The Tory MP Kevin Hollinrake is moaning about giving worker’s rights. I suggested that he stop whingeing as he’d got his Brexit. Then “Dave Gilmour” entered the fray. No, not the brilliant Pink Floyd guitarist and singer/songwriter but Dave, cynic, affiliate at Mundo Cognito Ltd, author of “Privacy Architecture – guided by TOGAF®” according to his LinkedIn profile. The online conversation that ensued was comedy gold. Dave claims that he does not need any benefits or problems solved by Brexit and then goes on to pretend that he voted Remain.
Hollinrake’s original post.
Another prick in the mall.
Comfortably Numb.
Wish EU were here.
Angry Dave needs to chill.
Paul got no reply from Dave. Too busy promoting his new album I guess.
When you lose the argument, go for the gut. Very Trumpesque.
Dave makes a false claim that he voted to Remain but lets himself down with his grammar … “get over it”, “embittered losers” and so on are the ‘grammatical ornaments’ of Brexit extremists. I await the trial.
This rather reinforces the poverty of trying to influence people online. Brexorcism is a face to face discipline as I explain in Reboot Britain.
Don’t be like Dave. He just made a fool of himself in front of all his LinkedIn contacts.
A letter to my new MP Naushabah Khan. I supported her candidacy in the General Elections, helping to split the Tory vote three ways. Even more pleasing I got a reply on her 2nd day in office. This validates my decision to stand and, of course, my strategy to ‘do no harm’ to Labour during my campaign, in spite my key difference over Brexit. Write your own letter to your MP. Feel free to use mine as a template.
The next five years
Morning Naushabah,
Firstly, congratulations on your appointment – fully deserved !!
My campaign was instructive in so far as it revealed something that I already knew … just how little Rehman Chishti bothers to deal with local issues unless it was multi-faith or Saudi arms ‘consultancy’ – coughs a bit …. But turning to the positives here …
I wonder if you will reverse this lack of consultation by installing ‘citizens’ assemblies’ here in Gillingham and Rainham? I know you are much more plugged into local issues than Mr Chishti, but I detected a distinct lack of public consultation from my hundreds of miles cycling round the constituency and in cafes / bars and fb groups in recent times. There is disquiet about a number of current initiatives where local consultation would lead to better solutions.
And, of course, you will expect me to ask you to put an end to Brexit as a priority and not in 2032 as Tristan Osbourne has mentioned a few times. Nobody will know what Brexit is by then and the damage will be complete, much of it irreversible. Nigel F will exploit a slow drift towards Rejoin in 2029 anyway if he is still around. Keir need not have boxed himself in on Brexit. It would have been enough to say that Brexit isn’t working, but there we are. And slow death by a thousand sector by sector ameliorations (what I call logical incrementalism in Reboot Britain) is also not an answer. Mr S seems puzzled by the question of a business case for Brexit. I am not and will be writing one in the coming week. In common with 2019, people loaned their votes to Labour in order to remove the terrible Tories. I doubt that will happen a second time and I realise how unfair this is, given the scale of things that need improving, but that’s politics as they say !
On a note of help, you can rely on my assistance in every way to improve the high street and other areas in which I can provide help. I’m also a skilled campaigner having received more votes than I deserved and having been told by many people that although they wished to vote for me, would I mind if they voted Labour to ‘carry the ming vase across the ice rink’. I did not mind and actively encouraged it.
You probably figured out at the hustings that I am supremely talented as a ‘critical friend’. I am presently bogged down in getting repairs made to my property due to criminal damage and knife crime by Reform UK acolytes, but once I have raised funds to pay for their criminal activities, I will be ready to assist in making Gillingham and Rainham a better place.
This from Paul Cawthorne in Italy, an economist, international consultant and long-term member of Reboot Britain. Image by Patricia Paton, Editor Bylines Scotland, from the related article Hard Labour, which you shoud read in conjunction with this piece.
Labour’s current “Make Brexit Work” policy is seriously flawed and, at best, will have no positive or negative impacts on their immediate electoral prospects. Labour is going to win power because the Tories are imploding after 14 damaging years (including Brexit) and Labour are now more trusted on all the key bread-and-butter issues (the NHS, the economy etc). Labour will win the general election despite, not because of, its unnecessary “no rejoining” red lines. If Starmer left the door open to rejoining the single market and customs union he would still be winning the election by a large margin.
Key factors
1. Poor advice based on outdated (2019) focus groups and internal polling data.
2. Overestimation of the enduring support for a hard Tory Brexit in the so-called Red Wall. Confirmed by John Curtice.
3. Underestimation of the the impact of Brexit’s evident failure on public opinion. See also The Sun’s reaction to the £5 Billion wasted on border checks just yesterday.
4. Underestimation of the impact of demographic changes on the electorate.
5. Overblown fear of the reaction of Tory tabloids to any perceived watering down of Brexit. See The Sun yesterday and the Telegraph.
6. Misplaced belief that “Make Brexit Work” will be a convincing winning 3-word slogan in 2024.
7. Nostalgic belief that Labour is still essentially a “working class” party and needs to prioritise at all costs the views and prejudices of these traditional “core supporters”.
The run up to an election is a critical time to influence politicians. Make sure you tell your Labour MP or candidate that your support is conditional on a change on policy.
Share relevant articles that accord with Paul’s analysis.
Expect better. Remainers are all too often on the back foot.
Postscript
I ambushed Keir Starmer this morning (23.05.24) at Gillingham Football ground with a message about Brexit and Rejoining the EU. It went down rather well with Labour activists. A few locals scowled as is normal in the area when Brexit is mentioned. My message was short as there are always just a few seconds to make your point in such circumstances : “Brexit is a game of two halves. Let’s make sure Mr Starmer is not on the losing side in the Euros”.
The Labour Party knocked on my door at the weekend. An extremely pleasant man began the canvassing by introducing himself and then asked me if I had any local issues that were troubling me. I replied with one word : BREXIT. I also apologised later on for telling him things he probably did not want to hear. He seemed fine with that and our conversation was cordial. Some of the hoops we jumped through are here for the record.
I began by explaining that I was finding it hard to vote for a Brexit party and revealed that I knew some senior Labour people who had told me that they would commence Rejoining in 2032. I explained that nobody would know what Brexit was by then and, in any case, the damage wreaked by Brexit would be mostly complete and much of it irreversible. I went through my usual argument that growth was for the birds, with a 4.5% resilience knock from Brexit, akin to trying to swim the English Channel with a 4.5 kg block of concrete around one’s neck.
Brexit resilence concrete
He listened carefully and then tried a few gentle pieces of pushback:
“Well the Conservatives won’t reverse Brexit” … I replied that I was not so sure, citing the fact that there was evidence of incremental movement to undo some of the worst elements of Johnson’s Brexit deal via the Windsor framework and our rejoining the Horizon science scheme. I went to point out that David Cameron had not come back to politics for a game of tennis and that one scenario would see Cameron pivoting towards the centre leaving the ERG loons in a boat on the Channel. I pointed him towards our articles Tectonic Plates and Cameron.
He went on to say “But the Tories will pivot towards the far right” … Again, I had to disagree, citing my appearance on James ‘O Brien, where I said that the votes were in the centre and that whilst it may appear that the far right are in ascendancy, this was only due to the loudest voices on MSM, such as Braverman and was not supported by the numbers. He nodded. I went on to say that Labour now have a major PR problem, having decided to partner with someone who supports sex pests and who relishes the thought of drowning children in the English Channel.
He found it very hard to argue against this recent development with Nathalie Elf Thick, but did ask me “What was Keir Starmer supposed to do?” … I replied that he should have simply thanked her for her kind offer and politely declined. Elphicke’s arrival in Labour offers them few advantages but also may cause them significant problems. I have wondered if she has actually been sent in under a false flag. We shall see. It seems rather fishy that the Tories instantly denounced her. Smells like a double bluff to me.
My canvasser’s parting shot was that he’d put me down as a floating voter, after I said that I may even have to hold my nose and vote Tory if Labour would not change its position on Brexit. I explained that Brexit was at the heart of many of the things he was hoping I might talk about (cost of living, NHS, migration etc.) and showed him my Brexit iceberg in the window of my house. It was a bit like doing a slightly nerdy keynote address with a poster in my window instead of a PowerPoint visual !!
The Brexit Iceberg.
I am hoping that he’ll report all of this back up the channels to Labour strategists. I was really impressed at our dialogue and how well he listened and constructively challenged me.
On the other hand, I heard from one of our group that Labour are banning posts on their Facebook groups that mention words like Erasmus, Horizon, ULEZ, Brexit etc. Labour are just as bad as the Tories in terms of censorship. I’m pleased to say that this has not extended to my local fb group, although the levels of misinformation are beyond comparison in the group. Some examples are below:
There are still industrial levels of misinformation out there. Don’t be like Steve.
Never give your voting intention away as you lose power to influence policy by doing so. I am still contemplating standing a candidate for the Rejoin party or possibly a cat again.
This is the opening prelude to a new book on Brexit and Rejoining the EU. Aptly titled “The Chronicles of Brexit”, combining the notion of the fantasy world of Narnia together with the chronic condition of political paralysis.
Brexit didn’t happen
I still hear Remainers telling me that Brexit is done. They have fallen prey to the kool aid put forward by the Brexiteers, that Brexit was a project and not a process. A project has a finite end point such as building the Channel Tunnel whereas a process continues. As I write in 2024, Brexit continues to wreak a slow chronic infusion of damage socially, economically, politically, environmentally, technologically and legally. We hardly need to rehearse the impacts here, from the gradual departure of businesses, industries and brains from UK plc, the rating of Britain as a ‘problem child’ regarding inward investment, to the unsavoury sights and smells of shit in our rivers and the jubilation by a few residual racists at the joy of drowning migrants. This is Brexit Britain. It’s nothing to be proud of.
Many of the chronic impacts predicted in these chronicles have come to pass since I wrote the original articles collected in this book. Worst of all, we are still dogged by the parliamentary paralysis that made Brexit possible. Keir Starmer continues to spout the vacuous football chant ‘make Brexit work’ to charm people with feeble minds, when all the data suggests that he could carve out a leadership position and win an election comfortably by stating that ‘Brexit isn’t working’. The Lib Dems continue to suggest that we could rejoin the EU ‘when the time is right’. Of course, that time will never come … Only the Scottish National Party (SNP) are brave enough to lead on the need for independence from Brexit Albion.
Brexit’s Breaking Britain
Images by James Rowland.
A little while back, I designed a t-shirt with a picture of Hannibal Lecter and the slogan ‘Brexit consumes all its children’ with a list : Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak, Starmer. I predict that Starmer will also be consumed by the offspring of Brexit, perhaps with some fava beans and a nice Chianti … the offspring of Brexit include the cost of living, ramped up concerns about immigration, a broken NHS, business failures and so on. Of course I was hammered by my left-wing colleagues on Twitter, who have gotten into such a stir with Tory fascism that they are now manically possessed by the idea that we must get Starmer in, then we can talk about Brexit. I hope they are right but fear they are not. See Scottish Bylines as to why I say this.
Even 18th century retro-Latin imperialist adventure capitalist Jacob Rees-Mogg bragged that we will get nothing back from Brexit for 50 years … I am impatient as a ‘Brexit fundamentalist’ (The only good Brexit is a dead Brexit) not for myself at my advanced age, but for future generations. And the softly-softly approaches used by some of the central Remain organisations have largely assisted us in getting a ‘boiled frog Brexit’; so slow that we (the frogs) hardly notice the chronic decline (death by gradual boiling). This makes any approach to undoing Brexit especially difficult, as it requires a large majority of people to have their lived experiences changed by Brexit realities, which will only be visible in slow motion and in small doses.
My labour chums tell me “shh, we’ll consider rejoining in 2032”. This misses two important points. Nobody will remember what Brexit was by then and, in any case, much of the damage wreaked by Brexit will be complete and much of it irreversible by 2032. It is at best a dream, at worst a weapon of mass deception to get elected. But I cannot vote for a Brexit party in a General Election even if that means allowing a Tory back in. There is always hope and I hope you will want to read the book and act upon its advice and guidance.
To place a discount pre-order for The Brexit Chronicles in hard copy inc P&P, please PayPal £15.00 as a gift via Paypal using the link below.
We also have one remaining signed copy of our Brexit satire book Private Eyelines at a discount of £20.00 all inclusive compared with £34.99 plus P&P on Amazon.
Don Adamson spreads some Brexit Christmas cheer from his bunker in Barnsley.
This week’s homework
One – Discuss the following statement: The controversy over the Elgin Marbles could have been resolved easily enough if the curators of the British Museum had been allowed to discuss it with their opposite numbers in Athens. Instead Richy Scumbag decided to turn it in an international p*****g to impress Gammons and Flagshaggers.
Two – Did George Orwell write ‘1984’ as a dire warning or as a training manual for Johnsonite Tories?
Three – Princess Nut Nuts (sometimes known as Carrie Johnson) was described in the Covid Inquiry as behaving like Lady Macbeth. Is this a fair comment or was Lady Macbeth a much nicer person?
Four – Recent edition of Question Time was held in Kelso; on the Scottish side of the border. BBC goes to a lot of trouble to ensure that the QT audiences are predominantly pro Brexit and pro Tory. How did they manage that in Scotland?
Five – Johnson has been described as ‘a useless tosser.’ Is that on a good day?
Six – Should Gammons and Tories bog off back to Russia where they belong?
Seven – Gammons and Flagshaggers insist that the world owes them a living for their heroism in wars that ended before they were born. Which bit of that does Biden not get?
Eight – WW2 has been a regular fixture on British television for many years. This explains why lowlifes like Johnson and Nigel Garbage are the misapprehension that they have received multiple awards of the Victoria Cross for their heroism in wars that ended before they were born. The more I see of Brexit the better I understand what happened in pre WW2 Germany. For some reason we do not see many 1950s vintage movies of Churchill roaring defiance at the bad guys. What we do see are TV documentaries that explain in great detail how Nazis nobbled a great country. Why is this happening on a BBC that is strictly under the control of Johnsonite Tories? You would expect this BBC to pander to Johnson’s misapprehension that he is Churchill reincarnated.
This week’s quotes
Thatcher may have come late to Euro scepticism but she certainly threw herself into it
… in thrall to her supposed economic success… Tory Regimes have carried on with this disastrous course … the cupboard is empty and bills are due … Thatcher set in course the destruction of this country …
I wonder how many people who voted for Brexit saw the spike in migration coming
… we are allowing in more non EU migrants … we are also allowing in more overseas students to prop up underfunded university sector … this will increase … How richly ironic. Brexit has opened the door to more immigration, not closed it…
Brexit Migration Algorithm
Covid inquiry has shone a light on government’s pandemic response
… now it is time for a scrutiny of Brexit … same reckless fools were in charge … even Titans would have struggled … dark chaos of Johnson … was frighteningly obvious … casual, complacent, determinedly ignorant and jingoistic leadership … hopeless … bewildered ministers … Brexit deal was being negotiated at the same time … incompetent government … Brexit deal that is as calamitous as response to pandemic … nightmarish … determined by shallow ‘British exceptionalism’ … Johnson struggled to take Covid seriously … at same time did not bother to contemplate the tortuous details of Brexit … Johnson’s erratic attention span taken up wholly with demands of Covid … Lord Frost made Mad Halfcock look like Bismarck and Churchill combined … Cummings encourage out of depth Frost to be aggressive … when EU proposed a deal mutually beneficial … Frost would loftily reject it … Cummings gone by November 2020 leaving bewildered Frost to please Johnson alone … Johnson was indifferent to detail … seeking a fantasy Brexit where Britain would recover past glories … disgracefully doting media elevated Johnson to status of war hero … no discussions in Cabinet … Keith Starmer did not ask a single question about Brexit … serious consequences for UK in many ways for years to come … doubt that Johnson read the deal passed to him on Christmas Eve … was he playing a poker game … bluffing … probably did not know himself … Frost … politically naive … unworkable protocol for Northern Ireland … Johnson ran away from scrutiny all his life … briefly ran a government where he was omnipotent … deeply damaging … sought the hardest of Brexits without knowing what that meant …
A Britastrophe
‘Fearless’ Tory press meekly ducked criticism of Johnson and Richy Scumbag
… ‘let people die’ … ‘They’ve had a good innings’ … Downing St was a hive of tragic chaos … dystopian nightmare … incompetent ministers lied … claimed the authority to play God … orgy of narcissism … toxic culture of misogyny … Johnson incapable of making a decision … bamboozled by statistics and numbers …. hiding behind science which he did not understand … Covid still a factor in 300 deaths a week … sensational and scandalous material … editors spoiled for choice … Johnson did not think old people’s lives mattered … language shocking but not shocking enough to make the Tory Press … possibly because they agreed with the sentiments … Tory Press … did not shine much light on accusations of ministerial dithering … shy away from anything that shows Tories in a less than brilliant light … not one mentioned Johnson wanting to leave old people to die .. Chaos and incompetence…
November 8, the day that Georgia was recommended for EU candidacy status
… obtaining EU candidacy status is not only a significant step towards realising the European aspirations of Georgian but also a vital means of diminishing Russia’s influence in Georgia … support for membership across civil society has always been some of the strongest in the region … after Russia launched its full-scale war in Ukraine, it immediately became clear how much of a threat the Kremlin truly posed … for Georgians joining the EU will have deep consequences. November 8 was a huge day for the people of Georgia, a historic day when my country made a step towards the EU and away from Moscow. It is what we have wanted for decades…
Alastair Darling
… If there is one lesson from his life and times it is this: politics needs good, honest, principled, hard working, serious people more than it has ever needed them…..
Mad Halfcock, as Health Secretary
… assured Dominic Cummings that full pandemic contingency plans were in place – but they claimed under cross examination that they were not up to scratch. This is why Cummings, in June 2021 said no plans had been in place … an assertion that mystified staff at Porton Down … that is the whole reason why we have Porton Down, where they have long recognised that that a pandemic is the number one threat on the risk register … they war gamed pandemics and shared their ideas with Europe, Singapore, the Gulf States etc, … ironically some of them put Porton Down’s ideas into practice and looked back at us mystified why we were not doing what we had advised … Theories abound why the plans were never used … by the time Johnson and co. Took an interest there was little that was still salvageable so they denied they existed …
Breaking the law
Richy Scumbag .. unable to corral the warring factions in the Tory Party
… Keith Starmer has been effective in keeping the outlying far left of the Labour Party in check, Tory factions openly in dispute … Scumbag completely devoid of the power to bring performers into line … Cruella Braverman supporters cannot contain their anger … Cleverly (sic) attempt to reduce the perceived but deeply misplaced believe that Rwanda could solve the small boats problem … ‘Let Markets Rip’ Brigade bemoan the ousting of Thick Lizzie … relics of a bygone era (Deadwood) call for yet more of her disastrous economic enemas … right wing think tanks that begot Thick Lizzie are still in residence in Tufton Street … despair over current divisions … while the damage done by Brexit continues to mount the recriminations seem destined to sour relations for years … Richy Scumbag is desperately trying to appease as many warring tendencies as possible … succeeding only in looking devoid of principles … latest attempt to exert the authority of his office … pathetic, petulant, cause for laughter … turning the Tory Party into a joke is a sacking matter … Tories united by one thing: hunger for power … polls indicate that the challenge is insurmountable …
Sunakered
Peevish toddler in Downing St
… cancelling meeting with Greek PM … Anybody who believes in the rightness of the position is never afraid of confronting arguments … a perfectly routine government meeting became a full scale diplomatic row … clusterf**k … nothing the Greek PM said new or surprising … Elgin Marbles a controversy since 1816 … nothing Mitsotakis could have said should have taken Scumbag by surprise … Instead Scumbag … in a whole of his own digging decided to keep at it …. failed desperately with an ill-focussed attempt to start a culture war … there are artefacts and works of art about which the British feel strongly … The Parthenon Sculptures are not among them, … Scumbag is not a Churchillian defender of the nation … instead a complete fool … King Charles wore a tie with a Greek flag … uncodified constitution prevents the monarch from calling the PM a prat but this is the next best thing…
Pip Pip Don Adamson Medway Delta (Retired) Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class
‘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.
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’ll keep this simple. Labour insiders tell me that Keir Starmer will ‘get round’ to rejoining the EU in 2032 when nobody’s looking. Here’s why this is a unicorn to placate Labour ideologues and silence debate. It is 2023 now. Cast your mind forward 9 years ….
By 2032, few will remember what Brexit was, let alone care to do anything about it
Even in 2023 Brexit has disappeared from the news cycle and from public discourse. The poor attendance of around 5000 at the Rejoin march is an indicator of ‘Learned Helplessness’ and ‘Brexit fatigue’ amongst the general public, who either believe that Brexit is done or that we can’t do anything about it. Climate denial, bully dogs, ULEZ, mythical meat taxes, Holly Willoughby, potholes, HS2 and a stream of Tory gaslighting has effectively clogged the media channels and occupied the minds of people who are attracted to the next shiny bright object in the news. We fall for it every time.
By 2032, Horizon type deals and other ‘mini pay as EU go’ deals will reduce the pool of people who still think that Brexit is an issue
See our article Pay as EU go for more on Rishi Sunak’s strategy to pick single issues off one at a time and thus dilute the community of people interested in the underlying issue of Brexit.
By 2032, the damage of Brexit will be complete, much of it irreversible, thus little point in rejoining
For example, once the car industry leaves Britain due to rules of origin issues, they will not rush back just because a rejoin strategy is in place. Business relocations are big decisions etc. By 2027 our premier position in financial services will have declined as companies relocate or take key staff out of Brexit Britain. And so on. Like a chemical reaction, some are irreversible. Labour know all of this but fail to act. Even Prof Anand Menon is making excuses for Keir Starmer based on ‘here and now’ research. The word Brexit may have been silenced by all the political parties, media and people not wishing to re-open family wounds but all the products of Brexit are being talked about per our Brexit iceberg. Importantly, Brexit won’t go away if we keep not talking about it. It will remain a festering sore in many families for a generation until ‘gran and grandad Brexit’ have spun off this mortal coil.
The Brexit Iceberg.
By 2032 the EU may well have worked around us
This is not an insignificant point. Although there is value on both sides from rejoining at this time, there will be precious little socio-economic capital in the EU accepting us back in 2032. Just the much larger asset of political capital for the EU … they would be able to day that “the prodigal son returned”. However, the EU may well have speeded up accession of other nations seeking to join and may feel that Brexit Britain are just not worth the trouble. As a business person I fully understand that sometimes people choose the easier paths rather than the more difficult ones.
By 2032, our divergence from EU standards will make it technically more difficult to rejoin
Although this is perhaps the smallest issue, it makes the whole matter less tractable and politicians prefer to do easy things rather than difficult things.
The only thing stopping us from joining the EU anew is political will. That said, stasis and entropy are massive obstacles to sending ‘the application form in’ !! Parliamentary paralysis has defined the Zombie Brexit Government since 2016. It also defines the Zombie opposition with the exception of Gina Miller’s True and Fair party, The SNP, Sinn Fein and the Green Party / Plaid Cymru, to some degree.
Instant gratification
Markets are perfect as we saw in 2016 when the pound was almost instantly revalued (downwards) after the Brexit referendum. So, any application of intent to join the EU anew would be accompanied by a dead stop of the Brexit carnage in pure economic terms. For example, the car industry could say with certainty that they could remain in UK alongside other industries affected by rules of origin constraints. The slow brain drain of financial services staff from Britain would cease with impacts across the financial world. Smaller enterprises could plan to trade with Europe without friction and additional costs again. Future inward investment would begin to flow again as confidence in UK plc began to pick up and many other adjustments would take place, some instantaneous, others as the process unfolds.
So what matters most is starting the process of rejoining, not so much when it is finished. Doubtless there would be many hurdles to deal with but the main thing is to have the intent to join anew.
Preconditions
I am quite sure the EU would want to see the removal of the remaining Brexit culture carriers from power before they would be happy to accept our application, but that, of course, can happen along the way in the forthcoming elections. It has become clear that many safe seats are likely to fall in an election, especially if Labour and the Lib Dems stop fucking each other up. The EU would also be wise to wish to see a supermajority of opinion in the public for rejoining – we are close to 2/3 who believe that Brexit has failed.
Theatrics of joining anew
I would expect a guarded and bureaucratic and ‘flat’ receipt from the EU of an application rather than a joyous and instant response. This is all part of the theatre of resetting the relationship. The theatrics of an application may also mean that we might be pushed behind Ukraine to give that time and a sense of not jumping the queue. Again, this would give time to make the various resets, but the key thing is starting the process. Gina Miller explains something of the process to rejoin in her article for The Independent. We concur that joining anew won’t be easy, but then again Brexit wasn’t easy either.
Beware of the myths
Read our Bylines article Myths and Riffs of Brexit to deal with the Brexiteers who are now operating project fear by suggesting myths such as having to have the Euro, Schengen etc. Do not fall prey to such myths.
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