‘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.
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Don Adamson sets out this week’s homework in his weekly digest. Better than the David Davis Dossier.
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?
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?
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?
… 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 …
… 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.
… 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 …
… 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…
…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 …
… 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 …
… 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.
… 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 …
… 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 …
… 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 ….
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Only the True and Fair party have a clear position on Brexit in England. See Rejoin the EU.
Write to your Labour MP with the above points. The long game began with Jeremy Corbyn. It must end NOW.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Don Adamson writes in his unique style from his Brexit bunker in Barnsley just before the day of the march to Rejoin the EU.
One – In the 1960s young people all over the world protested (sometimes violently) at the mess the older generation made of everything they touched. Barbara Cartland (the Romantic Novelist) was rarely thought of as a young radical. She was quoted as saying that in the 1920s young people of her generation absolutely hated the older generation that had sleepwalked into a terrible and unnecessary war. How long will it be before British youngsters develop an incandescent hatred of the scoundrels, liars and charlatans who inflicted this Brexit FUBAR on us?
Two – Russell Brand is an unrepentant Gammon. Does that explain his moral turpitude? It comes as no surprise to me that Brand is facing Nonce charges. Unrepentant Gammons do not remotely resemble the required standard in matters of moral fibre. Nigel Garbage meanwhile continues to complain that Coutts Bank declined to let him use their banking services. This just goes to show that perhaps they do have some standards at Coutts. Then there is the question of libel. I would say that somebody like Nigel Garbage does not have a reputation to lose so there will be no case to answer if Garbage brings a suit for defamation of character.
Three – The Tories have proved themselves unfit to govern. Labour has been AWOL since 2010 and flatly refuses to return to work. Keith Starmer is determined to be part of the problem and no part of the solution. Can it really be true that these useless and disgusting creeps are the best that either Labour or Tories can find to stand for election?
… Brexit is doing damage, thanks to supply chain difficulties getting the chemicals to we need to treat water … more fears that that more pollution will come thanks to Michael Gove’s plan to Brexit freedoms to duck out of EU nutrient neutrality rules…. all of the facts have been known to the industry and ministers for years. There is no excuse for either Gove or Coffey for allowing things to get so bad…. unlike the Titanic’s iceberg the Brexit poonami was visible far; far ahead … all we get when ministers are called to account is the verbal equivalent of the effluent that is flooding the waters….
… a crumbling understaffed and vermin ridden mess…. if you mess about for years imposing austerity the catastrophic consequences will be visited on you all at once …. Osborne claimed that the Tories fixed the roof while the sun was shining. The RAAC concrete scandal shows they literally did the opposite…. the whole country will pay the price…. the total liability will run into hundreds of billions … money that the stagnant economy can neither generate nor borrow…
… we must as a matter of urgency acknowledge and tackle the problems that Brexit has created…. Tory leadership was too often preoccupied with incomprehensible political manoeuvring to engage sensibly with the business community … business community is let down by government … business leaders are not stupid … want to know how we will sort out irritations, skill shortages and myriad other problems created by Brexit …. The business community is dealing with fundamental problems …
… a group of musicians angry about how Brexit has hurt the music industry…
… £15,026 for a helicopter ride set back Tory donor Richard Harping £38,5000 from the mysterious Akhil Tripathi in April …. Taxpayer stumped up £871, 000 on Scumbag’s overseas trips
… Tories are not open to talent, people with strengths in running departments…. incurious, uncritical, inept…
Theresa May is trying to portray herself as a sensible moderate who tried to secure a less damaging Brexit
…. May could have stopped Brexit … as much to blame for Brexit as those from whom she is now trying to dissociate herself … Tory Brexiters are Blackadders in search of a Baldrick … Check her interview with Brexit apologist Nick Robinson out.
… one problem is studied lack of leadership on the environment from Richy Scumbag…..excessive nutrients in rivers were causing mats of green algae that damage protected areas and birds….
… the longer the PM is forced to suffer an embarrassing attack of metaphor made reality – fears over falling roofs that reinforce the idea that Britain is generally crumb ling … the crisis was the result of b botched job s and sticking plaster politics …. The language of the debate has been the kind that would get you sent to the head teacher…. a Scottish Nationalist bluntly accused Tories and Labour of being two cheeks of the same arse.
A British Parliamentary Researcher arrested in March on suspicion of spying for the Chinese
Richy Scumbag, British PM, said that attempts to undermine British democracy were ‘completely unacceptable,’ (Comment: that is hilarious from a Tory government that has been doing a FUBAR on Britain since 2010).
… their positions can be hazy…. the disconnect between genuine problems and farfetched solutions … policies tend to be illusory … incoherent or unachievable … they tend to be associated with misogyny and bigotry and to undermine the rule of law … populist right wing blocs impede countries from getting to grips with pressing problems …
… amateurism, obstinacy, arse covering by superiors and underlings … despairs at how Brexit was handled. Loathes Johnson who rose to power by half truths, full lies and low cunning … cynical politics is at the heart of Britain’s problems … divisive politics of Brexit … rubs against the stable politics that conservatism stands for … such stability was absent in the 1980s when Thatcher launched her war on One Nation Toryism. Johnson’s divisive politics was a return rather than an aberration …
Pip Pip Don Adamson Medway Delta (Retired) Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class
No doubt this will make me unpopular, but I cannot and will not vote for a Labour party who wish to maintain the illusion that Brexit can be made to work as Keir Starmer declared yesterday. By turning their backs on the greatest socio-economic, political, legal, ethical and environmental catastrophe of our age Labour are mortgaging our children’s futures, the very opposite of what Keir Starmer claims he wants:
My Labour chums tell me “shh, Keir has a secret plan to rejoin in 2032“. I’m sorry, but this lacks any sense of pragmatism for three major reasons:
1. By 2032, nobody will know what Brexit was. Micro Pay as EU go deals by Sunak et al will mean that the number of people caring about Brexit will get smaller and smaller. The end losers will be 68 million people without rights to live and work in the EU.
2. The economic and social damage to UK will be deep and mostly irreversible like an irreversible chemical reaction. For example, the bleed of financial services away from UK. The final destruction of the UK car industry. Fishing. Farming. Scotland and Northern Ireland’s departure from UK. and so on.
3. Our divergence from EU standards will be so great as to make it much more difficult to join anew.
Other optimistic Labour colleagues tell me that “Keir is simply saying what people want to hear. Once he gets into power he will change his mind“. They cannot explain how the Mail, Express and Sun will not eat him for breakfast for being no better than Boris Johnson as a liar. None can explain the difference between a red and blue Brexit.
Starmer’s proposal appears to be based on a fear of facing down a few red wall racists and maybe some of the remaining hard left in his party. He ignores the vast majority of his membership and of course 63% of the nation who say that Brexit has Failed. This is a morally and pragmatically bankrupt position and must not be rewarded by voting Labour in a General Election.
Granted, the Tories are awful, but one cannot put a cigarette paper between Starmer’s position on Brexit and Sunak’s. Politics is so often the choice between the lesser of two evils rather than something aspirational and pragmatic. This is why I shall be supporting Gina Miller’s True and Fair party and hoping that we reach a hung parliament, given that the Tories have already destroyed themselves. A hung Parliament with a rainbow coalition offers the best chance to end the Brexit nightmare and all of its products as represented by our Brexit iceberg:
Write to your Labour MP or prospective candidate with this article. You may also wish to mention the Bylines piece Hard Labour and anything else you can muster. Demand a EU turn on Starmer’s position in exchange for your vote.
Help us make a stand in the Mid Beds by-election by giving Gina Miller’s True and Fair party a decent share of the vote. It’s only a by-election and it will make Labour (and the Lib Dems) think really hard about their position on Brexit. We need help on the ground with canvassing and social media amplification.
Don Adamson writes his weekly roundup from the Bungled Brexit Bunker in Barnsley.
One – The Whigs, later Liberals, were a major force in British politics from about 1690 to about 1920. Several factors brought about the decline of the Liberal Party. One was the rise of the Labour Party and extending the franchise to working people. Another was a major scandal about granting knighthoods and peerages to very dubious people, usually this was a financial arrangement. A third factor was financial misconduct by Cabinet Ministers; notably the Marconi shares scandal where Cabinet Ministers awarded lucrative government contracts to Marconi on the basis of Ministers having inside knowledge. Do you see a resemblance to recent events? Is it time for another radical change in British politics?
Two – In 2010 we got a hung parliament. Labour had been in office for a number of years. They were exhausted and accident prone. It is interesting that the Tories did not win outright but had to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. In 2015 the Tories won an election with a small majority. In 2017 we got another hung parliament in an election that Labour should have won outright. The Tories entered into a very dubious arrangement with Ulster Unionists. In 2019 the Tories won a huge majority in an election that Labour should have won. Last week there were three by-elections where Labour should have romped home. Labour got one seat, Lib Dems got another and the Tories got a tiny minority in what usually one of the safest Tory seats in the country. What is happening? Tories have proved themselves unfit to govern. Labour has been Absent Without Leave since 2010 and flatly refuses to return to work. How are we going to get out of this mess?
Three – Discuss the following statement – Keith Starmer talks about there being no case for Rejoin and that Britain’s best hope for the future is outside the EU (despite all the evidence to contrary). Starmer is, in fact preparing for Rejoin. It is all part of a cunning plan to deceive Gammons and Flagshaggers. We are in this mess because Tories told (and continue to tell) an infinity of shameless lies. What useful purpose will it serve for Labour leaders to repeat the same discredited Tory lies?
Four – Discuss the following statement – Rumours circulate to the effect that a person named in Johnson’s controversial honours and awards has only one qualification for a peerage: This person is Johnson’s illegitimate firstborn. The flaw in this argument is that Johnson cannot count up to one.
Five – Discuss the following statement: I spent many years being irritated by Irish, Scottish and Welsh Nationalists (alphabetical order) moaning about the English. Then Brexit came along and I began to understand what they were moaning about.
Six – Nigel Garbage claims to have been victimised by the NatWest Bank. Did this victimisation happen because (uniquely among Gammons and Flagshaggers) Nigel Garbage noticed that Brexit has failed?
… Richy Scumbag travels in private jets and helicopters … outdoing even Johnson … spent £100,000 on travel in April … taken £54,418 from private donors over two month period …
Keith Starmer told Times Radio “I hate tree huggers”…
… Whatever Starmer is thinking, his appearance at the party seemed as forlorn an exercise as his ‘We are not reversing Brexit’ article for the Daily Express … Brexiters say ‘You cannot trust him’ … Party leaders seem to believe in the power of the press … When Blair travelled to Australia at Murdoch’s behest the Sun was selling nearly 4M copies a day. The News International titles had a combined sale of 10M copies. Today many news organisations have stopped publishing audited figures … Press Gazette concluded that our national and daily papers now barely sell 6M between them … estimates the Sun sells about 770,000 against the Mail’s 780,000 … when Blair won his landslide the Times was selling about 800,000, is now about 216,000 ‘’’ the Telegraph has gone from just over 1M to 188,000 … Newspaper circulations have been in decline for a long time, but the rate of collapse is accelerating. In 2010 the Sun was selling 3M copies daily, the Mail 2M … Mail stuck with May to the end and was messianic in defence of Johnson … it hectored the Tories into electing Thick Lizzie and perpetuated the fantasy of her competence … It seems that no PM can take office without making early contact with Murdoch, Rothermere or the Telegraph … it is hard to escape the impression that the meetings are about taking orders: cut taxes, emasculate the BBC … nowadays people get their news elsewhere … notably social media … and publications that are increasingly seen as more reliable sources. Private Eye sales are growing fast as newspapers are sinking … sells around 250,000 a fortnight … more than Telegraph, Times, Express FT, i, or Guardian can manage on an average day … Eye breaks important stories and exposes corruption … Fleet Street is slow to follow up … Symbiotic relationship between the Tories and the right wing press will face biggest test in the coming year. Their futures depend on it. If they fail Tory Party could face oblivion, newspaper proprietors could lose billions … Starmer should not have attended Murdoch’s party …
… described Brexit as the only time a country declared a trade war on itself … it is getting worse … expanding it to an immigration war on itself … these mistakes are going to have longer lasting effects … Five Prime Ministers and five governments in seven years … That is Italy like territory, perhaps not quite Argentina (COMMENT: You might not think it now but pre 1920 Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world). … we have had volatile and irresponsible economic policies … excessive austerity … Brexit … productivity problem … undermined credibility … less faith in the government’s ability to deliver … costs of Brexit worse than the optimists predicted … made inflation worse … red tape …admin costs and supply chains … the UK has become a small economy and must start acting like one … UK is sailing in the wrong direction … NHS is crumbling … education and training are underfunded … it is getting worse … start talking about rejoining … that might seem like common sense but we live in a country where the government thinks such talk is treason … we need to Rejoin, and, most importantly to stop the government’s war on its own country … Britain’s stock market is drifting into irrelevance Bribing the Tories Mantrac selling industrial equipment to Russia long after the Ukraine invasion … Tories accepted £5M earlier this year from Mantrac’s owner, Egyptian Mohamed Mansour …
Tory lawmaker faces ejection from Parliament for groping strangers at a London club …Ex SPAD Daniel Korski … Tory Candidate for London Mayor … groping allegation by TV writer Daisy Goodwin…. she has been contacted by other women with ‘some interesting stories’ … Mayoral selectors suggest that anybody associated with this government would lose to Labour … 6 Weeks is the time it took BBC to respond to allegations of presenter paying teenager for explicit photos … 5 years is the time it took Tory party to respond to allegations of MP Chris Pincher making unwanted sexual advances … Russell Tillotson, former Tory councillor … was, on 29 June convicted of four sex offences .. 1984 – 2001 while a teacher at Tonbridge school… The lurid affair of Hew Edwards has raised more questions about the state of British journalism … the young person’s lawyers, published in the Sun, were nonsense and the police ruled out criminal charges…
Tabloids one month after launch of US websites for Mirror, Express, Irish Daily News … not going to plan … US audiences not flocking to the news brands … New York office engulfed in a sexism storm reminiscent of 1990s lad mags … absolute shit show … Express online .. Resulted in a potentially expensive shitshow…
Conservatives despatched Tory MPs from Parliament … Tories’ old heartlands not yet lost but they are becoming contested battlegrounds … in 2021 a Lib Dem was elected MP for Chesham and Amersham … earlier this year Lib Dems took control of councils in commuter towns around London … current polling suggests they could surge from 14 Parliamentary seats to 40 or 50 … a majority in Metroland voted against Brexit, which left a widespread impression that banking and the professions were a low priority for the Tories … rage has subsided but has left dismay … Johnson and his cronies mocked …the drinking, bullying, and sleaze of his administration seemed divorced from modern corporate culture … sewage spills … Lib Dems have used them to signal that politics is now fetid … voters feel overlooked and taken for granted by governments … a sentiment normally associated with poorer constituencies … Richy Scumbag is struggling to reverse Tory fortunes … estrangement may be too far gone to prevent a Tory rout … the earth is shifting …
Don Adamson Pip Pip Medway Delta (Retired) Saboteur and Brexorcist First Class
Editor’s note : Somewhat spookily, Vera Lynn died on the day I released this song and I got hate mail from the Brexiteers as if I had caused her demise …. oh well ‘Alo Vera charts the story of the Brexiteer with Brexit Buyer’s remorse but who cannot tell his mates down the pub …
I like Angela Rayner. As some who started life in a council house, who pulled myself up by my bootstraps, with a wife from Manchester, I identify with Angela’s straight talk on many things. I was therefore even more dismayed to hear her spinning myths and lies on LBC this week about Brexit. Angela came up with many of the Brexiteer arguments in this interview. Here are some of her ‘whoppers’.
Horseshit. We are fast approaching the point where 70% of people in Britain believe that Brexit has failed. Angela does not understand that democracy is NOT a project. It is a process. She would not even be an MP if democracy were a project as women would not have a vote or be able to participate in society. We would be more like Saudi Arabia under Angela’s view of democracy.
Bollocks. Whilst it’s true that all takes time, the only thing preventing us from starting the process is a backbone in politics. Read our article on the matter at Byline Times.
I met with four Labour Councillors campaigning in my area on Sunday. All said they fundamentally disagreed with the exec. Are they prepared to do anything about it? Of course not. We need ‘different’ and not more of the same. In contrast, Gina Miller leads the only party in Britain who unequivocally favour rejoining the EU. It is possible and need take no longer than 3 years.
This was perhaps Angela’s cleverest deception. By not being specific, she allowed people to fill in the dots by themselves … for example “oh we’ll lose the pound, Shengen, pints”, and many other myths put forward by the Brexiteers. These feed the Labour project fear narrative and Angela should really know better.
It is true that Old Albion will need to learn some appropriate humility as part of the joining process, instead of the English exceptionalism which characterised the Brexit vote. However, it is unwise to place more constraints in the way of success than is necessary before negotiations begin. When I reflect on the conversation I observed with Barnier, I know that rejoining is possible. Yes, it will be difficult and everything will be on the table. If Britain decided that it must keep the pound for example, I’m sure it would be considered. Since all is a trade, the EU may come with some other things we may have to move on to keep the pound, perhaps in the finance domain. For example, we have just seen concessions on Northern Ireland traded with changes to the Erasmus scheme. Nonetheless, what we must do is establish the principle of rejoining and political will to do so. Once that is secured, we must then leave the negotiators to do the work, as we did in the Brexit negotiations.
Don Adamson reports on the BREX files : all things Britain from his shady hollow in Barnsley, in the forgotten northern Brexit powerhouse.
One. Discuss the following statement: Nigel Garbage, Widdecombe, Andrew Neil (Murdoch lackey of the worst description for decades), swathes of the Tory Party and 66% of Daily Express readers have noticed that Brexit has failed. Nigel Garbage blames the Tories. Meanwhile Tories blame everybody but themselves. Who is right? Meanwhile the only people who do not notice that Brexit has failed are Keith Starmer and the Labour Party. Why is that?
Two: Discuss the following statement – There is nothing the Tory newspapers would like better than to blame Labour for the failure of Brexit (Incidentally, Brexit has already failed). By making these weird and wonderful claims that Labour can make Brexit work is Starmer playing into their hands?
Three: Discuss the following statement: Ben Wallace is that rarest of endangered species – he is a Tory Cabinet Minister with a deserved reputation for competence. By all accounts he has done a reasonably good job as Secretary of State for Defence. In the dim and distant past he would have been a strong candidate to be appointed Secretary General of NATO. He is not going to get the job. As a consequence of Brexit British Ministers (even surprisingly competent ones) are not considered to be ‘serious people.’ Brexit has made Britain as irrelevant as Andorra or San Marino. This is what Gammons and Flagshaggers wanted when they voted for Brexit. Does this mean that in future Britain’s most valuable export will be special issues of postage stamps for sale to philatelists?
… journalists wonder what the future holds now that Lloyds Banking Group has seized control of media empire and seeking to sell it off … best hope is that somebody Looney right comes forward … titles reckoned to be worth £500-£600M .. Short of the £600M the Barclays paid in 2004… Rothermere has shown ‘mild interest’ but has enough on his plate … Barclay’s dispute with Lloyds over debts allegedly approaching £1B… Torygraph opposes Inheritance Tax on behalf of 3.76% of the population that pays it … recruited 50 MPs … include fiscal mastermind Thick Lizzie … absurdly easy for millionaires to avoid paying tax … weirdo twins Cur Frederick and Cur David Barclay … complex series of trusts … to avoid tax liabilities …
Financial Services, one of UK’s very few world class sectors…. put at serious risk by Brexit … Paris now largest Stock Exchange in Europe … London is losing business and jobs … Large companies do not bother to float on LSE … going to New York … London lost all its EU trading to Amsterdam … abolishing rules and balances is not a rational move … British financial sector has to do business in EU, US, Japan and China, all of which have tough rules of their own … watering down your own rules little use when competing for foreign business …. Gammons and Flagshaggers forget that they have to follow other people’s rules…. access to EU dependent of membership of the Single Market … City contributes huge amounts to Treasury coffers and to the size and success of the British economy … Brexit was a ridiculous act of vanity and self harm … don’t worry about the demented fools who backed this madness. They are multimillionaires who can live anywhere they want … when they abandon the sinking ship they will take their money with them … any credible economic policy must acknowledge and address the economic damage done by Brexit … Labour refuses to do that…
.. Before Brexit, London was the art capital of Europe … cancellation of three major fairs … government complacency … neglect of arts and creative industries … calamitous impact…. Spanner in the works … doing any sort of business with Britain involves a mountain of paperwork … additional and unpredictable costs … thousands of job losses….
… questionable Egyptian … Russian connections … Non Dom status … Amit Lohia gave £2M … low wages … disrespect of staff … put a major Tory donor on the Charities Commission … Crapita has profited from privatised public services including NHS ‘outsources’ and ‘private foster care agencies’ …
… Did you inform Italian PM that you wanted ‘herd immunity’…. did you state that you would rather let the ‘bodies pile high’ … did the then Cabinet Secretary advise you to dismiss Mad Halfcock … government’s only tactic is to delay and minimise damage …. Deadlines have passed unanswered…. unacceptable delays … why have excess deaths remained high … complex questions but we should have better answers … Telegraph report was based on a widely criticised analysis … epidemiologists and mathematicians called it half baked. Peter Cook called it a Britastrophe as long ago as 2020.
Labour pockets big donation from hedgie who was denounced by the party for privatisation of the Post Office … Stuart Roden … sat on the board alongside Cur Ian Duncan Smith.
… an utter shitshow … utterly unwatchable …
Just two of his allies said they would also quite Parliament in solidarity…. Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish First Minister was glad he hogged the headlines to attention from her troubles… Will we miss Johnson … unfortunately not? He will hang around like the smell of a sewer… post Johnson to fight to reassert truth is the fight of our times … nauseating Mirror video of Tories partying on the day Mad Halfcock announced that Covid restrictions would apply to London … what happened to basic ethical decencies of politics … Johnson personifies the rip in the space time continuum … In 1964 when MacMillan discovered Profumo had lied in parliament … MacMillan was physically ill … Parliamentary standards rely on the honesty of ministers … compare Johnson’s systematic to the Commons … his expensive lawyers should introduce him to the concept of mens rea or ‘guilty mind’ … truth means nothing to Johnson and his allies … the less we hear from Johnson the better … Johnson’s biggest crime was the insider dealing where mates of the powerful got to bid for the mountain of Covid cash …. Could be his lasting legacy … blasé manner all these stitch ups were made … lying and cover up … notorious Tories … unequalled since WW2 …
… AI has stoked a frenzy of excitement … Scumbag’s vim sounds breathless…. problems aplenty … Brexit means Britain has lost access to EU Single Market … much will have to change … Britain will struggle to persuade anybody to set up here … holding back investors across the economy … AI announcements gush from Downing St … for all his well intentioned zest … government has yet to confront reality … enormous hurdles … Britain has serious difficulties to overcome … lack of access to the large market on its doorstep … pitifully little has been done … borderline dishonest … Richy Scumbag should know better … the longer the delay the lower the chances of success … another set of British companies misses out … too often a mess … British government lags behind … fool’s errand … we lack competence at the heart of government … people who run the policy just do not understand it … majority of firms that started in London are now in USA … the country lags …
… Johnson’s political legacy has already disappeared…. Tories are losing everywhere … support is falling fastest in the north … in the constituencies it was so proud of winning … northern voters who backed the Tories have little to show for it … fundamental problems … Johnson made impossible promises … four big pledges … they received one – Brexit … and delivering it made the others impossible to achieve … Brexit has weighed on growth … grand schemes Johnson promised have been scrapped … by pressures worsened by Brexit … MPs offered bromides best left in an airport self help book … Voting Tory for the first time was a big deal … they want to be proven right … Tories are not trying to win … need to win voters in the North to hold power. The party needs to maintain voters in the south to exist … Johnson’s sweeping promises are gone … Scumbags Doncaster speech became a eulogy for Johnsonite Toryism which is dead … came across as an admission of defeat.
… grossly irresponsible … Britain is uniquely exposed to a wage spiral … efforts to change course have been paltry…
… Brexit has shattered their Italian dream … bureaucracy is tedious and time consuming … Seafood restaurants along the Italian coast are worried. Brits were regular clients but this year have not shown up … Brits really should have considered the affects of Brexit more seriously … Sarah felt sad and betrayed by Brexit … which she now regrets voting for … nobody in the UK was fully informed … ‘we were all duped’ …
… after agreeing to pay Johnson £1M a year for a weekly column there is buyer’s remorse among Mail executives…. inaugural column made nonsense of the claim … ‘he would be required reading in Westminster and across the world’ … too early to say if Johnson will attract or repel readers … comments beneath the online version … ‘just unbelievable, no shame … Paul Dacre … looked as if Dacre would receive peerage … must be feeling especially aggrieved … morale among Mail journalists not high … declining print sales … Johnson’s salary has gone down like a bucket of cold sick …
… ran up losses of £30.6M … £3.6M income….
… has the wit to see that Keith Starmer … intention to abolish non dom tax status… will cost Murdoch a fortune … word has come down from on high to get behind Richy Scumbag …
Pip Pip Medway Delta (Retired) Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class
Don Adamson reports the news that the papers refuse to print. Don writes from his Brexit bunker in Barnsley.
This week’s homework: Discuss the following statements:
1. Johnson fanzine has announced that Princess Nut Nuts is expecting again. This is (says the Daily Mail) Johnson’s 8th child. There are probably more that we do not know of. Johnson objects to contraception for ecological reasons. He is against single use plastic. Gammons and flagshaggers will tell you that genetics count for more than experience or learning. That being Johnson and his ilk should be forcibly vasectomised.
2. Johnson is the diarrhoea that keeps on giving.
3. Discuss the following statement: ‘Gentlemen in England now abed will hold their manhood cheap and think themselves accursed they were not here.’ Shakespeare reckoned without Johnson, Nigel Garbage and other Brexit war heroes who brag about their superlative gallantry in wars that ended before they were born. Did Shakespeare get it wrong or is it more a case of Johnson, Nigel Garbage and other Brexit war heroes may be a lot of things but they are not gentlemen?
This week’s quotes: “Lady Patience Wheatcroft is not in favour with the Tories after shifting from the Tory benches to the cross benches and, while once reliably Conservative, has made her opposition to Brexit clear … after voting for Brexit Bournemouth is in deep remorse, with the Lib Dems establishing themselves as the dominant force on the local council … Dorset Chamber of Commerce complained that Brexit was having ‘serious detrimental impact on exports’… not delivering the positives that were promised … Scotland may yet prove a steep uphill climb for Labour while it continues to be pro Brexit … don’t write off the SNP … Labour’s position on the EU and the Lib Dem’s ambivalence … will be an open door for The SNP at the next election … ‘Voter ID’ did not help the Tories … next they will stipulate that the only valid proof of ID will be a Tory Party membership card … inaugural conference of the Conservative Democratic organisation, convened by those Tories horrified by the sudden leftward lurch into outright Communism that the party has taken under Richy Scumbag (stop laughing) … Jacob Grease Bogg … perhaps still stung by the fact that during his tenure as Secretary of State for Brexit Opportunities he never found any …. started plucking Brexit benefits from his limited imagination … spectacular Bulwarks even by Grease Bogg standards …
Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle is incensed … If Lindsay Hoyle is angry with Tories then they really are running out of friends … Johnson leans on rich friends for freebies … on 25 separate occasions since August he has passed through Heathrow airports palatial Windsor Suite. At £1,800 a pop the suite is part of Heathrow’s VIP experience. He has received almost £50,000 in lounge hospitality alone …£250,000: Johnson’s legal fees funded by the taxpayer…. £2.5M advance Johnson received from speaking agency in January …
Surrey Heath council covers Gove’s constituency was won by the Lib Dems … Reigate and Banstead is now the only council in Surrey where Tories have a majority . Right across the stockbroker belt Tory ministers and ex ministers saw control of councils go to the Lib Dems’… another example of this government’s neglect and mismanagement…
NHS is now so overloaded that delays and human errors are inevitable and increasing … subject to aggressive litigation … as if doctors needed another reason to abandon the NHS … a recent survey by the Medical Protection society of doctors who had been reported to the GMC in the past five years … nearly a third had experienced suicidal thoughts … NHS has always been reliant on overseas trained doctors, even more so now that many UK trained doctors are leaving …
GMC has adopted 23 recommendations to stamp out bias against ethnic minority doctors. A greater problem is that GMC expects impossibly high standards of performance in a crumbling health service with more complaining patients … workload is higher than the service can competently manage … Regime’s ineptitude. Hobbled by Cronyism and graft … economy is creating fewer opportunities … less direct foreign investment … danger of accelerating, perhaps violent, decline …
We have no clue what Starmer really believes in … will not tell us what our post Brexit relationship with EU should be … Britain’s Public Order Act goes too far … UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said it imposed ‘serious and undue restriction’ … fears of erosion of civil liberties in Britain … Further indication of Home Office authoritarian tendencies …. a law does not need to put people in prison to do damage … further eroding trust in the police following a series of dreadful scandals at the Met … badly written law … hard to justify a move to Britain … Britain’s car industry is another pressure point ….
Steelmaking is also under strain … too many unanswered questions … Brexit upheavals add to uncertainty. … Over 2M British homes suffer from disrepair that pose a risk to public health … costs to NHS estimated at £290M a year …Tories and Britain would like to forget about Thick Lizzie … on tour … to chide the enemies of freedom and stand up to China … given her record it is surprising people listen to her … calls for an ‘economic NATO to stand up to China … (COMMENT: There is one: the EU) … Thick Lizzie may be the least successful PM in British history … emblematic of deeper problems in government … complains about having no control (COMMENT: Surely that is the whole point of Brexit?) …
Braverman complains about 1M immigrants to UK this year without mentioning that she is responsible … Thick Lizzie is a problem for the Tories not because she is the exception but because she is the rule … her ideas live on … Johnson intervenes only if he thinks it will enhance his slim chances of a return to power … loony economic policies … Fox News fired *ucker Carlson … viewership fell from 3M during his final week to 1.5 the following week … biggest beneficiary has been Newsmax, even further right than Fox … viewership rose from 150,000 to nearly 500,000 ..
Loss of Carlson’s divisive populism has led 1.15M people to abandon conservative cable news in prime time… Performance in the House of Lords by Lord Johnson of Lainston … caused despair even on Tory benches … decline in car manufacturing is an especially depressing example of Brexit affecting industry … Johnson saw it as an opportunity to take puerile swipes at the EU … disturbing comments by Cur James Dyson (COMMENT: notorious Brexiter) that the government was not on the side of industry …
Lord Fox (Lib Dems) said industry was at a watershed … car manufacturers would simply go to France or Germany … one Tory peer said waves of political appointees have made Tory benches a laughing stock … worst fears for the Lords realised … gift for the abolitionists ….
All Perspectives is still pumping money into GB News despite £33M losses … takes funds injected by investors to £120M … Who can explain what Labour’s economic policy is? … numbers raising their hands to answer alarmingly low … at Derby …’Is Brexit going well or badly? Result Well 0% Badly 100% … Same in Edinburgh and Glasgow … populists love to inflame their fellow believers with slogans, myths for a past that never was … recent National Conservative conference highlighted the threat of the far right … most mainstream Tories wisely stayed away.
Why Michael Gove chose to appear is baffling (COMMENT: Not baffling to me – Gove is a Murdoch lackey of the worst description) … strange and unsettling London conference … home to an evangelical Christian church … Johnson was hardly more popular than Scumbag…. inward looking, illiberal, censorious conservatism … nostalgia for a rose tinted past … fuelled by anger, pessimism, paranoia and disdain for any who disagree … portray opponents as sinister and evil. Object furiously when the same accusations are levelled at them … demonisation of anybody to the left of them; which is probably 95% of the British population….
NATcees assertion of moral superiority … no acknowledgement that they have won four successive elections and might themselves be responsible for the dire state of the nation … Braverman distanced herself from an immigration which she has been in charge of for 7 months … Johnson was the embodiment of selfish reckless individualism that they now decry … Rees Mogg did admit that requiring ID cards to votes was a failed attempt at gerrymandering … hailed Brexit … none thought fit to mention the calamitous consequences of Brexit … has actually boosted immigration …
Braverman castigated the ‘prognosticators of doom’ who said Brexit would be a catastrophe … Tory Party beginning to fragment into warring factions as it faces an electoral drubbing … an ugly search for scapegoats … sensible Conservatives stayed away …
Don Adamson Pip Pip Medway Delta (Retired) Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class
