Here’s a short roundup of recent activity and some future outlook on the movement to end Brexit, Rejoin the EU and Reboot Britain in a year where insanity was normalised in several political theatres of the absurd around the globe.
Progress 2025
I list three recent projects of note … We were interviewed by Danish journalist Rose Kodal recently on Brexit and Rejoin. She interviewed people across the Brexit spectrum. Her final piece is an interesting perspective of views on Brexit from academic to more out front pragmatic leadership on the topic. Poor old Ken the Brexiteer simply wants his daughter to forgive him for his vote to leave and value his continuing illusions about Brexit as being equivalent to facts. She won’t. Illusions are not of the same value as facts. Find Rose’s brilliant piece of journalism here. If you can help her find her career into journalism you will find her at Rose Nina Kodal Larsen on Linkedin.
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Poor old Ken, bald, stupid, seeking forgiveness for both but unwilling to change his mind on either.
We also did an online masterclass on Rejoining the EU for North Herts for Europe. The session was invaded by Reform UK types who exposed themselves on the call and filled the screens with pornography. This really sums them up. After some careful editing, we salvaged the content. The Q&A is very interesting as it plays to some of the problems we still have as a movement summed up by Qahir. There are no easy fixes to change the culture of the Remoaners as he pleads for. God knows I’ve tried and made myself extremely unpopular into the bargain.
Q&A session. A great insight into the minds of Remainers.
Keynote address. No Reform nudity thankfully …
The Brexit RIP : Reboot Britain book has had another minor update to consider the impact of demographic changes aka death, based on the illusion that Nigel Farage could re-litigate Brexit if elected in 2029. Still people are more occupied by working as NF’s unpaid marketing forrce than driving forwardson our own strategy. Then they wonder why NF prevails. Oh well, this leads me to Project 2026. Here is a sample of the book on this topic.
Dead people cannot vote.
Outlook : Project 2026
I am stepping back from full time involvement in Brexit and Rejoin, having given nearly 10 years of my life, much of it full time and unpaid to do so. Instead, I will work on a project by project basis to continue the work to break Parliamentary silence, leaven the mainstream media’s grip on populism and so on, see our five goals. Projects I am willing to undertake include:
Public speaking to constituency groups and / or movements. such as I did for Labour MP Sadik Al-Hassan in 2025. This was instrumental in breaking the silence on Brexit and promoting a minor rebellion in parliament, alongside the book which we sent to 300 + MPs, risking arrest in Parliament for taking white envelopes to the House of Lords and Portcullis House.
I have been asked to tour the UK in the Bollocks to Brexit Mini on a “Cost of Living” tour, including street events, keynotes and so on. Organising the stunt is easy but ensuring that our message reaches deep into each community’s heart and so on requires work. I’d judge that the project is not currently viable, needing a social media team, press / media people, an on the ground group to organise events and fundraising to cover costs. Get in touch if you would like to help. A mini tour might tame the complexity.
In Clacton with Alastair Campbell who remains one of the consistent voices for Rejoin within Labour.
I was also asked to assist with an Organisation Development (OD) approach to align the various movements who wish to bring a fairer voting system to Britain. Further to some initial analysis, I found that they are just as divided as the Remain movements over ends and means and I have declined until they are ready for such a series of interventions. It would be akin to trying to heal an alcoholic who does not believe they have a problem with alcohol. I have wasted too much of my own time on such projects and ideologues so I’m setting a higher bar for my professional services in 2026. Get in touch if you have a project that may be of value and I promise to take a look at it without prejudice.
The major shift that I have not been able to alter significantly is the “learned helplessness” of the Rejoin / Remoan movement. They are the principle internal obstacle to Rejoin. We could significantly impact the parliamentary silence on the matter if they also stopped arguing about ends and means. Here are some of the daily objections I encounter from such people. It’s seriously wearing, reinforced by mixed messaging from the larger rejoin movements and key actors. I see no possibility of building enough momentum to Rejoin EU until the movement heal themselves. I get hardly any pushback from Brexiteers. We are the obstacle.
Only the cat is a valid reason do do nothing ….
I’m told that Keir Starmer is toast shortly. To be honest I have mixed feelings about it as nobody seems able to tell me what comes from it. We removed Theresa May only to get Boris Johnson … Oh well. To 2026 …. !!!
It was Ken Clarke that popularised the term “the indifferent majority” … aka the vast swathe of people who couldn’t give a fcuk about politics. Farage has weaponised some of them into a loose cabal, united by swans, painting roundabouts, disinformation, shouting at hotels, attacking women and children, paedophilia and flagshagging. They are not the subject of this article however. Here I refer to the great swathe of Remainers / Rejoiners who know what they are against (Brexit and its offspring), but who are unwilling to do anything functional about it, apart from bleating about it on social media, which we all do, but is in effect it’s merely a form of therapy. It achieves very little apart from a release of angst into the ether. Worse still, the Brexiteers mostly love it, as it increases their sense of “winning”. Living as I do in Brexit Central, Reform types love nothing more than the “salty tears of Remoaners”. Nigel Farage benefits tremendously as Remoaners are, in effect, his unpaid marketing force as Reform fans are united by shared victimhood at Maslow’s sense of belonging level of his hierarachy:
Maslow’s hierarchy reframed.
Remoaners generally have no strategy. This, in part, is due to a leadership and strategy and collaboration tactics vacuum at the “top” of the movement. I have written about our structural deficit many times before and in the books. The Rejoin movement resembles Indonesia, 17000 islands, some uninhabited with a few big ones (European Brexit Movement, Best for Brexit Britain etc.), none of whom collaborate and all of whom have different ideas about the “destination and journey” (What, Why and How) of our quest. When asked about what to do about Rejoining the EU, they come up with many different objections, some of which are captured in this graphic. We’ll never achieve anything like this.
Only the cat is a valid objection …
Paul Cawthorne sums up the poverty of the “incrementalist” approach rather well …
Cherry pickers guide – TY Paul Cawthorne.
I have become tired of fighting this war on two fronts. I don’t mind dealing with Leave voters, but dealing with Remoaners who are acting to preserve the stasis sucks the very life out of me … am I beginning to sound like Liz Truss here? !! 🙂
One of my final actions before retirement was to speak about this at the recent North Herts for Europe event, where I also gave a synopsis of the Brexit RIP book. Find the masterclass below. The event was invaded by Reform UK types exposing themselves (literally), although I have removed the offensive material here.
If you like this, send copies of the book Brexit RIP to MPs and influencers. It’s far more effective than posting memes and shouting on social media to be frank. I await the hate mail and excuses from Remoaners … It’s the ideal Christmas gift for Brexiteers in remorse and Remainers in remission. QR codes are below for sharing with friends and connections. My Labour MP has a copy and is circulating it within the government, which is where we need to be if we are to be effective influencers.
Brexit is dead … but the body is still in our lounge … get rid of it.
QR codes. Also available direct from the author at a discount via e-mail reboot@brexitrage.com
Announcing a new contributor to our platform. Raj or “The Brexit Undertaker”, “The Brexorcist”, “The Dark Knight” or “Q-Anon” is a British Indian who is fed up with English passivity on Brexit and a whole slew of issues affecting our sceptered isle. He pulls no punches, taking out the mealy mouthed apologists, Remoaners, Starmerites, Gammon and keyboard warriors by name, without apology. Needless to say, I don’t agree with everything or everyone he chooses to take lumps out of, but I agree with his right to say it. He lives in the Brexity West Midlands under cover. This is his first article of a series entitled Bravery.
Click to view Brexit RIP.
Bravery
We live in a time where the PLP have full control over Parliament and were told by their mouthpieces that they’d do something about Brexit. We are still receiving false assurances from some of Starmer’s mouthpieces like Phil Moorhouse and Graham Hughes (Editor’s note, I personally think that Phil does a good job), although I hope that more people are beginning to ask questions, seek specifics and lobby their MP and influencers with copies of the book Brexit RIP : Reboot Britain. I wrote this on Remembrance day, the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, which led to the creation of our NHS but also the EU.
It was the 80th anniversary where we commemorate the brave men & women who fought against fascism at home and abroad. The NHS is an institution we all should cherish and be proud of. The memory of those who gave their lives to fight fascism is why we should fight with all we have to honour the sacrifices they made for us. Brexit and the current trajectory we are on of not undoing it risks the Reform party coming to power and the loss of our NHS. In order to honour their memory, we need to show something that each and every one of them showed- BRAVERY. There were also those who domestically fought against the allies of fascists in Oswald Moseley’s blackshirts. Our predecessors wouldn’t have tolerated him becoming PM, neither should we. Failure to fight and reverse Brexit will result in his heir, Farage, becoming PM.
BRAVERY is the 7 elements we should possess from a mental perspective to fight the fascists.
Brexit is the root cause of all the problems we face. Be it human rights, cost of living, fascism on the rise. See Brexit RIP : Reboot Britain for a sober evaluation of the opportunities we can grasp by Rejoining the EU.
Remember and Revere those who gave their lives to fight fascism by continuing their battle. Also remember whose actions & inaction led to the mess we are in right now- Corbyn & Starmer are both the enemy here, as are the Tories & Tarage. Corbyn’s three line whip, refusal to leave power and his own authoritarian moves have been used against him by Starmer against him.
Accountability and Actions Daily actions matter, not just waiting for the next election. Every MP who voted to trigger Article 50, every corrupt deal made during Covid, is likely to have committed Public Office Misconduct. This offence carries a potential life sentence. If Nonce Andrew lost his title as a Royal, anyone is fair game, especially MPs. This is the realm of legal activists and not something we currently have the legal muscle or finances to do. You can change that by supporting us.
Vision We need to be bold, think big and have a target in mind for what success looks like. See Brexit RIP : Reboot Britain Brexit is the root cause of our issues, it is something we need to remember and accountability is the desired goal by which we reverse this. The impacts are in the book and you can find our vision and five goals of how we’d spend what we’ve lost on improving people’s lives. Accountability for MPs who have committed crimes & those engaging in corruption needs to be part of it. See the Brexit iceberg for a simplified multiple cause and effect diagram.
The Brexit Iceberg. Read more at Brexit RIP. Click to read.
Epstein To deliver our vision, to have accountability, to remember who led us to this, we need a unified message. What better than Epstein – this ties Farage, The Royal Family, Trump and the Tories together. All are involved in this. People hate corruption and bringing down the corrupt is essential to bringing about the world we want.
Reclaim the narrative and language. We need to position ourselves as the patriots, the ones who love our country. This is done by explaining our vision, how rejoining will make our lives better, and through the gentle art and discipline of Brexorcism.
Read the book of Brexorcism.
You This is aimed at some Caucasian readers, who love to deny the systemic nature of bigotry, by saying that they can’t be racist because they don’t use the N Word. Looking the other way, while abuse of this nature is inflicted upon those who aren’t part of the In group (not white) are abused, often illegally. How much do you want to succeed, to deliver this vision and achieve accountability by reversing Brexit?
Editor’s note: I’m not a member of this group, but English passivity and culture lie at the root of this issue. Changing culture is not a five minute job. You are encouraged to read my books on OD and culture change.
I attended the anti-racist event in Rochester. Some 200 people attended to face 15 UKIP supporters with perhaps 100 police in attendance. The bill for these protests will mean more money wasted to build a better Britain (The Farage Riots of 2024 cost £32 million). This year’s flagshagging events will cost more. The flagshaggers marched up to Rochester Castle, not to pour boiling oil and shower us with arrows from the turrets, but for a much needed toilet break after a heavy session in Wetherspoons … They then departed. MUCH MORE IMPORTANTLY, I bumped into the Labour Party MP Tristan Osbourne and met with the Green Party of Medway and Lib Dems at the event.
Labour in vain
I congratulated Tristan on Labour’s decision to talk about Brexit after snuffing out all conversation about a major source of our malaise in the General Election. See Labour GE Post-Mortem for more detail.
I then pointed out that ‘one swallow does not a summer make’. Tristan agreed and responded by saying that Labour would be making a statement about it in the budget. Whilst I fully understood why he could not tell me what the statement might be, I took away the idea that it may well be more ‘logical incrementalism’ rather than a fundamental reversal of the Brexit mess. He hinted at this saying that he wanted Brexit reversed within his lifetime, however he is around 40 and I am 67! I pointed out that the matter was urgent and important and that death by 1000 ameliorations is still death. Faced in real life with a rapid death over a slow painful one, I’d opt for the rapid one. So it is with Brexit. Labour must act now or face the consequences.
Tristan then tried to punt the idea to me that the EU had said that we could not return until the threat of Farage had passed, meaning post 2029 at the earliest. I re-rehearsed the arguments that we had previously: This would be too late for a host of reasons explained in Reboot Britain. I also pointed out that what matters is putting in the application, not the end of the process. Frankly this was the part of the conversation I did not believe, since the EU have stated publicly that they would welcome us back on many occasions. See political capital in Reboot Britain.
Tristan’s answer reminded me of a teenager wanting to ask a girl out but does not want to get a no !! This was the least believable part of our dialogue and I don’t know what purpose Tristan thought it might serve, given my knowledge, skills and experience.
We went on to discuss the optics of Reform UK and agreed about a lot of that. It was a cordial and intelligent dialogue and I thank him for it. I explained that I’d given a keynote at MP Sadik Al-Hassan’s town hall meeting on Brexit and it turned out that he and Tristan are good friends. All in all a valuable ‘brief encounter’. I’d had a similar meeting with my Labour MP Naushabah Khan recently and she dropped similar hints that Labour would be more bold. I’d welcome it.
The only good Brexit is a dead Brexit.
Zac attack
I also had a great encounter with Medway Greens and was asked why I had not joined them. I stated that I was still considering standing a cat for election locally in 2027, perhaps a green cat … What was most interesting was that there was broad agreement that Zac Polanski was a force for good in terminating the rise of the far right in Britain.
Dem Libs
The Lib Dems led the charge in terms of marshalling people at the event. I have explained to Mark Pack that since Labour are on the move re Brexit, it is time for the Lib Dems to recalibrate their position on Brexit to move the Overton Window. I do hope that they don’t miss the boat on this.
Helen Maguire for Epsom.
The local Lib Dem still sees my cat as an existential threat to the survival of the Lib Dems. Amazing !!
Side note: I asked a policemen early on, had they (UKIP – UK I Pee) urinated? – he seemed confused and a little disturbed. until I pointed out that this was the key metric which would determine their eventual departure back to Wetherspoons. Youth and inexperience !!
Full Disclosure : I’m no fan of Keir Starmer’s Labour Government, but the far right and their media hoods just hounded out the best person to lead the Labour party. I’m sure there is a parallel in Nazi Germany … answers on a postcard please.
Angela Rayner’s departure was voluntary, but I’d be sure that Starmer would have pushed her to save his skin in the end, due to media pressure, and cat calls from Farage’s fascist followers. It is a testament to Starmer’s weakness as a leader, running in FOF (Fear of Farage). Morgan McSweeney’s name (The Dominic Cummings of Labour) also turns up again in the frame.
Meanwhile, Jeremy Hunt ‘forgot’ that he owned 7 homes. Matt Hancock forgot the £37 Bn COVID Ponzi scheme, Boris Johnson ‘forgot’ that he killed 30 000 people unnecessarily, The Truss gambled £70 Bn of OUR money on fantasy economics, Zahawi experienceed £4.8 million in “tax amnesia” whilst heating his horses. NF’s accountancy skills seem rather dodgy … Dido Harding, Michelle Mone, the list goes on ….. These are willful crimes, yet none were held to account.
Angela Rayner’s case is different on two counts (a) Proportionality and (b) Willfulness. I’m sure lots of people would think that £40 000 is a lot, but go compare with the eye watering sums trousered by the Tories. Secondly, unlike the Tories, Angela admitted the mistake and apologised. She was hung out to dry based on her open-ness, misogyny and because she came from a council house ‘oop north’, disguised as a gap between standards expected by leaders and the rest of us. And nobody mentions Rayner’s disabled son, who she set up a trust fund for to care for him after her death. Shameful behaviour by all who have hounded her.
Many of the Reform pack hounds probably contribute to the estimated UK tax gap for 2021-2022 of £36 billion, an increase from £32 billion in 2019-2020. Pure hypocrisy, but that is the operating system of Reform UK 2.0.
Meanwhile Keir pivots further to the far right by appointing Shabama Mahmood as Home Secretary. And Farage says prepare for an election in 2027 as yet another magic spell to fool his followers. Do remember that Governments don’t step down just because things go badly. Theresa May, Liz Tuss, Rishi Sunak were not elected by the public. I assume that Nigel thinks his followers will find him out (or possibly die in some cases) by 2029, hence his call for a 2027 election.
This is a failure of Keir Starmer and his cabal. I have to say that they deserve to get Reform UK. The need for a national conversation about A Better Britain has never been greater. I started this in North Somerset, but it need to be mainstreamed. I think it may now be too late …
Oh, yes, and just apply to Rejoin the EU. £140 bn pa would go a long way to dealing with Britain’s problems.
Paul Higgins (London for Europe) disagrees with me and in the spirit of diversity, I have published his reply below.
And just for some bizarre context, a Blue Sky person who identifies as a Marmousette eviscerated me online for quoting a Travis song as the title of this article (without reading it), stating that my title was misogynistic. I asked him / her to explain but the ran off claiming that I was bullying them … oh well.
I like Angela Rayner. See our latest article on her demise. 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’.
The will of the people must be respected
Horseshit. We are fast approaching the point where 70% of people in Britain believe that Brexit has failed. Angela appears 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.
We can’t just rejoin
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. What matters is the beginning of the journey, not the end point.
We can’t rejoin on the same terms
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, perhaps an asymmetric trade-off. 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. See our book on Rejoining the EU.
In the run up to the 2024 general election, I was told by numerous Labour voters and activists “Look, just vote Labour. It’s going to be alright. As soon as they get elected, they will end Brexit”. Although I did not believe them (and have been proved to be right), I agreed that the Tories needed to go. So I made sure thatmy election campaign did not harm Labour and then waited. I’m still waiting. In this article, I take a dispassionate view of Labour’s first year in power.
A good start marred by sheer incompetence
Labour got off to a good start, facing down “The Farage Riots” to great effect. It is to Labour’s actual decisions that I have the greatest issues. Decisions which barely touch the sides of our problems in Rebooting Britain, but which have generated so much heat and given the far right media so many easy wins. For example : The pensioners heating allowance last winter. Worth a measly £1.2 billion (Yes, I’d like to have £1.2 bn but it’s petty cash in the grand scheme of things). This generated so much heat for so little financial gain … in fact if the heat generated by public and media reaction had been stored we could have heated the whole country for several winters!! Worse still, Labour have now backtracked on it, long after the damage to the Labour brand has been done.
Death by 1000 Brexit ameliorations
Labour claim to have kept their Brexit red lines but in fact broken them in several areas. See Labour’s Red Lines. This has not gone unnoticed by Farage and the Alt Right Wing press. Even though Labour’s strategy on Europe amounts to “death by 1000 Brexit ameliorations” rather than more fundamental fixes, they have gained just as much damage to the Labour brand as if they had applied to Rejoin the EU. Brexit costs us £140 Billion every year in lost opportunity and taxes. This dwarfs the pensioners’ heating costs, PIP, social care etc.
Shameful behaviour
The PIP fiasco was yet another disastrous decision, presumably informed by the triumph of ideology over pragmatism and an adherence to the doctrines of Morgan McSweeney. On this subject, I find it hard to tell the difference between Starmer’s government and the Tories. I could go on about rollback on climate commitments, social care, toadying to Trump due to our Brexit weakness and Labour’s point blank refusal to provide safe routes for migrants, instead preferring to up the ante about undocumented migration, in order to pray at Nigel Farage’s fascist altar.
Sympathy for the devil?
Yes, we have had 14 years of managed decline via austerity on steroids amplified by Brexit, and most people do not understand how long it takes to turn the economic cycle round, so it’s slightly unfair to expect Labour to be able to waive magic wands on all the issues competing for their attention. However, there was no need for Labour to prey upon our most vulnerable citizens in order to look tough for a few knuckle dragging gammons in the so called red wall. There are plenty of other good choices to be made. There is no way Labour can discuss growth without confronting the Brexit elephant in the room. See our work in Somerset for the Labour MP there. Labour are also shamefully complicit in the genocide in Gaza and for trying to criminalise old age pensioners who use the word Palestine as part of civil protests.
Death by 1000 ameliorations is still death
We were asked to give an interview for Dubai TV in Arabic regarding the Kensington Treaty. This is an agreement between Chancellor Merz and Keir Starmer on defence and security, climate, economics, trade and STEM co-operation. Starmer chose to highlight the rather thin issue of some basic co-operation on migration control to appease Farage. Here is the raw interview. We simply need to apply to rejoin EU fullyto overcome the problems facing Brexit Britain. Death by 1000 Brexit ameliorations is still death, albeit a slow one.
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This is a short story about the power of networking and connectivity. It took place over several weeks and involved at least 8 people from Swindon to Italy, Florida, Tunbridge Wells and Northern Ireland … It shows how “Parking on Red Lines” can sometimes be of value …
I was talking with Steve Rouse, leader of Swindon for Europe and instigator of “Dance Europa”. He explained how he had a difficult conversation with his Labour MP about their Brexit “red lines”. He pointed out that Labour can drop red lines on pretty much everything from Climate Change, but apparently not on Brexit. I popped that thought in my incubator … and shared it on our WhatsApp group.
Fast forward to our meeting at Reboot Britain. I was explaining Steve’s challenge to the team. Then Paul Cawthorne produced one of his famous lists on reasons why Labour’s red lines are seriously flawed … a little later and we get to the point that Labour have already broken its Brexit red lines on Gibraltar. If it can do this, it can apply to Rejoin the EU.
Although I am giving up on collaboration, I remain open to honouring great ideas when they come. I was compelled to make this one page summary (and Paul’s other meme) on red lines.
Parking on Red Lines
Send a letter with these graphics to MPs and share with influencers on social media.
Send a letter with these graphics to MPs and share with influencers on social media.
This story demonstrates the power of collaboration, joining the dots and why “Parking on red lines” matters. Thank you to the team for this. It’s a pity we cannot unify around the idea of Rejoining the EU. We still have as many formulations of what the problems are, what the obstacles are and what the end game is. Multiple perspectives on ends and means. These are typical characteristics of what I call “Wicked Problems“. Divergence on ends and means is at the heart of why we lose. The only good Brexit is a dead Brexit and the only good answer is to drop the red lines and apply to Rejoin.
Take Action – Park the Red lines
Write to your MP using these points above, the graphic and a copy of our book on Rejoining the EU. Having spent 32 years leveraging creativity, good ideas come from diverse connections and not from linear planning. Parking on red lines matters !!
Next steps – Remove Reform
I’m talking to Reform Watch today to see if we can join some more dots with our book on Brexorcism and our group “Fact Check Fash”. I recently had a letter from the Labour MP in Portishead explaining that they are holding a town hall meeting on Brexit following the lines of our suggestion for a national conversation on the matter in “A Better Britain“.
I’m also planning to stand for Council here in Medway to ensure Reform UK do not take hold in my area. Please support the campaign via Remove Reform UK.
I was called to give some interviews for various Middle Eastern TV platforms on the reasoning for Mark Rutter’s visit to UK on Monday 9th June. The interviews are obviously not in English, so here I set out some of the arguments I made. The TV clips can be found below.
37 pence a day for 70+ years of peace in Europe
Mark Rutte visited UK to shore up support for NATO, Ukraine etc.
Starmer is desperate for friends in a post Brexit jurassic world. However, kowtowing to Trump and Farage is not the right strategy. More courage is needed from Starmer. Morgan Mc Sweeney must go.
Trump knows that Starmer is beleaguered by Brexit so he uses Britain as a bridgehead to batter Europe and the EU for his ally Putin.
Our natural partner is Europe and Britain must show unity. We have no other choice and cannot continue with “cakeist democracy”.
Sadly, the only defence strategy is to show Putin a united front.
UK is strapped for cash due to Brexit. But a 1% rise in defence spending equates to £30 billion pa. Brexit costs us £140 billion EVERY year in lost opportunity and tax receipts, so defence uplift can be afforded if Starmer will face down the Brexit elephant in the room. Read more at Rejoin the EU.
Peace is more than the absence of war. Brits paid 37 pence a day each for our EU membership. Go compare how much we paid for EU membership from your council tax bill (see below).
Whilst Starmer needs to be courteous to President Trump, he goes too far in the appeasement game. Instead, he must learn from John Bolton, Mark Carney, Chancellor Merz and President Zelenskyy.
Moving from 2.5% to 3.0% in the next Parliament is simply too little, too late. It places politics before country. Do better.
I stood an independent candidate for the GE recently with a difference … standing a cat for election, on the basis that a cat could do no worse than Rishi Sunak … We had done something similar in 2019 as a joke, asking for no votes and finding that we did not come last !! The original intention was to undertake a two year campaign of events, briefings and other campaigning, but only a few thought it worthwhile, so we could not resource the longer project. I decided at the 11th hour to conduct an intensive “one man on a bicycle with a cat in a basket” campaign over a few weeks, to see if we could disrupt the sitting Tory’s 15 000 majority and thereby assist with tactical voting by removing Rehman Chishti. I’m delighted to say that we succeeded at this level and also assisted in removingnot ONE, but at least FOUR Tories from office !! Here i describe some of the highlights.
344 votes were cast for Stan the Cat. I came 6th out of 8 candidates, beating two national parties (The Christian People’s Alliance and Social Democrat Party), both with budgets and national resources.
This was not too shabby, given that I recommended people vote for Labour rather than myself at two sets of hustings. I estimate that I would have gained at least double the vote and possibly more that Gina Miller in Epsom if I had not recommended that people vote Labour at hustings, online and on the doorstep. In spite of this kamikaze mission, I gained more votes than Count Binface, who had immense national publicity, also outperforming the vast majority of independent candidates. I was constantly schooled by some independents in The Rejoin Party and more generally, that my cat campaign was wrong headed. They are now silent. Here’s one example of my many armchair advisers.
Why a cat?
Every day over the last 6 months, we have seen adverts on facebook / You Tube etc. from Labour (and Conservative). It was not possible to compete with the £ millions used by major parties to spam people with ads, so Stan the Cat was a means of ‘punching above our weight’ in an impossible situation to cut through to 71 000 people. Although my campaign was serious (a manifesto was available and so on), I also observe that people are switched off by politics (turnout was down in my area from 70% to 56%), so I set out to conduct a campaign which was both serious on content and fun on the means of engagement. Many people who said they would vote for my cat have subsequently told me that they felt compelled to vote for Labour in the end (Labour told residents that ‘it was too close to call” and “a vote for anyone else would cause the sky to fall in” etc. All the main parties use this tactic. In the end, my prediction came to pass … Labour won comfortably with 5000 majority and my cat was no threat to their win, but I fully understand why people were frightened to make a different choice.
All by myself
I did all the on the ground campaigning by myself, accepting that most people thought that resistance was pointless and potentially dangerous. The few that offered to help were not really ready to hit the ground running, some were Labour supporters who really did not get the campaign objective of ‘do no harm’ and so on. I eventually judged them to be a drain on progress, given the short time we had and decided to get on the bicycle and do the work myself, picking up advocates on route at bus stops, cafes, bars and in pop up events on the high streets and so on. This proved to be much more effective although exhausting. My original plan of building a team over two years and offering a range of community engagement events would have been much better, but most people only act when there is a burning platform i.e. the snap election.
At least four Tories scratched
At the same time, I helped The Lib Dems to win in Epsom through recruitment of volunteers and putting down a vicious attack on Helen Maguire, Lib Dem candidate by Gina Miller, leader of the so-called True and Fair party. This was extremely disappointing, given the view I had of Gina prior to being recruited as her campaign manager.
Our anti-Tory leaflets also helped to remove the truly odious Kelly Tolhurst and Nathan Gamester in Rochester / Strood and Chatham / Aylesford, through local distribution to network contacts. Others took small orders of 1000 / 2000 to target Tory strongholds and marginals. As my mum used to say “Every little helps, said the old woman pissing into the sea”.
ABC Leaflet
I also helped to recruit 14 candidates for the Climate Party and coached them on various matters from campaigning to hustings and social media. They have made a small but vital footprint in the sand for future generations.
Deform UK
Given that Deform UK got 8000 votes from 41 000 in my area, I consider my 344 as being really good. Not content with stumbling into the ballot box, some Deform UK acolytes conducted a knife attack on my bicycle tyres and ran keys down my car. As a result I have a bill of at least £500 to put these things right. I suspect the car incident was down to our familiar local Brexitear Ken, as it was close to his house and he did say in his last communication that “doubtless we’ll meet again”, but, of course, Kent Police do not wish to investigate an ex-Met Policeman who left under mysterious circumstances … If you can help by supporting the repairs please donate via support. I asked one of the Reform UK party people who I know from musical jam sessions if he could deal with the miscreant, but, of course, he dodged the question as they always do …
Deform UK also staged a series of online attacks. Read the comments on this video.
The comments from gammon are comedy gold if a little wearing …
Remoan
I also faced endless online criticism from some people across UK who voted to Remain in the EU, who said that I would split the vote and allow the Tories to win. In fact, I did the exact opposite. I knew exactly what I was doing in my area but the armchair critics thought they knew best. Rather than looking at the campaign objectives and the detail, they continued to operate from a visceral sense of panic and doom. In that sense, these people are united with Brexiteers in their inability to see things objectively. I am slowly detaching from the Rejoin movement, as this election experience has demonstrated that (a) we are lost (b) when some leadership is shown it is rejected in favour of the status quo and (c) Starmer remains the leader of a Brexit party at the time of writing. Mealy mouthed accommodations by Starmer on Brexit are not enough. They will not solve the raft of economic, social, environmental and political problems we face as a country going forward. Yes, we won the battle against the Tories but lost the war against Brexit. It remains prescient.
Gina Miller
I was Gina Miller’s Campaign Manager for several months this year, eventually offering to resign after I realised that she preferred media attention over local campaigning and took her advice from Isabel Oakeshott and Richard Tice. I tried to persuade her of the need to rebalance from media appearances on “Talk Shit TV” with five viewers to the hard work of local campaigning. One of my greatest regrets is that I failed in this attempt. She sacked me to save face from my resignation proposal, stating a host of trivia as the reasons. You may say that I’m bitter. I’m not overall as it was a privilege to have the offer from someone I admired greatly. I do however remain cross about a sum of £5000 + that is owed due to a broken promise over a bonus (I worked for free initially based on referrals). When Mrs Miller reneged on the promise of referrals, we moved onto a more transactional financial arrangement. She lost three campaign managers over a few months. To lose one is unfortunate, to lose three, careless … I suppose the big lesson here is that it’s sometimes a mistake to meet your heroes.
In the end, Gina Miller, a woman with £46 million and a supposed international brand, got 845 votes, versus a man with a bicycle and a cat 🐈 I’ll take this as a win !!! Miaow !!
What a cynical gesture !!!
Only a week or so ago you were spinning lies about Helen.
Did Oakeshott tell you to do this or did you do it all by yourself?
— Peter Cook – Brexorcist in Chief – Reboot Britain (@BrexitRage) July 7, 2024
Media Blackout
ITV and the local media channel KMTV refused the carry any coverage of my contributions to the Hustings, despite being told by several candidates and members of the public that they were by far the best contributions to the debate. KMTV ‘forgot’ to invite me and other independent candidates to the Hustings whilst stating on their website that ALL candidates had been invited. I suspect that the main parties were aware of this ‘omission’ but did nothing about it. So much for democracy.
Reflections
Had I conducted a long range campaign, I believe it could have been transformational … leaflets hit the doorsteps around 10 days before the election, not everyone got them as I became aware that some people got three copies from the Royal Mail and others none and so on. A member of staff told me that some Royal Mail people throw the leaflets away if they don’t agree with them …
On the upside, I thoroughly enjoyed meeting new people and discussing the issues they face in the area as well as the big ticket items currently being ignored by Starmer. I’m minded to start some citizens assemblies to ensure that he hears from the people of Medway.
Overall I am minded to think that further campaigning to end Brexit is pointless. We still lack leadership, strategy, structure and collaboration mechanisms and the major movements who people listen to are polluted by Labour. Brexit is a cross party issue. I am 8 years older than when I begun this etc. The Remoaners are still far to accommodating in their expectations of politicians and lack the skills and drive that gave Nigel Farage his victory.
Some wonderful people supported me online over the six weeks and I’m very grateful to them, especially David Hennessey, Julian Foster, June Austin, Greg Newman, James Rowland, Helga Perry, and many more, too numerous to mention. Here’s a small selection of the online activity.
