of the same. This first report concerns the economy, the main battleground for the forthcoming General Election. Not all political parties are the same although I understand why some would think so. We must expect better from our politics and politicians. To help Gina win in Epsom and Ewell, please go to the True and Fair website.
Gina Miller’s policy toplines.
The full policy document demands full reading. It’s excellent and I cannot convey a good sense of it here. People like to read stuff in a few seconds, but this REALLY needs your time. To whet your appetite, here I include six of the best. Make sure you eat the full meal.
A root and branch reform of taxation in the UK. By the next General Election, taxes will take 37% of our income.
An end to Brexit which has acted to reduce UK plc resilience with no collateral ‘sunny uplands’ in sight. Brexit is costing the UK £100bn a year – it is the economic equivalent of trying to swim the English Channel with a block of concrete around your neck and feet.
Bounce back loans to be written off for the three million people excluded from support during the pandemic.
Revitalise the high street through a series of measures from fairer business rates, seed funding for SMEs and community hubs.
Provide greater access to funding training, and networking opportunities for female entrepreneurs.
Double free childcare hours for low-income families. Introduce High Street childcare hubs and joint child and elderly hubs.
‘I was delighted to provide a masterclass on Rejoining the EU and preparing the ground to end Brexit via the gentle art and discipline of “Brexorcism” for North Herts for Europe. Here are the video recordings of both sessions if you missed it.
I have been speaking with Alan Meekings on what he calls a Fresh Start, quite like Reboot Britain and very much in synch with Gina Miller’s True and Fair Party. Alan is an eminent management consultant and systemic thinker. We both plan to stand candidates for election to shake the foundations of our tired Westminster politics if people will support us. I articulated some of the thinking in these articles. Click to read more:
With thanks to Dennis Pitocco in the USA at Business Catalyst 360, Monica del Pilar Uribe Marin at The Prisma Anglo Spanish Magazine and Paolo Bolzoni at Linkedin for publishing these articles and helping us reach outside the bubble.
If you want to make a fresh start on our broken politics, please support this unusual project to ensure an end to Tory Brexit fascism:
Alan Meekings, systems thinker and founder of Landmark Consulting sums the need for a Fresh Start in our electoral system:
“The present system [FPTP] has clearly broken down. The results produced are not fair to any party, nor to any section of the community. In many cases they do not secure majority representation, nor do they secure an intelligent representation of minorities. All they secure is fluke representation, freak representation, capricious representation.”
Last night’s landmark decision on giving justice to those affected by the infected blood disaster shows that good can prevail over evil if people stand up to bullies. We will also see the same level of courage in facing down this Government’s intent to send people fleeing from war to Rwanda.
Things can change if enough of us demand it. I’m delighted that my MP voted against those who would vote to kill children.
Join Gina Miller’s True and Fair party today for a Fresh Start. Click on the bus to support her.
Change in politics happens when all the ‘tectonic plates’ move in unison. So, what ‘underground movements’ have been happening in the area of Brexit? I’ve picked out some ‘geopolitical seismic effects’ to consider, both internally within Westmonster and in the external environment. Cameron, Sunak, von der Leyen, Curtice, Starmer, Balls, The Tory party and others. The ground is shifting under our feet. Let’s begin with our most surprising appointment.
Lord Cameron
I have already set out my thoughts on David Cameron in an article for Scottish Bylines. Suffice to say that we must act on Cameron, even if it requires us to hold our noses. David has already made some warm noises about the EU and has executive power to act as he is outside the cabinet in his role as an unelected Lord. Please don’t waste your or my time writing to me on Facebook about pig f..cking and Cameron’s rapid departure after he lost the referendum. Use the opportunity afforded by this unexpected development. Cameron’s next adventure will be to go to Brussels. Let’s see what he does there …
Click to read more on Cameron.
Read “Did Austerity Cause Brexit?’
Curtice on Starmer
Surveys on the here and now cannot tell us what leaders can do inductively to change things. But they do offer us cold facts. Professor John Curtice has reminded us that Keir Starmer can win an election whilst mentioning the B word. Watch his analysis here:
Labour Leave voters are now overwhelmingly pro-rejoin. Keir Starmer is living in the past. Cameron is ahead of the curve.
Keir Starmer falls prey to what I call management by focus groups, when he should be in the business of leadership with a bold vision on Brexit. Focus groups are like trying to drive by spending all your time looking through the rear view mirror. Read more on Labour’s faulty plan for rejoining the EU below.
Ursula von der Leyen confirmed (again) that the door is still open for Britain to join the EU anew. Of course Rishi Sunak has to say no in public, in case the ERG set their attack dogs on him. But it is now clear that he has abandoned the far right and pivoted towards the centre to limit the damage to his party for an election. A sure sign that this has rattled a few swivel headed far right loons comes from The Soaraway Sun, who, of course, have adopted the Daily Mail’s ‘F word’ i.e. FURY !!!
To read our book Private Eyelines, which satirises the Sun, Maul and Excess, click the image.
Even the odious James Cleverly has suggested that we will not be leaving the ECHR and I suspect that Suella Braverman’s Stop the Boats campaign will be put into dry dock. This aligns well with the recent polling data which suggests that the vast majority of British people do not like the unsavoury spectacle of seeing migrants sent to concentration camps. The Rwanda fiasco was entirely invented by Braverman and amplified by the right wing media, just like Brexit, to feed feeble minds with red meat.
Read The Guardian article.
It matters that von der Leyen said this, mainly because I get remoaners telling me that we can never rejoin on Facebook almost daily. As Gina Miller points out, the only missing ingredient to end Brexit is political will. Here’s an example of someone who accepts the status quo below. I spend more time doing ‘therapy’ with remoaners who have ‘learned helplessness’ than dealing with the people outside the bubble. It’s exhausting and a waste of everyone’s time. Our main job is to Brexorcise the nation in readiness for an eventual drift towards joining anew.
Rick has learned helplessness. Don’t be like Rick.
Holy shit – it’s the Conservatives!
Rachel Wolf, who co-wrote the Conservatives’ 2019 Tory manifesto has said that The UK could rejoin the European Union ‘in some form’ as a result of shifting geopolitical fault lines and changing attitudes among Brits (sounds like a load of hyperbole / BS, but they need a different reason to avoid saying that Brexit is an utter mess!). So now, even the Tory party are actively talking about undoing Brexit. Keir Starmer is very late to the party …
Oh, yes and Keir Starmer
Shortly after David Cameron started making small moves in foreign policy, Keir Starmer responded with what management consultants call a ‘symbolic intervention’. He said the piece of music that best “sums up” the Labour party party is Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. Speaking to Classic FM, he said the symphony had a “sense of destiny and is hugely optimistic … it’s that sense of moving forward to a better place”. It may be a coded message about Rejoining the EU but it’s not sufficient. Starmer is more than able to point to a vast amount of evidence that shows that Brexit isn’t working. He need not finish the sentence by saying that we must join anew. That would be taken as read. Like it or not, the next General Election will be fought on the ‘offspring of Brexit’, as depicted by our Brexit iceberg:
The Brexit Iceberg. All the visible symptom have their roots wholly or partly in Brexit.
More Balls than most on Brexit
Ed Balls has insisted that Labour needs to start talking about Brexit now. He wants ‘a proper structured-with-metrics conversation about what we’re going to do to get to a better relationship’ with the EU.
Dem Libs
Ian Collard reports that even the Lib Dems are making soft noises to Ed Davey about needing to be harder on Rejoining the EU.
Holy shit – The Torygraph !!
George Smid reports that even The Torygraph are having the collywobbles on Brexit:
When Jeremy talks about ‘Brexit betrayal’ he maintains the false narrative. What we have – high immigration, lower standards, loosing our rights, stealing public money, etc – is exactly what #Brexit is. If people thought otherwise they were delusional. https://t.co/t9AjP4QQ3s
When you consider these collateral moves, it becomes obvious that (a) the Brexit question is not settled (b) Labour are lagging behind in the conversation (c) events will overtake them if they are not careful and (d) The Tories are now desperate to find ways to limit the damage from an election. Brexit is the turd that just wont flush ….
Don Adamson sets out this week’s homework in his weekly digest. Better than the David Davis Dossier.
This week’s homework
One – Discuss the following statement. Events in Ukraine have made changes. Russia has reverted to a dangerous foreign policy. You wonder what they will do next. Similarly we are faced with the prospect of a second Trump Presidency. Obama said the USA might survive four years of Trump as President. Eight years might be another matter. It is difficult to identify circumstances that more clearly demonstrate the need for a united and economically sound EU. Countries within the EU want to expand and countries outside the EU see strong incentives to join. I would not blame the EU for resenting the nonsense they had to take from mad, bad and dangerous British politicians (not all of them Tory). Brexit has done a huge amount of damage to Britain and, to a lesser extent, to other countries in the EU. There are powerful incentives to Rejoin. Will British politicians have the brains, courage and decency to admit it?
“We will start on the road to #rejoin the #EU…both the UK 🇬🇧 and the EU 🇪🇺 are suffering because of #Brexit”.
The only clear position on Brexit from a political party in England.
Two – Discuss the following statement. For 500 years the main plank of British foreign policy was to prevent Europe from uniting against us. Tories managed in just a few years.
Three – Discuss the following statement. Rory Stewart, Hero of the Resistance to Brexit appears on TV documentaries because he is an acknowledged expert on Roman History in general and Julius Caesar in particular. Meanwhile Nigel Garbage appears on ‘I’m a Celebrity – get me out of here.’ By what stretch of a demented imagination is Nigel Garbage and Brexit anything to do with realism?
Four – The Greeks are determined to regain the Elgin Marbles. Sooner or later this country will return to its senses and Rejoin the EU. Will the Greeks be justified in insisting that return of the Elgin Marbles should be the price we ought to pay? Can you think of other examples?
Marble madness.
Five – There has not been enough rain to replenish the reservoirs that store the water that allow the Panama Canal to operate. Ordinarily 40 ships per day pass through the Panama Canal. There is only enough water to allow 18 or 20 ships a day through the Panama Canal. Climate Change deniers insist that the insufficient rain is nothing to do with climate change. Why then is there insufficient rain to replenish the reservoirs; is it a) all part of some dastardly plot to cause Britain to Rejoin the EU? b) All part of some dastardly plot to keep Trump out of the White House? c) All part of some dastardly plot to force people to vaccinate their children against diseases? d) Other explanation?
Quotes of the week
For somebody who values fiscal prudence Richy Scumbag bears a strong resemblance to Wilkins Micawber (Dickens character)
… Scumbag’s political strategy is pure Micawberism – hope that something will turn up. Whatever does turn up is unlikely to be good for the Tories … forecasts for the remaining 15 months of this parliament do not suggest a big economic pay off to delay … nasty mortgage rate increase … higher unemployment … Scumbag faces a tough choice … going for an early election when Tories are more than 20% behind in the polls seems foolhardy … longer he delays more that mortgage holders (bedrock of Tory support) will get clobbered … Things ended well for Micawber … went to Australia … Scumbag is known to like California …
Cruella Braverman may have gone but let us not kid ourselves that her appalling mindset is not reflected by many in her party in senior positions
… as with Brexit, those in public office appear reluctant to state the facts or obvious conclusions … Braverman as a practicing Buddhist? Two central tenets of Buddhism are compassion and wisdom. Braverman needs to practice much harder … increasingly unhinged and uncontrollable … If I had anything to do with the Met I would be feeling aggrieved; the force has bent itself into all sorts of weird shapes to avoid inconveniencing this government from declining to investigate criminal irregularities in the Leave campaign … to turning a blind eye to No 10 becoming party central during lockdown … how were they rewarded? … Tory Home Secretary wrote an op-ed accusing them of bias, wokery and going easy on lefties … Cruella took innovative step … to whip up a mob of battle gammons ‘to defend the honour of our war dead’ i.e. get coked and lagered up and lay into coppers actually protecting the Cenotaph… Met must be wondering what it will take to get a fair deal from this government … arrest their political opponents? Braverman’s Brownshirts briefly buoyed up by presence of Stickyfinger Pansey-Lenin alias ‘Tommy Robinson’ … he squeaked some words of encouragement before jumping into a taxi when things got violent … Cruella omitted to mention that half the injuries had been inflicted not by the pro-ceasefire marchers but by the beery denizens of the counter protests that she had instigated.
Relentless Toryism running rampant in Richy Scumbag’s constituency
… shop will close next month as a result of government inaction … a result of Brexit and 13 years of austerity … a flock of sheep continuing to support a corrupt and moribund government… Cameron is taking over as Foreign Secretary … he has much to to, having irreparably damaged our relationship with our closest allies … reduced us to an international laughing stock… Same people behind Brexit backed ‘anti-woke’ candidates … election to National Trust Council … record turnout of members wanted nothing to do with it … All five of candidates recommended by nominations committee were voted in …
Keith Starmer and Ed Davey thwarted serious debate about Brexit
… question posed Leicester Square Theatre on 21 November…. Alex Salmond … Gina Miller … Andrew Marr against a team led by David Davis, Claire “IRA” Fox and Mike Graham of Talk Shit TV … John Bercow says ‘pity the debate cannot be in mainstream politics’ …
… provocations of the sacked Home Secretary Cruella Braverman, Stickyfinger Pansey-Lenin alias ‘Tommy Robinson’ and the tawdry culture war that the real war has ignited…
Dublin
…Business Leaders … insight into current attitudes to a united Ireland … ‘We look north to the stalemate in Belfast and see a basket case, we look east to London and see a bigger basket case’ … it is hard to overestimate the damage we have done to ourselves … combination of Brexit, … Johnson … Thick Lizzie … Cruella Braverman … people outside Britain take us less and less seriously … Brexit had complicated postal services between UK and Ireland beyond belief … added enormous costs … complexities because of Brexit … we have even had to send back cremated ashes … amazed that there is not more of a fuss in the UK media and politics about the damage Brexit has done … most UK newspapers do not allow facts into the Brexit debate … madness, utter madness …
Thick Lizzie’s think tank says Brexit has not harmed UK
… real figures what that UK exports to EU fallen by 7.2% … to the rest of the world by 9.8% … something seriously wrong with UK Trade … problems correspond with arrival of Brexit … Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch … has access to rooms full of experts, analysts, statistician and economists … she consults none of them because they tell her what she does not want to hear … trumpeting one single think tank discredited after involvement with Thick Lizzie’s disaster … do not bother trying to explain this …
Nigel Garbage
… a snake in the jungle … I’m a celebrity get me out of here … Nigel Garbage on the show shows how insensitive, crass, tone deaf, idiot, provocative, morally bankrupt ITV is … history not on his side … Mad Halfcock’s campmates did a better job of expressing their views than most professional politicians did … did not help book sales or job prospects … Nigel Garbage is a coward who likes money, attention and the sound of his own voice … always a lot less than he appears to be … notoriously peevish and thin skinned … unlikely to keep up his act on TV … politicians on the brink of success do not volunteer for reality TV.
Nigel’s end game in a bunker.
Braverman’s comments were so inflammatory that only an outbreak of left wing violence could vindicate her
… She did not get it … but there was a confrontation at the Cenotaph led by a few hundred tanked up fans of Stickyfinger Pansey-Lenin (Alias Tommy Robinson) … police said ‘Palestine Solidarity Campaign did not see the sort of violence carried out by the right wingers’ …
… ethnically questionable lobbyist … recently taking Chinese money … Beijing’s ‘useful idiots’ … going to the Lords means he can skip angry encounters with Gammonite MPs …
… return of far right pinups … Stickyfinger Pansey-Lenin (alias Tommy Robinson) Hatie Katie Hopkins … Pandora’s box is opened …
Nadine Dorries brought to book
… crazed conspiracy theorist … the only way this book could be more mind bending would be if the pages were soaked in LSD … Gove is an incorrigible plotter … Cummings did decide Johnson was a lemon … incomprehensible … desperate attempt to avoid the trauma of admitting Brexit is a damp squib and that Johnson failed as PM … Gove stabbed you in the back to cut you down to size … if Go Nads gets rained on she looks at the sky and says ‘Coincidence! I think not.’… Johnson has never taken money … that is not even the book’s most absurd quote … Tory Party is a viper’s nest of ruthless infighting and overweening ambition … politicians who are entirely dishonourable …
Covid inquiry
… we went into the pandemic 24th out of 38 in the league table of avoidable deaths … we had worse resourced and staffed health service, eye watering inequality … dismal public health … no plan to ramp up figures … not enough PPE for front line workers … we predicted social meltdown but did little to plan for it … Winston Churchill and Nye Bevan would have struggled with this … instead we go Johnson and Mad Halfcock … leaders … disliked, disrespected and distrusted each other … ‘c*nts, tw*ts, f*uckpigs, incompetents and liars’ … Johnson agreed with Tory view that ‘Covid was nature’s way of dealing with old people’ … ‘let the bodies pile high’ …. comments corroborated by Johnson’s chief of staff …; witness after witness detailed how incompetent Tories were … Mad Halfcock believe he not doctors should decide who should live or die … next time we might have a different virus but similarly dysfunctional political leadership … harm everybody except vaccine manufacturers or sellers of dodgy PPE or mass testing contracts …
Pip Pip Don Adamson Brexorcist in Chief – First Class with Honours
I attended ‘The Ayes Have It’, led by former Commons Speaker John Bercow last week. The event debated the motion “Brexit has been a disaster and now must be reversed”. The motion was won with a substantial majority. Here is my review:
Notable by their absence …
The panel for the motion consisted of heavyweight contributors Alex Salmond, Gina Miller and Andrew Marr. In contrast, the opposition panel comprised David Davis, plus C-listers Mike Graham and Claire Fox. No Nigel Farage, Mogg, Tice, Baker, Johnson, Andrew Pierce, or anyone of significance on the leave side. Just David Davis, who turned out to be the most gracious member of the opposition panel.
Full facts versus fantasy fascists
Salmond, Miller and Marr offered solid complementary arguments backed up by relevant facts. Some highlights: Gina pointed out that Brexit had delivered the exact economic hit to UK plc as predicted by various experts (ranging up to a 5% hit on GDP). My own analogy for this is to imagine trying to swim the channel with a 4.5 kg block of concrete around your neck. All the ‘offspring of Brexit’ are on show for the next General Election, although none of the main parties wish to utter ‘he who shall not be named’ (Brexit).
All of the ‘offspring’ of Brexit remain issues for the election.
Alex Salmond was an excellent orator and held himself in good account, despite numerous personal attacks by the Brexit panelists. Andrew Marr focused on our place in the world after Brexit. In summary, he pointed out that we don’t have a place in the world after Brexit. However, he did not think that he would see us rejoin in his lifetime. Gina and I disagree on Marr’s point. All that is needed is political will in Westminster and the cultivation of better relations with the EU. David Cameron may well be an asset in this respect if we play the ball and not the man. Please read our separate article on Cameron and his potential contribution to the breaking of Parliamentary paralysis.
Sugaring the bitter Brexit pill
In direct comparison, the Leave panel avoided any factual analysis of the benefits of Brexit (there are none of course). Only Sugar magnate David Davis presented any serious evaluation of Brexit, although he offered no benefits. But Davis generally acted with some dignity compared with the other leave panelists. He stated that Remoaners all think that the EU is perfect. I certainly know that all political systems imperfect. The question is really one of “Go Compare” and our own Parliament earns the prize of being twinned with Belarus, North Korea and Nigeria. Davis also installed his own versions of ‘project fear’ into the debate, suggesting that:
Rejoining would be difficult (so was Brexit, lots of important things are difficult David);
That the EU had moved on (self evident) and;
That we would have to have the Euro and cede sovereignty (utter bollocks).
Mike ‘Talk Shit TV’ Graham and Claire Fox were notable because neither of them even tried to oppose the motion. Instead they hurled insults at the other panelists. Claire ‘IRA’ Fox attempted to set up a class war by saying that Gina, Andrew and Alex were all the products of public school and that only she (Baroness Fox) was a supporter of the common man and woman. She forgot to mention that the vast majority of the Brexiteers went to public school (Johnson, Mogg, the list goes on). She also said that if we rejoined the EU, Britain would become ‘Greece’. This is so much bollocks that I won’t even comment further. Graham had been encouraged by his supporters to ‘assassinate Gina’ and ‘use lots of facts’. In fact, Graham said he had decided not to use ANY facts as the Remoaners would dispute them. Clearly this was because he had none to offer. Graham also ran away before questions could be asked. These are the typical behaviours of a Brexit coward. A pound shop Alan Partridge.
Views of youth
After the interval, two year 6 students from Chestnut Grove Academy from spoke for each side of the debate. Both were nervous. Cora spoke for Rejoin made some terrific points about having her future taken away by people who would not live to see the damage they had done (my emphasis, not hers). She supplemented her talk with plenty of salient facts. The strangest thing happened when the young man (Dominic) stood up for the Brexit side. The first thing he said was that he could not defend Brexit !! Then he appeared to break down, unable to speak. John Bercow helped Dom to continue but his speech was incoherent. His main point was that we could not go back on the past, that Brexit was done (It’s far from done of course). At the end Dom attempted to give a benefit of Brexit mentioning the idea that we were able to get the COVID vaccine faster because of Brexit. Of course this is incorrect. Check the Full Fact link on this. I discussed this point later on with David Davis on a 1:1 basis. He tried to suggest that the EU was slow to respond and I agreed that entropy is a feature of all large institutions. Both of us have MBAs and have worked for large organisations and I found common cause with David who did not try to pull any strokes with me on the matter. But the point here is that UK was not prevented from acting independently. It’s a legal point and not an Organisational Behaviour issue. David graciously agreed with me. Boris Johnson was desperate to produce a smokescreen for Brexit at the time and it was a convenient story to fool the public with. Some still are fooled by Johnson’s lies.
Click to read the article.
For ‘balance’, other reviews are available. Jonathan Baz must have been taking some of Liz Truss’ psychotropic drugs in his review where he describes Claire Fox as using facts to destroy the Remoaners. Check Everything Theatre for a more sober review of the evening. Well done to theatre director and former MP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh who put this all together.
From Everything Theatre.
Conclusions
Brexit is a disaster
We can and must join the EU
The only impediment to progress is our politicians
The Ayes Have It !!
I was delighted to present John Bercow and Alex Salmond with copies of my Brexit Satire book ‘Private Eyelines – Have I got fake Brexit news for EU‘. Ian Hislop also has a copy. It makes a great gift. Do NOT buy on Amazon by the way. Direct sales offer the best value.
ORDER … a copy of Private Eyelines direct from the author – click the picture.
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